The story of how Tony Finau once hit a 500 hundred yard drive and had a putt for an albatross

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It has been a little while since Tony Finau was one of the longest hitters on the PGA Tour.

Tony Finau has become one of the best iron players on the PGA Tour, with the 35-year-old second for strokes gained with his approaches to the green during the 2024 season. Meanwhile, he was 34th for driving distance, having averaged 308.4 yards off the tee throughout the year.

But Finau certainly has the potential to send the ball a long way.

He was in the top 10 for distance on the PGA Tour from 2016 – the year of his first victory – to 2019. And he has not really lost a lot of distance in the years since.

When Tony Finau hit a 500 yard drive in practice

However, perhaps the American has a lot more in the tank than many realise. Asked by Golf.com in 2020 about the longest drive he had ever hit, Finau suggested that he once left himself with a putt for albatross while practicing with his brother.

“My brother and I both hit it at the same time, over 500 yards. About 520 yards, it was in Utah. I was playing a par five and I’d say maybe a club and a half, two clubs downwind, and I just hit this drive down the middle of the fairway,” he said.

“I jump in the cart with my brother and we both head down the fairway and we get to about where we think it should be and it’s not there. So we drive up a little further and we start panicking like, man where did our balls go? Looking around, we look up in the distance and both of the balls, I was right on the front of the green and my brother was in the middle of the green.

“So we both drove a par five in Utah over 500 yards.”

The longest drives on the PGA Tour in 2024

Of course, Finau not only benefitted from the wind direction, but Utah also boasts one of the highest average elevations of any state in the country.

And the golfing world saw what the change of elevation can do at the BMW Championship at Castle Pines this year, when some players – including Scottie Scheffler – seemed to struggle to get to grips with the different distances shots would travel in the Colorado skies.

Nevertheless, it is still a remarkable achievement. For context, the longest drive on the PGA Tour in 2024 came from Max Homa, who sent the ball 477 yards at The Sentry back in January. Almost the entire top 10 for the year came from that tournament.

Finau himself is 30th on the list for his 426-yard drive at The Sentry.