The World Long Drive Championship is an exhilarating exhibition of dingers

THACKERVILLE, Okla. -- J.B. Holmes is currently the longest hitter on the PGA tour with an average of 314.5 yards per drive. Dustin Johnson trails just one yard behind him. There is no question that these two smash the ball and would leave the average golfer in the dust.

If you were to ask them to go up against World Long Drive competitors, however, Holmes and Johnson would suddenly know what their PGA Tour colleagues might feel like when left behind by their bombs.

This week at the World Long Drive, big hitters like Tim Burke, who won in 2015 and 2013, showcased what it really means to hit it long. Burke holds the long driving record at 427 yards -- that’s four football fields and a 27-yard field goal missed by Minnesota Vikings kicker Blair Walsh during the playoffs against the Seattle Seahawks. That, my friends, is a really long ball.

As a novice to long drive competitions, I did not realize all that it takes to remain competitive in a sport that has evolved since its beginnings in 1976.

In the first WLD competition, a man named Evan Williams won with a 319-yard drive. When you think about the equipment in the 70s, that is impressively long. But even the best equipment in the world wouldn’t add 100 yards or even 50 yards.

Since golf fitness has boomed over the last ten years, men and women are stronger and have swing speeds up to 155 mph. For the female competitors, such as Lisa Vlooswyk (aka “Lisa Longball”) they can get up to 125 mph. Her longest drive is 350 yards and she’s barely 5’6.

The max length driver competitors can use is 50 inches long, compared to the standard length driver of 45 inches. These club shafts are so long it can look disorienting. The most fascinating part of the equipment, though, is the loft of the heads. The average long drive competitor used a 5 degree loft driver and some go as low as 4 degrees. The lower degree heads allow for competitors to hit more up on the ball, as their angle of attack is much different from playing professionals.

With swing speeds so high, faces of the drivers often cave in. So players are prepared for any driver casualties during competition -- they’ll bring upwards of twenty drivers for what could be a full week-long competition.

That arsenal of drivers does get tested, as if the the equipment itself could be on steroids. In what’s called a CT (Characteristics Time) Test, a driver’s face will undergo an exam that determines if the face is “too hot,” meaning that the ball can travel off the face faster and give someone extra distance. With the swing speeds of the competitors so high, the face can be altered. To help maintain a fair playing field, random testing takes place throughout the competition and when it gets to the final stages, everyone’s clubs are tested.

The format consists of 80 competitors in match play, where two players will compete in a bracket and the winner of each match will continue to move on and compete in the finals (the men’s final will be broadcast at 8 p.m. ET on Golf Channel Wednesday night).

There is pressure on each drive, as players have three minutes to hit eight balls in their head-to-head matches. The winner of the match just needs one ball to go the farthest and stay in the 55-yard-wide landing grid. Jeff Flagg, a former champion who advanced to the semifinals, chastised himself during a conversation with his trainer for only hitting it 360 yards. That’s right ... only 360.

Many of the competitors are former athletes, ranging from gymnasts to Olympians to baseball players. Female competitor Troy Mullins was a biathlete at Cornell University and found a natural talent in golf. In her first WLD in 2012, she finished second with a 312-yard drive. The competitors are flexible, have sturdy legs like tree trunks, and from what I observed, take this most seriously, as many traveled with their swing coaches and personal trainers.

The prestige of being a World Long Drive champ is, of course, not comparable to the those champions on the traditional golf tours around the world. Golf audiences are more interested in the wider skill set that professional players possess. Some golf fans might be disappointed to learn that several of the Long Drive competitors cannot break 90. But we’re here to see the dingers leave the yard.

The skill of possessing the ability to swing a club at 150 mph while keeping balance is a display worth watching. For most people, it’s hard enough to swing in sync at the average swing speed of 90 mph.

This is a television event once a year, so take it for what it is: men and women teeing it up, and unleashing every bit of power their bodies possess to knock the cover off a golf ball, while still finishing with a picture perfect pose.

Oh, and the winner takes home $125,000. Not bad for a week’s work of hitting drives.