World's Longest Hitters: Kim Welch Advances Into Fourth Round

By Lisa D. Mickey

She didn't win the big prize and she didn't hit the longest drive, but Kim Welch made it to the fourth round in the recent RE/MAX World Long Drive Championship. With that, comes some bragging rights.

"I think I did well because I hit the ball really straight and I only missed the landing grid once," said Welch, 23, a rookie on the 2006 Duramed FUTURES Tour, who qualified for the world contest by winning the RE/MAX event held in conjunction with the Lakeland Duramed FUTURES Classic last March in Lakeland, Fla. "That's what I need to do in my job anyway -- hit it straight. A lot of the girls in the contest never found the fairway."

The Sacramento native was undaunted by the field of 40 long-hitting women qualifiers at the event, held Oct. 24-28, at The Palms Golf Club in Mesquite, Nev. Male and female contestants from more than 125 countries competed for a purse of $500,000 for the week's biggest blasts.

Welch won her opening round in the women's division with a drive of 274 yards. She moved into the loser's bracket after the second round in the double-elimination event with a drive of 262 yards, and then advanced back out to win the third round with a distance of 271 yards before finally being eliminated in the fourth round. Welch did it using a new supersized driver -- a Ping Rapture driver with a nine-degree loft and 48-inch Aldila NV lightweight 60-gram stiff graphite shaft. The world long-drive contest typically showcases the latest technological advances in drivers, placing ultra-lightweight and super-stiff, over-length shafts into the hands of players whose primary goal is to hit the ball far.

"Those long-drive people were intense," said Welch, a former All-American at Washington State University, where she recorded 11 collegiate wins. "They'd take 20 drivers to the range and hit balls for hours. Some of them were out there all day, just hitting drivers. They're always breaking the driver heads and cracking the club faces."

Welch averaged tee shots between 270-280 yards on the Duramed FUTURES Tour this year. She recorded a qualifying winning drive of 287 yards off the first tee at Cleveland Heights Golf Course in Lakeland, Fla., at the tour's season-opening tournament to win the all-expenses paid trip to Nevada.

But while Welch called the week a "really good experience" and said qualifying for the RE/MAX Long Drive Championship will be "something good" to put on her golf resume, she also left the event knowing what her primary focus has to be.

"This thing was so far from real tournament golf," said Welch, who is 5-foot-6 and weighs 130 pounds. "I brought my whole set of clubs to the range and people would ask, 'Are you here for the competition?' I'm focused on the LPGA Final Qualifying Tournament later this month. It's a much bigger test for me and as intense as the long-drive contest was, LPGA Q-School is way more intense than that ever could be."

Still, Welch said it was "cool" to be a part of the event and interesting to watch New Zealand's Phillis Meti win the women's division with a championship drive of 326 yards, 13 inches to defeat Jackelyn Diekemper of Champaign, Ill., who recorded a final shot of 282 yards and 12 inches. Meti pocketed $14,000 for her big blast.

Welch missed out on the money, but some of her shots may be seen on ESPN and ESPN2 next month when the event is showcased in a 90-minute highlight show during the Christmas holiday.