Mark Bylsma has belted a golf ball 420m. Picture: Brett Costello. Source: Brett Costello / DailyTelegraph
EVEN the sweet crunch of a loosener from Mark Bylsma turns every head at Thornleigh driving range. The ball hits the net at the far end with speed.
"Mate, that was only 40 per cent," Bylsma says, putting down his driver. "With this wind, I could hit the fence with my 5-iron."
The fence is 244 metres away. The heads turn again. It's no contest.
"There you go," he says. "One bounce."
With two golf shots, Mark Bylsma has summed up why he is banned from every driving range in Sydney.
There's not a range long enough to allow Bylsma to rip-and-grip a full-blooded driver, let alone unleash one of the custom-made Thor hammers that helped him become a six-time Australian long driving champion.
Health and safety concerns are different when someone who hit a golf ball 420 metres walks in.
"Yeah, I have been asked to leave a few driving ranges," Bylsma grins.
"I am more than welcome here at Thornleigh, as long as I hit five iron. If I started hitting drivers over the fence onto Pennant Hills Rd, there might be some dramas."
Bylsma has to wait until after dark to use Moore Park range, so he doesn't hit golfers past their fence. He put a few balls over the hill and onto the Eastern Distributor once, so these days many of the 500 balls he hits a week are iron shots to practise rhythm.
When Bylsma gets down to business in Las Vegas next week, however, there'll be no holding back.
The 39-year-old big man will be one of four Australian representatives at the $250,000 World Long Driving Championships, where 192 of the globe's biggest hitters will gather to do measure their manhood.
It's golf, but only just. Long driving is to golf what bazookas are to archery. Power, aggression and club-speeds of up to 250km/h rule, and after psyching up with music, contestants often roar after they hit a boomer.
"The Swedes are mad, they even scream at the ball before they hit it," Bylsma says.
Australian long driving boss Wayne Stewart adds: "It's like rock-and-roll wrestling. It's the opposite of golf as far as etiquette goes."
Professional golfers avoid the long-drivers as much as possible, but only because they're embarrassed off the tee by them.
Mark Bylsma shows his style at Thornleigh driving range. Picture: Brett Costello Source: DailyTelegraph
The driving distance average of the PGA Tour in 2013 is 262 metres. The longest, Luke List, averages 274 metres, and Tiger Woods six metres less. In 1985, Greg Norman averaged 253 metres off the tee.
To put that context, go back to the Bylsma five-iron. Long drivers have to hit 340 metres just to get a start. The world record on grass, downwind, is 430 metres – more than four football fields. Bylsma holds the official Australian record of 401m (the 420m wasn't registered) and believes he can go longer.
The old saying of "drive for show, putt for dough" is laughed at by long-drivers, says Bylsma: "We prefer 'if in doubt, smash it'."
Bylsma, a Kings Langley resident who works at the Mean Fiddler, is no a fan of subtlety. He uses every ounce of his mammoth size, bolstered by a heavy weights program, to grievously assault the ball.
"I would rather use a sledgehammer to hit something than a tack-hammer. So hard and fast is the way I go at a golf ball," he says.
"Ability will take you so far, swing will take you so far. But at the end of the day, grunt will take the furthest. I am six-six, there are guys over there who are six-ten."
A few little men do get by, with the help of genetics and backgrounds in baseball, or like two-time world champ Jamie Sadlowski, ice hockey.
Though he only 76kg, the slim Canadian's double-jointed wrists help him generate similar club-head speed to Bylsma – 240 km/h. Professionals get up to 200km/h.
With $250,000 prizemoney up for grabs next week, long drivers laugh at the old saying: "Drive for show, putt for dough." In any case, says Bylsma, there is a different saying in the fraternity of driving range pariahs.
"If it doubt, smash it," he says, addressing another ball. It topples off the tee in the wind and rolls away.
"See? That ball just s**t itself."
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