Rediscovering My Purpose: The Journey From Leaving to Embracing Longdrive Again

As we left part 1, we hadn't even touched on the beginnings of my Longdrive golf career. Although it has played a large role in the person I am today, it hasn't been everything, as there were many ups and downs and everything in between as well.

As we kick off this section of things, I want to remind everyone that we are a product of our environments, the good and the bad, and we are molded as such. For those who are reading this that might have started their journey off in a small town (city) looking for bigger and larger scale things, I want to remind you our roots are our roots. They are what have shaped us into the people we have become today, how we treat others, how we always take time out of our day to say hello, build friendships, and are willing to help one another when asked and even when not. I'll never take my small-town upbringing for granted, as this has made me who I truly am today.

It all starts at the coffee shop, the parents there sitting, bragging about what their child did next, or in the case of where I grew up, who was playing hockey where and at what level, if they got drafted, where they went to school, and so on and so forth. Well, once the hockey dream is over, what's next? Well, I was a decent golfer, not really anything special. I won some tournaments with my friends; we actually had a pretty solid stretch of a few years together playing in scrambles and winning the Bigger Moose tour scramble events. But I had to kind of ask myself if the gift certificates and skins money were worth it or if there was something more lurking for me. Enter the sport of Long Drive. With a simple Google (was probably Yahoo or MSN) search, I found myself on a trip to southern Ontario to try and compete in a sport where you just had to hit it as far as you can. This, at the time, was something I just thought of as fun, as I could always knock it out there with the best of them (or so I thought). I went to my first event and hit it 408 yards and won. The friends I made that day are still close to my heart, as Long Drive in those early years was one of the coolest groups and communities I had been part of. That event qualified me for the Ontario championship, which I wasn't able to attend due to one of my good friends getting married that weekend. So instead, I looked on the calendar for another event and found one in Saginaw, Michigan, where I could do a last chance qualifier and regional in the same weekend. Well, for this trip, I asked my father to join me, as he was kind of curious what this was all about. So I hit the first day, got a qualification to day 2. And that's when things got interesting, as the next day more than 50 men showed up and there were only 3 spots available to the World Championships. I had no idea at the time who any of the guys were and just went and did my thing when my name was called. By the end of the day, I ended up winning the whole thing. I'll never forget one of the men there who had quite the established infomercial on the Golf Channel at the time singing "O Canada" after I had won. Again, the friends I made that day are still close these 18 or whatever it is years later.

The coffee shop on Monday was buzzing. Rocky (my father) had something to brag to the crew about: his kid gets to go to the World Long Drive Championship and compete against the best in the world for a chance at 250k. Little did I know at the time, I had zero chance. I wasn't prepared to win; I had no idea about the training and everything that the best were putting into this. But it was a badge of honor to have qualified, even from my point of view. One thing is, when you're from a small area doing something that no one had really done previously, it turns into more than you expect. I made the front page of the sports section (big apples for a guy like me back then) in the Chronicle Journal. Well, long story short, we all flew down to Las Vegas—my mother, father, and I—and I got my butt kicked. It was a humbling experience that was all over within 30 or so minutes.

That week of being around some of the best to ever tee it up in the sport and sitting and watching how they treated it and went about their business was impressive, to say the least. Unfortunately, by the time I had gotten home, there wasn't really anything that stuck in my head, at least not for the first 5-6 years of my Longdrive career. I would go on to make the world championships for the next 5 years, never really doing anything, won a few smaller events along the way but could never get past day 1 at the world level, essentially leaving me to walk away for a period of semi-retirement from the sport. The buzz at the coffee shop had worn off, so to speak.

But knowing me, I had to stay busy doing something, and this is where I thought I had really learned discipline. I began powerlifting, a sport focused on three main lifts in the gym: squats, bench press, and deadlifts. I trained for a period before deciding to enter my first meet without any coaching and did just okay. But the true learning factor was later on that year when I did hire a coach and learned what the true discipline of training for the sport was (this becomes important later on as well). I am an all-in or nothing type of person, and when I committed to a coach, I followed things exactly to the number through the entire process. I wasn't by any means at an elite level, but I had my own personal goals for my age and weight category. Waking up every morning was painful during all-out training; I was pushing myself to the absolute limits of every training session. My best lifts unfortunately never came together during the same competition, but I was able to squat 621 lbs and deadlift 720 lbs during my time in powerlifting. After my final competition (due to injury), I was living in southern Ontario, and there was a long drive contest just an hour away from my house. It was just a qualifier for the world championships, and I hadn't competed in 4 years, but I said, "Hey, let's just go hit a few and see everyone again since it's so close." I borrowed a few drivers from a friend and headed down to the event.

The bug jumped up and bit me again. After hitting a 406-yard drive in the morning qualifier, I was into the afternoon, but boy oh boy, had the sport changed. It was three times as much hitting as before, and my body was definitely not conditioned for it. I was drinking pickle juice to try and keep the cramping away, but in the end, I just couldn't quite hold it together, but was hooked again nonetheless. One good flushed swing is all it took for the bug to be back. But this time, I had something that I didn't before. We can say age and wisdom, but really it was just discipline!

As the summer continued, I found myself wanting to practice more and more, even attending a few smaller events as I wasn't qualified to enter the bigger tour events, and was just having fun getting back into the swing of things. I ended up making Team Canada and competing in Mexico for the ILDC team championships and finishing 2nd to a stacked Team USA. But during this time, I was also very focused on my career path of becoming a real estate agent. Studying and doing my courses was my primary focus, and I would go practice as time allowed.

The following season is where it all starts to get very interesting......stay tuned for part 3.

RG