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Who won the 2015 PGA Championship Long Drive Contest?

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Last year at Valhalla, the PGA brought back the PGA Championship Long Drive Competition, a long-standing tradition at the season’s final major that hadn’t been part of the event since 1984. Bubba Watson, the longest player on Tour, made headlines when he hit an iron to protest.

This year at Whistling Straits, Bubba did the world a favor and hit driver on the hole where the contest was held — No. 2, a par 5 measuring 593 yards — but he missed the fairway.

Dustin Johnson hit one 328 yards, but that was on his second ball after missing the fairway. Mulligans don’t count. J.B. Holmes hit the fairway and it went 315 yards, but that wasn’t good enough. Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy both participated, but they both missed the fairway.

Justin Rose told PGA.com he hit his drive “low in the heel.” It ended up 307 yards from the tee box, only good enough for 11th place.

Defending long-drive champion Louis Oosthuizen didn’t even participate, playing only the back nine during his Tuesday practice round. Weak.

Martin Kaymer employed the Happy Gilmore technique, and made surprisingly solid contact. He missed the fairway, however, and came up just short of the 300-yard flag. Check out Kaymer’s “Happy Gilmore” below:

The surprise of the event was Jordan Spieth’s 313-yard drive, where he outdrove playing partners Phil Mickelson, Rickie Fowler and Justin Thomas.

Watch Jordan’s valiant effort:

But 313 yards didn’t cut it.

Matt Dobyns, a PGA Professional out of Fresh Meadow C.C. in New York, bombed a drive 323 yards, but even that wasn’t enough.

So who won this thing?

Anirban Lahiri, who currently plays on the European and Asian Tours, hit his drive 327 yards to capture the 2015 long drive contest. And there’s no asterisk this time, since Bubba actually hit his driver.

Watch Lahiri’s drive below:

For his victory, Lahiri receives a gold money clip and $25,000 to a charity of his choice… and a year’s worth of bragging rights.

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He played on the Hawaii Pacific University Men's Golf team and earned a Masters degree in Communications. He also played college golf at Rutgers University, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism.

8 Comments

8 Comments

  1. daniel

    Aug 13, 2015 at 1:39 pm

    327 yards with a driver? Most guys here would have beat that with a 7 iron (or so it seema when reading the forum)

  2. Tom

    Aug 13, 2015 at 4:06 am

    Lahari is long ive walked 18 with him ……and its legit as they are tour pros so there should be an element of accuracy ….. tiger missed the fairway ha ha was it a big block right i wonder?

  3. Pat M

    Aug 12, 2015 at 10:19 pm

    The Bubba haters are gonna hate.
    Nice drive by the winner of the competition. Jordan was longer than expected.

  4. Alex T

    Aug 12, 2015 at 5:14 pm

    I’m with Bubba on this matter, I think its a stupid contest but not necessarily for the same reasons as Bubba. It’s not a long drive competition if you are disqualifying 90% of the field for missing the incredibly narrow fairway. A long drive competition is about the longest drive flat out which is why long drive comps are played onto football fields or similarly wide things. No wonder Lahiri won when the fairway was as narrow- Lahiri, to the best of my knowledge, honed his craft at Royal Delhi or a similar Indian course which features fairways that are tree lined and about 10 yards wide. Of course he won- it was a test of accuracy not a long drive contest, not by any measure. Congrats to Lahiri but I absolutely disagree with there not being an asterisk next to this win, at the very least it should be qualified as “longest drive IN THE FAIRWAY”. Longest drive outright should get an honourable mention at the very least, which I assume was Bubba since there was no distance stats given for him.

    • Jon

      Aug 13, 2015 at 10:15 am

      With this logic, they should have just set up Trackman on the tee box of #7 and just whacked it out into Lake Michigan. If you don’t make it to the water you’re DQ’d. Yeah, that’s pretty exciting stuff right there.

  5. golfiend

    Aug 12, 2015 at 4:57 pm

    Bubba “did the world a favor”? You don’t hear that often in the news.

  6. MHendon

    Aug 12, 2015 at 2:53 pm

    327 seems pretty short to have won.

  7. Brian

    Aug 12, 2015 at 2:49 pm

    Videos won’t play. Flash plugin enabled (why are you still using Flash – please kill it already) and it still won’t play.

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Coolest thing for sale in the GolfWRX Classifieds (1/16/24): Cobra Forged One Length irons

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At GolfWRX, we are a community of like-minded individuals that all experience and express our enjoyment of the game in many ways.

It’s that sense of community that drives day-to-day interactions in the forums on topics that range from best driver to what marker you use to mark your ball. It even allows us to share another thing we all love – buying and selling equipment.

Currently, in our GolfWRX buy/sell/trade (BST) forum, there is a listing for a set of Cobra Forged One Length irons.

From the seller: (@adamwittman): “4-PW, GW, lw. Nunchuk shafts. $350 tyd conusa.”

To check out the full listing in our BST forum, head through the link: Cobra Forged One Length irons

This is the most impressive current listing from the GolfWRX BST, and if you are curious about the rules to participate in the BST Forum you can check them out here: GolfWRX BST Rules

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What GolfWRXers are saying about Kevin Kisner’s new Callaway X Forged CB irons

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In our forums, our members have been discussing Kevin Kisner’s new Callaway X Forged CB irons which he has in the bag at this week’s CJ Cup. WRXers have been commenting on the switch and the clubs themselves in our forums.

For lots more photos, check out the full thread here.

Here are a few posts from the thread, but make sure to check out the entire discussion and have your say at the link below.

  • btyh: “Holy offset.”
  • Glf_LU: “These are interesting. Not going to make a rush to judgement until I see them in person. It does look like a little more offset than I would expect to see in this model.”
  • bcflyguy1: “Kisner is not one to make a lot of equipment changes (see the GBB driver he’s still using), so if these do have staying power in his bag that will be interesting to see. I have to wonder if there’s something different about his set, because like others have mentioned there appears to be more offset on his than I recall seeing in the samples I’ve had in hand.”

Entire Thread: “Kevin Kisner’s new Callaway X Forged CB irons”

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WATCH: PGA Tour players play hole blindfolded and it’s hilarious/amazing

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As part of a Srixon campaign, four PGA Tour players recently participated in a three-hole challenge, with each hole being a different game; hole No. 1 was blindfolded, hole No. 2 was costumes and distractions, and hole No. 3 was alternate shot with a baseball bat. The teams were Smylie Kaufman and Sam Ryder against Shane Lowry and Grayson Murray.

Watch the full video below, since it is quite entertaining (albeit not the type of golf that Old Tom Morris surely had in mind), but in particular, make sure to check out the first hole where Lowry and Ryder play a full hole completely blind folded. It’s amazing to watch how badly Ryder struggles, and how Lowry nearly makes par.

Cleveland-Srixon’s marketing department has been hard at work crafting these viral-esque ad campaigns; if you remember, former long-drive champion Jamie Sadlowski recently dressed as 80-year-old Grandpa Jamie to fool range-goers. That video has since gathered over 1.2 million views on YouTube.

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