PGA Tour longest drive brings a surprise

Think of the biggest hitters on the PGA Tour and the names Bubba Watson, Dustin Johnson, J.B. Holmes and Jason Day probably spring to mind.

But none of those players recorded the longest drive of the 2015/16 season. In fact, it was actually Justin Thomas.

The 23-year-old launched a 414-yard drive on the 16th hole of the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational, pushing Bubba Watson down into second and third place with his efforts of 411 and 409 yards at the Hyundai Tournament of Champions and AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.

Here’s the full top ten:

1 – Justin Thomas – 414 yards
2 – Bubba Watson – 411 yards
3 – Bubba Watson – 409 yards
4 – Rhein Gibson – 406 yards
5 – Jason Day – 404 yards
T6 – Kevin Kisner – 403 yards
T6 – Gary Woodland – 403 yards
8 – Davis Love III – 400 yards
T9 – Bubba Watson – 399 yards
T9 – Justin Thomas – 399 yards
T9 – Brooks Koepka – 399 yards

No Dustin Johnson, Rory McIlroy or J.B. Holmes in sight – but an appearance from Davis Love III. However, Johnson did appear a whopping 15 times in the top 200 drives recorded on the PGA Tour website, with Holmes appearing 11 times, Watson ten and Day, nine.

Holmes topped the average driving distance charts on 314.5 yards, while Johnson was close behind on 313.6 yards.

But how do the figures above differ from the 2015 season? Well, there isn’t much change, to be honest, with 375 yards is the ‘lowest’ that the table goes to on both years.

There was another surprise name at the top of the list though, in the shape of Bernd Wiesberger (below).

The 2015 PGA Tour season top ten looked like:

1 – Bernd Wiesberger – 428 yards
2 – Marc Leishman – 410 yards
T3 – Geoff Ogilvy – 409 yards
T3 – Jason Day – 409 yards
5 – Dustin Johnson – 406 yards
6 – Brendon Todd – 404 yards
7 – Sergio Garcia – 403 yards
T8 – Bubba Watson – 402 yards
T8 – Camilo Villegas – 402 yards
T8 – Jason Day – 402 yards

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PGA Tour driving distance

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