Jamie Sadlowski won the 2008 RE/MAX long drive competition last July. He managed to do it with Cobra Pro Drivers that he borrowed from some friends. It turns out that Cobra golf clubs are popular among the long drive crowd. Almost all of them used Cobra products. Jamie won $250,000 with his 418 yard long drive in the final round.
Players are limited on how much they are allowed to modify their drivers for competition. The maximum length of the shaft is 50 inches as measured from the ground when the shaft is perpendicular to the ground. Of course, they all use stiff graphite shafts with high kick points. A stiff shaft is only good for players who swing with higher swing speeds. That’s only three or four inches longer than my Cleveland driver. The club head is limited to 460 cubic centimeters, but the club heads are often have as low as four degrees of loft. What the long drivers do is tee it up farther forward in their stance, and the lower loft reduces backspin, and allows the ball to roll farther upon landing. Most average players are better off with 10 or 12 degrees of loft.
The old saying, “Drive for show, putt for dough,” doesn’t hold with most long drive competitors. Many of them are very good players, and could even play on the PGA tour. The average swing speed for these guys is 150 mph, as opposed to 80-90 mph for the average weekend player.
Sadlowski is from Canada, and Jason Zuback, a prolific long driver who has won several championships is also Canadian. Sadlowski won a junior long drive championship in Canada with a stock Titleist driver, and started to get serious about long driving. Zuback actually had 29 Cobra drivers to choose from in the competition.
