Kyle Berkshire - snowball's chance in Hell?

Saw some video snippets of this guy a while back, one of which was him playing the 16th @ Firestone (see foot of article linked below). Looks a bit raw, but has a bit of history as a junior/college play pre-long drive career, unlike Sadlowski before him.
Has clearly got a bit to learn re. pro game, but if you can regularly hit it 350+ at ~80% then he might pull up the odd tree or two. Might be interesting to see how he does over the next few years.

https://www.golfdigest.com/story/can-kyle-berkshire-world-long-drive-champ-make-it-to-pga-tour

There's a reason these guys are on some stupid exhibition like a Long Drive Tour and not a real tour.

If he did get on tour he would have the worst haircut by a mile.

Yeh read that earlier. It will be interesting to see how he gets on and I don't think his success with put an end to a long drive type swing becoming the norm on the PGAT in the years to come.

Whether or not he can score well enough it is not clear that you could get enough accuracy from a long drive swing to play on the PGAT. We just need a guy to come along with long drive clubheah speed and a great short game.

As noted in the article Berkshire can hit anything from 8 iron up past the tour average driving distance. He could hit long iron/ 3 wood off every tee and still never have more than a wedge in.

The more you think about it the more likely it seems someone will "break" the game at some point in the not to distance future.

Trouble is Mac these guys ruin their body very early. Jamie Sadlowski packed it in very young.
This guy is already 22, if he had the game to compete on your, he'd already be doing it like his peers Morikawa, Wolff, Hovland etc. I think he's already missed the boat and would simply have too much ground to make up.

Super

Read the article, he was advised by a college coach to switch to long drive, and when he did that he gave up playing golf. Admittedly he was not a great college golfer but my point is that there is going to be someone soon who is a great scorer and a long drive guy. The article also details how it has up until this point been accepted golfing wisdom that you can't swing like a long driver and play good golf. What coaches and stats guys are now saying is that distance is king.

Sadlowski for example altered his swing to conform to PGAT norms, Berkshire is not doing that. He is keeping his insane ball speed and long drive swing while trying to add a short game.

And so what if it means a career is over by 35, wouldn't you want golf to become a real sport?

I'm sure there will be Mac, but his coach obviously realised that it wouldn't be him.
Golf wouldn't become a real sport just because some slack jawed hillbilly was on Tour.

Distance "being king" is a axiom which only applies to those with a tour standard short game, it doesn't apply to us for example, nor someone who has been involved in a version of the game where short game and putting isn't even a part. It's also an  incredibly course dependent mantra as De Shambles found out at Augusta.
As it stands Berkshire might gain a lot of shots off the tee, but he'd give them all back around the green.

Have you ever seen this guy hit drives? All these long drive guys are laughably inaccurate. You don't get a second, third, fourth or fifth chance off the tee. It needs a greater balance between distance and accuracy and I think there is space for someone to do it, like De Mad Scientist is doing but I think it's too late for Berkshire, even at 22. All of his peers are far more experienced than him, and I can't see him catching up sufficiently.

super_realist wrote:There's a reason these guys are on some stupid exhibition like a Long Drive Tour and not a real tour.

If he did get on tour he would have the worst haircut by a mile.

Excellent. Thanks for your contribution, but I think we could have done w/o it.

Super

I am not sure you are getting this. It doesn't have to be Berkshire, but after the success BDC has had with his approach to distance there are going to be people coming up through the ranks who will attempt to apply long drive techniques to becoming a PGAT player. They no longer face the barriers of coaches teaching that shorter and straighter is better. There must already be a bunch of college coaches thinking about fully adopting a speed focused teaching approach.

I agree, but the article is about Berkshire.
I dont really care who it is, it won't make golf anymore interesting.

super_realist wrote:I agree, but the article is about Berkshire.
I dont really care who it is, it won't make golf anymore interesting.

No-one said it would make golf more interesting. What I was wondering was whether Berkshire, as a long drive specialist, could make a decent career (I'm not talking Woods-like) on the PGA Tour, or any other main Tour for that matter. He isn't like Sadlowski - he could play before taking on long drive.

He may not make it, but Mac's right - many coaches and young players will be taking a speed/distance-based approach to their game and then bolting on the finesse etc afterwards. The data pretty much all agrees that distance is king.

May not be Berkshire, but unless the USGA/R&A start to act re. distance etc, it's coming. I'll watch him w/ some interest, even if you don't.

Remember when people used to think it was better being short but accurate or all about being in the fairway. Thats blown out the water (maybe an over exaggeration). Will be interesting, but I think old norms are being challenged, even the short game talk. Though I've never always got that. I'm pretty crap, but I'd fancy my chances more against the best from on or off the green more that 500yards away!

beninho wrote:Remember when people used to think it was better being short but accurate or all about being in the fairway. Thats blown out the water (maybe an over exaggeration). Will be interesting, but I think old norms are being challenged, even the short game talk. Though I've never always got that. I'm pretty crap, but I'd fancy my chances more against the best from on or off the green more that 500yards away!

For people of club golfer standard is it definitely better to be in the fairway and 15 yards further back than in the thick rough

Be fun though to be that far off the tee !

Be fun to be on a tee! What with saturated golf courses and Tier 4, can't see that happening anytime soon.