Merit Leader and No1 ranked Grid Outlaws SA Long driver
Volvik’s Brand Ambassador, current order of Merit Leader and No 1 ranked Grid outlaws SA Long Driver, Thorne van Zyl, just came off a huge victory with a record-breaking distance of 441.4 meters = 483 yards in a SA event held a week prior to the games in Europe.
Thorne flew to Spain Mallorca to attend the European Long Drives Games with the sole purpose of obtaining the last Volvik World Long Drive Spot out of 20 top European Long Drivers. Fellow Ambassador Jason ‘the Hammer’ Vickers attended the games with the same purpose to come up against the very best Europe has to offer.
The first qualifying rounds had 3 players going up against each other for four eight ball sets to determine the longest drives out of two groups for those sets.
Thorne van Zyl had 3 wins and 3rd place sets against some formidable long drivers. In the soaring heat and a sea level altitude where the balls don’t travel as far as they do here in South Africa on the Highveld so distances were not as long as we all could imagine, but being as it may every player still had to find the 55 yard wide grid that was set out on the 6th hole on the ever stunning seaside island of Spain Mallorca Golf de Andratx. The deciding factors came right down to that where Jason Vickers found himself hitting and OB set and not qualifying for the top 8 groups of the World Long Drive spot in Oaklahoma USA. Thorne ending with 650 points then found himself victorious and winning the much sort after last WLD spot among the remaining players to claim his first European Long Drive victory and the last remaining spot in the Volvik Worl Long Drive Competition. The WLDC started on the 30th of August and ended with the finals on the 4th of September 2019, held at Winstar Casino and Resort on the Border of Texas/Oaklahoma USA.
The next stage of the competition was held on the Sunday with the final event of the season. For the European Long Drive Games Volvik’s Thorne van Zyl, started his 2nd day of the competition with the second group of players late in the morning having to hit another four sets and qualified in the fourth spot finding himself going up against 2x World Long Drive Champion, Big Joe Miller in the semi-final. Thorne realised one of his dream matches by, knocking out Joe Thorne causing a huge upset finding himself up against Swedish Long Driver Teemu Pitkanen, ranked 40th in the world rankings, with a loss meaning that he had to face the renowned long driver currently ranked No 12 in the world, James Tait, who is renowned for really crushing the ball with his very efficient swing and ball striking.
Teemu then outdrove Thorne in the Quarters by a mere 4 yards and found himself in the semi-finals which meant taht Thorne had to go up against James Tait to decide 3rd and 4th place of the day.
Thorne then had probably one of his 2nd best sets of the day and claimed 2nd win over Tait to end 3rd in the final.
One of the crowd favourite’s llija Djurdjevic beat Teemu Pitkanen in close fought finals to be crowned The Winner of the final game of the year.
Thorne van Zyl had now qualified for 2019 Volvik World Long Drive in the United States. Thorne reached his goal by making it through to the top 54 by finishing in the 38th position out of the best Long drivers in the world which consisted of 3 days of qualifying competitions. He has now been selected by Krank…