Journey to the 2010 World Long Drive Championship – Regional Champion
Jones 385-yard drive wins Regional Championship
Press Release 8-23-10
Eric Jones Wins Long Drive District 8 Regional Qualifier
385-Yard Blast Earns Him a Spot in the Sr. Division
at the 2010 World Long Drive Championships
In order to qualify for a spot at the World Championships you have to first win a Local qualifier. Then all the Local qualifier winners meet at a Regional. Typically out of 50 to 60 local winners only the top two or three finishers at a Regional advance to the Worlds. It is not an easy road. I have many friends who have never made it past the Regionals, so getting the number 1 seed was a big deal for me.
Orinda –CA (August 23, 2010) – Eric Jones, 51, won the district 8 regional qualifier and will compete in the senior division at the 2010 RE/MAX World Long Drive Championship this coming October.
Jones, who hit the ball 385 yards, will be joined by Nayo Garcia from Phoenix, Arizona, who earned his spot with a drive of 377 yards. Also qualifying to compete in the senior division in October, were Tomislav Kralj from Pleasanton, CA and Lance Reader, from Tempe, Arizona, who a battled their way out of the losers bracket to earn the final two slots.
The four qualifiers were selected from a field of 56 who competed in the Western Regional Championship on Sunday August 22nd in Mesquite, Nevada on the championship grid that will host the World Championships in October.
Jones, a former world long drive champion in the senior division and a PGA professional with a master’s degree in sport psychology, competed earlier this year at a local qualifier in Pleasanton, CA to earn his spot at the District 8 Regional Qualifier.
Each year an excess of 10,000 competitors attempt to qualify for the RE/MAX Finals. These qualification events occur at approximately 300 plus sites around the globe. The 2010 RE/MAX Finals qualifying kicked off March 25-26 at the Diamond in the Desert Classic in Mesquite, Nevada on the Championship Grid.
The RE/MAX World Long Drive Championship powered by Dicks Sporting Goods evolved out of the National Long Drive Championship, which began in 1975. It has grown from a mostly low-key event to one that includes golfers from virtually every corner of the world.
Competitors come from more than 19 different countries, and vie for a purse worth over $450,000. The RE/MAX World Long Drive Finals are tape-delayed to air each year during the Christmas season on ESPN and ESPN2 and have become a holiday tradition.
This year marks the Sixteenth year that RE/MAX has sponsored the event. In the early years, drives of 325 yards gave hitters a chance at finishing in the money. Today, hitters typically need to drive the ball at least 350 to 360 yards to advance to the qualifying rounds and 400 yards has become a common yardage during competition.
About Eric Jones
Eric Jones played college golf at Stanford University and later served as an assistant coach for the Junior varsity team. He’s the 2003 Re/Max World Long Drive Senior Champion, and has competed in the World Championship finals each of the last 7 years, notching three top-3 finishes. Eric is a PGA Class A Professional who also holds a Master’s degree in Sport Psychology. As founder of the Eric Jones Golf Academy he has been recognized nationally for his innovative approach to instruction and has been named Northern California’s PGA Teacher of the Year as well as Horton Smith PGA Educator of the Year.
He is the author of The 5 Keys To Distance as well as multiple best-selling golf books on Amazon.
About Eric Jones Golf
Jones developed his Golf Academy in 2008 as a comprehensive tool for helping students play confident, consistent golf faster and enjoy the game more.
Jones defines Target Centered Golf as the art of playing golf with automaticity, allowing the natural athlete to emerge through the mind of imagination with the target as the central focus of the swing.
His online courses, which can be found at www.iGolfU.com, cover real world solutions from his own Golf Coach Program and touch on everything from how to hit it longer and more consistently to putting, chipping, pitching and bunker play; scoring-skill development, shot-making, self-management, game management and course management; and how to play in the zone more often…and not just by accident.
As one of the few PGA reaching professionals formerly trained in both swing mechanics and sport psychology, Eric believes that the mechanical and mental sides of the game should not be separated because that is not the way we play golf.
As his teaching practice has evolved it’s become clear to Jones that golfers benefit most when the best of both worlds are combined. Sometimes students benefit most from a mental shift, sometimes from mechanical change. The key is to put the right solution in front of the student at the right time.
About iGolU
