Aldrich Potgieter Drives It Long (661 Hole Reached In Two)

I’ll say first off that I am impressed with Aldrich Potgieter’s golf swing, even if it is a Modern Golf Swing version, and although his having reached a 661 Par 5 hole in two at the Mexico Open is impressive compared to what the other pros are doing, it shouldn’t be.

He hit a 331 yard drive and then smoked his Driver off the turf another 323 yards to reach the green, and it’s the second shot that impresses me.

The initial drive, not so much, but before you scoff and ask me if I could do better, I will answer honestly, “No, I haven’t done better and probably couldn’t now at nearly 55 years of age – but I have reached a 600 yard Par 5 in two, if you count hole-high in the side bunker ‘reaching’ it in two, and that was when I was 47 years old…”

Back to 20 year old Aldrich Potgieter – an impressive action, and I have only two issues, with it:

  1. That Modern Golf Swing back pivot with the twisting of the lower back.  I hate to put the hex on young Aldrich because every time I write about these players and injury risks, it isn’t long before it actually happens.  Let’s hope I’m wrong here, but a swing like this at 20 years old won’t be a problem… until it is, as he gets older,
  2. The twisting leading foot through impact – if he flared that leading foot more (but he can’t, because he keeps that heel nailed to the ground and it would cause stress to his knee and hip with the increased flare) and kept that foot stable at impact and instead released the rear foot post-impact, it would accomplish the same thing, which is to remove twisting stress from the leading knee and ankle because of the hip rotation through the down swing.

Other than that, what a golf swing this is, and his impact position:

… is very powerful.  He stays behind the ball beautifully and is nearly fully extended with the right arm at impact… that ball is gone, you can rest assured!

If he stays fit, he will be a superstar with that kind of power and composure at such a tender age.  But that Modern pivot gives me pause, as it always does.

Now, you might be asking me, why shouldn’t this performance on the 661 yard hole be impressive?

I will say, because any young golfer his size should be doing this.

Now, he is said to stand 1.83m and 87 kg (6’0″ and 192 lbs), but I highly doubt the weight – I am just an inch or 3 cm taller than young Aldrich and I am in the region of 110 kg currently, and there’s no way this lad is 87 kg!

At a glance, he looks well shorter than his listed height, but I digress – he is driving the ball as long as he should, if he is a golf pro and does this for a living.

I have driven the ball multiple times up to and over 350 yards when in my 40’s, and this picture is of one such time at the age of 49, when I missed the green hole high on a 350 yard par 4 at the now-defunct Annandale Golf Club back in 2009:

I always make sure to have witnesses when I claim a distance, and I also had 3 witnesses (my playing partner and WAX Nation denizen David D and two other players) back in 2017 when I reached that 600 yard Par 5 hole in two at Royal Ashburn Golf Club:

Not only that, I reached that hole from out of the rough on my 2nd swing, and these are the two clubs with which I accomplished the feat:

That’s correct – an old Ben Hogan Big Ben CS-3 Driver and a MacGregor persimmon 4 wood, and a Titleist Pro V1 golf ball.

I really should have taken a picture, but I was enjoying my round with David D and it didn’t occur to me at the time to snap the accomplishment.  Likely because the initial drive of 325 into the left rough was not anywhere near my best drive.

I say the following with all humility:

So the point of all of this, besides showing a very solid if flawed golf swing and reliving my own personal driving feats, is to say that, if an out of shape golf swing researcher who doesn’t even play the game for a living could even approach what young Aldrich did on that hole (again, that second shot was pretty darned good), you’ll forgive me for saying it shouldn’t be that impressive.

These young guns should be driving the ball a country mile with their customized equipment, fitness regimes and that fact that they’re young and strong.

Like Rory McIlroy does, and he is not a big guy by any means.

The problem is the swing techniques they’re using – imagine what Aldrich could do with a proper, mechanically-correct golf swing model!

They would make a mockery of what the game currently is, and not in bad way.