Pro Long Drivers as Seen on TV
December 14, 2020
Although the British network the BBC was first to broadcast a brief segment of a solitary golfer in 1938, it was the 1947 U.S. Open at the St. Louis Country Club where pro long drivers were seen on TV for the first time. Local viewers of station KSD-TV watched black & white images of Lew Worsham defeating Sam Snead in an 18-hole playoff. Tied on eighteen, Worsham called for an official measurement to determine who was farther away from the cup. Snead was and would miss his 30-inch putt, but Worsham sunk his par putt for his first and only major win. It would be six years before tournament golf was broadcast to a national audience again. ABC Network televised the World Championship of Golf at Tam O’Shanter Country Club outside Chicago for one hour each day. Ironically, as he teed off on the par-4 eighteenth hole, it again would be Lew Worsham trailing the leader in the clubhouse (Chandler Harper) by a single stroke. The long driver from Pittsylvania County, VA, made television history when he chipped in from 115 yards away for a televised eagle and a one-shot victory.
Battle of the Networks to Televise Golf
Golf enthusiasts began watching some long ball hitters compete on NBC beginning with the U.S. Open in 1954, but only a few Tour events were broadcast over the next decade. Rival network CBS signed an agreement in 1956 and has televised the Masters Tournament every year from the Augusta National Golf Club but relying on one-year contracts. The first golf telecast in color was six years later with NBC’s coverage of the 1962 Tournament of Champions. That same year ABC entered the mix and began televising the Open Championship as part of the network’s anthology series Wide World of Sports. In 1982, the USA Network (part of the CBS production team) began televising the first and second rounds of the Masters. Although only four holes, the broadcast marked the first ever cable coverage of a PGA major. As the demand for golf on TV increased, the networks got creative with NBC televising the made-for-television Skins Games, and USA Network had live coverage of the Ryder Cup from Europe in 1989. Today, PGA Tour television rights are held by CBS Sports and NBC Sports, under recently renewed contracts to last through 2030. Coverage of the final three FedEx Cup playoff events will now alternate between CBS and NBC.
Pro Long Drivers Featured on Television
In part, it was pro long drivers like Evan “Big Cat” Williams, Lee “the Blonde Bomber” Brandon, Sean “the Beast” Fister, and Jason “Golfzilla” Zuback that conducted clinics and exhibitions around the world. Their efforts created a global fan base that would help drive a new demand for televised long drive competitions. When two-time world long drive champion Art Sellinger founded the Long Drivers of America (LDA), he envisioned big hitters blasting 400-yard plus drives under the bright lights and on the big stage. A few days before the LDA tour event at Eisenhower Park on Long Island, several pro long drivers appeared on the Today Show to hit golf balls into a net at Rockefeller Center. With television coverage starting to catch up, Sellinger was well on his way to positioning the “extreme” sport of long drive to be like a WWE event and a place where rowdiness was the rule. Acushnet, which makes Pinnacle golf equipment, created the Pinnacle Distance Posse and among its membership was Art Sellinger, Brian Nash, Brian Pavlet, and Jason Zuback. These pro long drivers were seen in commercials on TV with the PGA’s “bad boy” John Daly. Daily was the perfect iconic leader for the Posse, as the big man was well-known for his “Grip It” and “Rip It” attitude on the tee box. Another pro long driver regularly seen on TV in commercials at that time was Sean “the Beast” Fister in ads for his sponsor, Dunlop.
World Long Drive Championship in Prime Time
The concept for a 24-hour golf network launched in the mid-90s, when co-founders Joseph Gibbs and Arnold Palmer inked a deal with Fox to televise the Dubai Desert Classic live. In 2011, when Comcast purchased NBC Sports, the Golf Channel became a new-concept cable network that began airing pro long drivers on TV at Long Drivers Association world championship events. Two years later, Comcast purchased the franchise, and as part of the broadcast deal, October would become the “Long Drive Month” on the Golf Channel. The season culminated with two nights of live primetime coverage from the 2013 World Long Drive Championship. Now the stage was set.
For the first time, the final eight qualifiers in the Men’s Open division would compete under the lights from an elevated tee box high above the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The big hitters did not disappoint, as fans watched the live event where Tim Burke went 414-yard in quarter finals, 416 yards in the semi-final, and set a RE/MAX world long drive record at 427 yards in the finals against Englishman Joe Miller. In 2015, NBC’s major cable network provider Comcast acquired the rights to the long drive championship and re-branded the series as the World Long Drive Association (WLD). Maurice Allen won the Mile High Showdown two years later in Denver, which included a quarter-final blast of 483 yards that was broadcast live in prime time. After the finals were moved to the WinStar World Casino and Resort in Thackerville, OK, pro long drivers were regularly seen on the Golf Channel through the 2019 World Long Drive Championship.
Then came 2020, an upside-down year that caused the Golf Channel to close its headquarters, as the subsidiary merged with NBC Sports. Unfortunately, the World Long Drive Association folded, and along with it, a ton of covid-plagued sponsorship money was lost. Several sanctioning bodies like the ULD (Ultimate Long Drive) and PDLA (Professional Long Drivers Association) cranked up their efforts to ensure amateur and professional long drivers were still able to compete in a limited schedule of events. Although no one knows what tomorrow will bring, hopefully fans will at least be able to follow 2021 pro long drive events on live streams. To learn more, bookmark this website and check back regularly for the latest news about pro long drivers as seen on TV.