Dustin Johnson hit the longest drive in the PGA Tour’s modern era. But it won’t count as a new record.

The distance debate in golf is racing headlong in a five- or six-car pileup. The “five families” that make up the most important ruling bodies all seem to have different stances on this. The equipment companies have different stances, and they also have lots of money they’re spending with aggressive lobbying efforts. The pros and amateurs have different positions and could be pitted against each other. Architects, agronomists, TV networks — there are so many different interests and we’re about to hit an eruption point as the ball keeps going farther and farther.

This week, it flew as far as ever recorded during a PGA Tour event. Dustin Johnson had a poor showing in the WGC Dell Match Play, but he didn’t leave town without reminding us why he’s a force this game has not really seen. Late in his final match, DJ uncorked a 489-yard drive. That is not a misprint. It was not 389 yards. It was 489, as in 11 yards shy of 500.

A few details to put some context into that number: the Austin Country Club course, where the Match Play is held, has become notorious for yielding some outrageous distances. It’s a firm and fast Texas layout, with some significant elevation changes on certain holes. The 12th hole, where DJ threw up 489, is one of those. It cascades downhill into the bank of the Colorado River. If you catch the right bounce, it’s going to run a long ass way down the hill on this par-5. Last year, Jon Rahm posted a 438-yard drive.

But 489? That is a different universe, even with any kind of downhill, downwind, firm and fast conditions. DJ cut the most perfect corner here, catching a bounce and ending up just 85 yards out on a hole that measures around 575 yards. It’s still stupid long.

I’d show you video of the shot but the cameras were not apparently rolling as DJ launched this rocket. This was not that important a match at the time — DJ was eliminated in his pool and many of these third-round matches become meaningless. But it’s an exciting hole and one that should always be monitored for events like this. That no footage existed to share was one big shank (golf term).

The 489-yard drive has to be some sort of record, right? Yes, it is the longest drive ever recorded in the Shotlink era. That’s the PGA Tour’s laser tracking system that has all their courses on the schedule fully mapped and measures every single shot. It’s an invaluable tool for collecting statistics, specifically the strokes gained data that now rule the game. The longest recorded drive of the Shotlink era had been Davis Love III’s 476-yard poke in 2004 at Kapalua, another windy course with extreme downhill holes on the side of Maui mountain.

DJ’s ball went 13 yards farther than that. It will not, however, show up in the official PGA Tour record books because statistics technically do not count at the WGC Match Play. The reason for this is obvious and simple: match play is an entirely different animal. Players concede in the middle of a hole. Putts are given. It’s frequent that one of two players in the match do not actually put the ball in the cup. The matches often do not go a full 18 holes. You’re not counting up total strokes, but just trying to win holes within a match.

So it would be impossible to fully calculate the strokes gained data and statistics from an event like this because the conditions and intent are so different from every other stroke play event on Tour. I’d argue that measuring a drive’s distance is a stat that could be official and separated from all the other stats that become much harder to make official in a match play event. At this WGC, however, all the stats do not count, and therefore, the drive does not officially count for the record books.

But we have a recording of it. It was measured. We have the number! We saw ... OK we saw nothing more than a graphic telling us it went 489 yards. Regardless of whether it goes in the record books or not, we’ll always have that.

There were big bombers in previous eras, but the combination of the modern ball, driver technology, and the athletic builds so many of these golfers work on now means distances are longer than ever. They’re also not plateauing and whether this is putting the sport in crisis is a bubbling debate that’s about to erupt. Add an eye-popping 489-yard drive to the pile of evidence in the escalating distance wars.