Anyone who’s ever picked up a golf club and attempted to unleash hell’s fury on a ball down a fairway knows that it’s anything but an easy task to keep it on the straight and narrow. And no matter how far your morning foursome partner hits it, if he doesn’t have a decent short game, he’s pretty much sunk.
As the New York Times notes, such can be said about 29-year-old Canadian golfer Jamie Sadlowski, who is a two-time long-drive champion. He’s rocketed a shot a breathtaking 445 yards, but is ranked a paltry 1,967th in the world as a pro golfer. (Long-driving is like the Home Run Derby of golf; competitors get six attempts at crushing a drive down a gridded field.)
So why such a terrible rank? Sadlowski made his PGA debut last May at the Dean & Deluca Invitational in Fort Worth, Texas. His first drive? 365 yards on a first hole that’s 565 yards long. But as the Times notes, Sadlowski’s feats of driving brilliance didn’t make up for his unsteadiness on the greens and otherwise poor club selection on the fairways. For his 36-hole debut, he ended with six birdies, nine bogeys, a double and quadruple bogey, and landed at 10 over.
It’s obviously not been an easy transition, and that’s because the two sports are vastly different. In one, you just lock and load. In the other, it’s a whole number of skills wrapped into one. But it’s not an unattainable feat. At least two PGA Tour pros have successfully made the transition: Lou Hinkle and Dennis Paulson.
Get to know Sadlowski a little better in the video below.
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