It’s a long drive to the top for Wilson

S.J. CAHN

If you walked past Kyle Wilson at Costa Mesa Golf & Country Club’s

driving range, you might not look twice.

Sure, he’s a big kid -- if you can still be called a kid at 30

when you’re pushing 200 pounds plus and stand about 6-foot-3. He’s

built big and strong, but so are a lot of guys swinging away on the

mats and grass behind the course’s pro shop.

He might be outfitted in an Adidas shirt, if you could notice that

small detail. And he might be swinging a top-of-the-line TaylorMade

club, but around here, that’s nothing unusual.

No, what would be unusual would be seeing Wilson teed up at the

driving range.

You see, the driving range, all 340 yards of it if you count

having to carry the back fence, just can’t contain Wilson’s drives.

And the Los Lagos 11th green is right there, the imperfect landing

spot for a big boom from Wilson’s driver.

Those big booms can go 400 yards and routinely travel 370, 380.

“It’s hard to find places to practice,” he said, rather too

matter-of-factly. “There aren’t that many driving ranges geared to

400-yard drives.”

So it’s only early morning or after dark, when no one will be

putting on the par 3, that Wilson can tee it up, pull out his long

driver -- a 47 1/2 inch Alpha Version with “3X” stiffness -- and

really swing.

Tuesday afternoon, fortunately for me, was too busy for him to get

busy. After reading last week that he’d won the open division of the

first American Long Drivers Association national finals in February,

I figured it would be a good laugh to challenge him to a contest.

After all, he only out-drives me by maybe 100 yards or so.

Even better, I figured I could steal the one key tip that

accounted for those lost yards.

No such luck either way. It turns out the mechanics are the same,

whether he’s swinging at 50% or 100%.

“The only difference, I think, is the speed,” Wilson explained.

Easily said when, from the far end of the range, you can launch --

with your “playing” driver, just 45 1/2 inches at Tour X stiffness

-- balls over the side fence and toward the 10th tee. Conservatively,

it’s about 300 yards, or 20 to 30 yards short of what typical of what

he averages when he’s playing a round of golf.

Conservative -- I take it from listening to Wilson describe the

long-drive contests -- is rarely the name of the game.

Still, though the contests he’s now entering showcase distance,

they demand a degree of accuracy. While he of course has to hit heck

out of it, at least one or two balls, depending on who’s running the

contest, have to land within a proscribed “fairway.”

Making that happen takes concentration and is draining, especially

when a contest can run from 8:30 a.m. until 4 p.m.

“That Sunday was a mentally draining day, as much as it was

physically,” he said of his victory in the February national contest.

His days as a baseball pitcher, first for Estancia High (where he

threw a no-hitter before graduating in 1992) and then at Orange Coast

College and Cal State Long Beach, helped prepare him to handle the

stress and pressure, he said.

Pitching in front of 1,000 or 1,500 people, with all eyes on you,

will do that.

Wilson, whose father, Brad Wilson, was the head pro at the former

Stardust Country Club in San Diego, sees a bright future for long

driving as a sport.

“It’s geared more like an extreme sport,” said Wilson, who works

as a starter at Costa Mesa.

In less than three minutes, the drivers -- there are senior and

women’s divisions, as well -- will knock six balls as hard as they

can. Typically, the competitors battle in a match-play format, with

the longer of the two moving on.

The American Long Drivers Association, in particular, is seeking

to get PGA Tour backing by requiring two balls to land in play, he

added. It makes for less of a “grip it and rip it” environment.

Wilson intends to qualify for the Re/Max World Long Drive

Championship, which is run by the Long Drivers of America and will be

held in October.