Long Gone: Texan Rips 750-Yard Drive

SAN ANTONIO - Eat your heart out, John Daly.

Those who think the former PGA champion is the longest hitter in golf, think again.

Make room - lots of room - for Carl Cooper, a 31-year-old struggling touring pro from Houston.

Cooper got off a freak drive that hit a paved cart path and eventually came to rest somewhere between 750 and 800-plus yards from the tee Friday in the second round of the Texas Open.

It was one of the longest drives in pro golf history. But it was very expensive. It cost Cooper a double bogey, and possibly his pro tour career.

Cooper had a 4-iron and an 8-iron coming back to the 456-yard, par-4 third hole at the Oak Hills Country Club course.

"Darnedest thing you ever saw," said his father, Dean Cooper. "If there hadn't been a fence out there, it'd still be going."

"Bizarre," said Glenn Tait, a PGA Tour rules official who was on the scene. "Two inches to the right and it would have been out of bounds."

Tait said the drive was not measured, "but from where I made the ruling, giving him a drop from the cart path behind the 12th green, it had to be a minimum of 750 yards or more."

Cooper's father said, "Some people out there said it was more than 800 yards."

The San Antonio Light said Cooper's caddy measured the drive at 787 yards. The newspaper did not identify the caddy. Cooper's father said he knew the caddy only as "Jack." Neither the player nor the caddy was available for comment.

The PGA Tour keeps no records of long drives.

Cooper used "one of those big drivers," his father said, to launch his drive some 300 yards off the third tee.

It hit on a downhill cart path and followed that paved path past the fifth green, beyond the sixth tee and eventually rolled to a stop behind the 12th green.

"He played a provisional ball (off the tee)," his father said, "but when they found his (original) ball, he had to play that one."

Cooper hit a 4-iron second shot over trees back toward the third green. He wasn't even close. It was near the fifth green. His third went beyond the third green. A chip to 20 feet and two putts completed the double bogey.

Cooper, who played the South African tour before joining the American circuit three years ago, shot 72. He missed the cut for the final two rounds at 141, two strokes over the cutoff figure of 139.

Cooper entered this final full-field official tournament as the 188th man on the season's money-winning list, so he failed to retain his playing rights for the 1993 season.

Only the top 125 money-winners are exempt for play next year.