Logan Schott smashed the golf ball with his club and screamed at it as it launched through the air.
“Go! Wooo!”
Schott delivered his best swing of the day, driving the ball 376 yards at a World Long Drive (WLD) event in Palm Beach, Florida in June.
His reaction was shades of Happy Gilmore, whose swing power and rage wowed fans in his cinematic universe.
Schott, a professional long-driver who started competing in February, flashed his authenticity in the real world.
“It’s not something I go up there and plan,” Schott said. “Truthfully, there’s only a couple of guys that really yell at it like I do … We all joke that everyone’s kind of got their own signature move that you know if they hit a good one. Their body kind of reacts. For me, it’s just screaming at that thing.”
The goal of long-drive competition is to hit the ball the maximum distance while keeping it in play. Players like Schott get two and half minutes to hit six balls.
Maximum effort required.
“It’s kind of like the ugly stepchild of golf,” Schott said. “Golf has so much more to do with hitting it straight and controlling the golf ball whereas we’re just trying to hit a grid that’s a little bit wider than a fairway … We’ll hit maybe one or two good ones in the grid because you’re hitting so fast a lot of it has to do with some chance there.”
Schott, the oldest of 12 siblings, got his first set of clubs when he was around five or six years old. He played competitive junior golf before he transitioned to high school. He was also a 6-foot-4 basketball player in high school at Roncalli. The kind of hooper to whom eyes are drawn to. His power and technique were translated on the golf course.
“His nickname in basketball was, ‘The Big Fundamental,’” said Roncalli golf coach Jim Poole. “He tried to do all the things right. His footwork was really good, and he was the same way in golf. He had a really nice golf swing, could hit the ball a long ways.”
Schott, who was home-schooled during his senior year, had offers to play college golf. He decided to attend Notre Dame for academics and dropped the sport for six years. He lived in Salt Lake City for about three years where he built golf clubs for Club Champion in Utah.
It became his data hub. He used TrackMan, a high-tech radar system that measures golf swings and ball flight. He started speed training last September before he moved back to the south side of Indy.
“He really got that itch over the last year and a half or so when he went to work for Club Champion,” said Bryan Hendricks, Logan’s grandfather. “He just wanted to get into the golf industry and business somehow and someway, and then he did the research on long drive.
“He was studying, reading and learning as much as he could on how to be a long drive competitor and he started training really hard late last year. During the winter, he started taking it seriously and doing the investigation of what it’s going to take to get to this level.”
Schott competed in his first long drive event in February, when he tied for fifth and appeared on Golf Channel. He’s since built a rookie season fit for title contention. He earned a WLD Rise Division win after placing sixth overall in his first WLD Tour Event in Florida in May.
The 26-year-old won his first major event in June at Endless Summer, which is regarded as the world’s biggest long drive championship. He shot a first-place distance of 391 feet in the finals to beat Hunter Noell of Colorado (377) in Belleville, Ontario, Canada in late June.
He is currently tied for No. 7 in the WLD Rise Division rankings and No. 52 in the world rankings.
“It’s been a crazy ride to try and manage that big upswing, but for me if I swing free and easy and I got a little bit of confidence that’s when I’m most dangerous,” Schott said. “I’m trying to just be grateful for the whole thing and just ride the wave.”
His quick ascent in long drive has been systematic. For a sport that demands mental and physical toughness, Schott has balanced his part-time grind with his full-time job in industrial water treatment. He’s on the operations side of Elite Chemistries, a family business founded by his dad, Joe.
In his free time, Schott runs his company and training facility Bay III Golf. It’s where he has powered his mechanics and used speed training to level up his swing. He trains two to three times a week for about six hours. An hour is dedicated to getting warmed up for intensity. He’ll hit golf balls at full speed for the next three hours before he goes to the gym to workout past the point of failure.
“Our training sessions are brutal … but we all love it,” Schott said. “Any of us would kill for the chance to go hit another ball in front of someone or to have another shot at the title. It’s like the mix of power lifting, screaming and the finesse of golf with a little bit of Happy Gilmore yelling at the golf ball.”
Schott has made enough noise that he’s become a rising star in long drive. He’s a workhorse with the club in his hand who drives hours from Indiana to Canada to hit six balls because he’s a true competitor at heart.
He is grateful for the brotherhood in the WLD Tour.
“Any of them would tell you this: what we do and what it takes to get to an event, meaning preparing the body, preparing the mind, I think few people will really understand it,” Schott said.
Long drive has lit a fire in his stomach that was missing in life once he stepped away from golf after high school. His competitive juices are flowing again.
His goal is to become the world’s No. 1 long driver with eyes on the WLD Championship. That event will take place in mid-October in Reno, Nevada. His mindset has shifted from just reaching the world stage to stopping at nothing to win it.
His signature scream is indicative of that dream.
“This year has already been a glowing success in a rookie season that people will know about,” Schott said. “You have to celebrate the little victories along the way, and you have the love the grind, the workouts, the day to day stuff because if you don’t, you’ll never really make it.”
Marc Ray is a high school sports reporter at the IndyStar. He can be reached at marc.ray@indystar.com , and on X, formerly Twitter, at @themarcszn.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: ‘It’s kind of like the ugly stepchild of golf’: Logan Schott is a rising star in long drive
Reporting by Marc Ray, Indianapolis Star / Indianapolis Star
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Marc Ray, Indianapolis Star | USA TODAY Network
