This PGA Tour Pro Achieved Something Not Done In Over 30 Years

Adam Long might be considering a name change following his incredible accomplishment at the World Wide Technology Championship in Mexico, after hitting 56 out of 56 fairways at the Tiger Woods-designed El Cardonal.

Adam ‘Accurate’ might be more appropriate for the American, although with an average drive of 312.4 yards off the tee for the week, he’s certainly not a player who lacks distance, either.

Not since Brian Claar at the 1992 Memorial Tournament has a player hit every fairway, those 30-plus years highlighting just how amazing a feat it is to not miss a single strip of short stuff over the course of four days of competition.

Erik van Rooyen posted a final-round 63 and -27 total to win the tournament, and there were plenty of other rounds in the low 60s throughout the week, which led to a few question marks around whether Woods’ course was set-up too easy.

One pro, Andrew Putnam, even joked on X afterwards, "You know the course is easy when you shoot -10 to be top 5 and you don’t get 1 question from the media when you leave scoring."

Incredibly, a handful of other players went close to matching Long’s record, with both Paul Hanley II and Troy Merritt missing just one fairway, while 11 other players missed just two.

Last week, at the Zozo Championship, Yuki Inamori led driving accuracy at 73.08%.

Van Rooyen missed just four fairways, but even that level of accuracy wasn’t enough to see him ranked in the top 20.

The field hit a collective 5,740 tee shots on the par 4s and par 5s over four rounds, and 5,194 of those found the fairway (90.48%), a remarkable number.

As good as Tour players are, such statistics suggest that the fairways were generous. Combined with a lack of wind, the course was, at times, defenseless.

Nevertheless, at 7,452 yards, and with players knowing that they needed to attack the course to be competitive – at one stage the final-round scoring average was 67.11, nearly five shots under par – to record 100% driving accuracy demonstrates a superb level of skill.

Long, winner of the 2019 Desert Classic on the PGA Tour, finished the week at 17-under-par in T23rd position, ten back of winner van Rooyen.