How big is he? He stands 6 feet 5 inches tall and weighs 300 pounds. He shakes your hand and makes you feel like a child. You pray he doesn’t decide to use any grip pressure.
How strong is he? He regularly crushes the faces of drivers when hitting golf balls. And he regularly crushes golf balls distances of 400 yards.
Osterman’s day job is assistant greens superintendent at Mid South Golf Club, where he works long hours. His hobby is competing on the Professional Long Drive Association where he hits golf balls a long way.
Hitting golf balls long distances has always come natural to Osterman. He’s the dream captain of any scramble team. But he didn’t’ really get serious about utilizing his talent until two years ago when he joined the LDA. That’s when what came natural became a passion.
Osterman hasn’t won any championships yet or any of those big checks that the winners are always being presented on television. But he has become one of the hitters to be reckoned with when the professionals gather for a contest.
“The Monster” hopes to rectify that omission on his resume in October when he travels to Mesquite, Nev., for the Re/Max World Long Drive Championship. He earned the right to compete there in a qualifying event held at Carver’s Fall Driving Range in Fayetteville a couple of weeks ago and his success there has him inspired.
Osterman made his presence felt two years ago when he hit a ball 401 yards in a qualifying tournament at Carver’s Fall, but he couldn’t advance past the district tournament that year. His best finish since joining the association has been 10th place and a check for $1,500. But he feels his moment in the sun — or at least in the bright lights of The Golf Channel cameras, could be nearing. In Mesquite, he’ll not only be competing for pride, but for a first-place check of $80,000.
He earned that right the hard way, by blasting a ball 398 yards on his final try to beat out Brett Martin of Brandon, Fla., by a yard. His first five balls had come down out of bounds.
“I definitely feel now that I’m somebody the other guys are worried about when I walk on the tee,” he said. “I’ve beaten some big-name guys in qualifying events. When I first started, I would walk up on the tee and worry about hitting with this guy or that. But now I feel I belong.”
So, how does it feel to know that you’re going to hitting a golf ball that could result in an $80,000 payday?
“It still hasn’t sunk in that I’m one of the top 96 qualifiers in the whole world,” he said. “I mean from everywhere — South Africa and Sweden. I guess it’ll seem real when I start making travel arrangements.”
The World Championship is scheduled for Oct. 14-18 and the winner will have to advance through several stages to reach the finals. The contestants are allowed to hit as many as six balls and, to count, a ball has to land within a marked off area or grid.
“When I’m practicing, I work on rhythm, flexibility and timing,” Osterman said. “The thing to do is just make solid contact. It isn’t how big you are or how hard you swing. You do want to swing hard, but still not try to overpower the ball. You want to feel that you’re swinging about 80 percent.”
And how does it feel when you’ve caught a ball flush enough to travel 400 yards?
“It’s kind of hard to explain,” Osterman said. “Sometimes when you think you’ve really hit one it doesn’t go anywhere. Other times you don’t feel you caught it and it takes off. It’s kind of like hitting home runs. The ones you don’t really feel go the longest. The 398-yard drive that I qualified with felt like the driver face had caved in, but it just launched the ball out there.
“I try to swing as hard as I can and still stay within myself.”
There is no payoff for winning a qualifying event and Osterman is paying his own expenses to travel to Nevada. But he is beginning to attract some sponsors and is happy to have some help paying the bills.
“Bang Golf, a company in California, has placed me on its long drive team,” he said. “Bang makes driver heads and club components and they supply me free. That helps a lot because driver heads and shafts are the most expensive items. They range from around $70 to $100 each. Accu-Flex is supplying me with some shafts.
“William Stalstiz of Just Golf, a local guy, puts the clubs together for me when he’s available, and Match Play of Pinehurst does it when he’s not. Mark Westbrook of Broad Street Bar & Grill in Southern Pines has been my main sponsor since I got started and some of the Mid South members and other local investors are a real help.”
How far does Osterman hope to go with his long driving?
“As far as I can,” he said. “I’m still young at 36 and I’m just having fun with this. I’m meeting a lot of great people and, who knows, I may someday be the longest hitter in the world.”
