EQUIPMENT
2012
MAKING OF A THE BOMBER
Long hitters in golf know they’re long. Still, they often don’t know how much so until they push the limit. For PGA Tour ookie Jason Kokrak the defining moment came a few years ago while playing for the Xavier Musketeers on the 525-yard, par- 5 ninth hole at Oasis GC in Loveland, Ohio. “I took a line no one else did,” says Kokrak. “The hole dog-
legs right around a driving range. I saw that if I hit it far enough it
would run through the range, past the out-of-bounds and be OK. I
hit it as hard as I could, got through to the fairway and had a wedge
in. That’s when I knew I had an advantage over every other player.”
Kokrak used that advantage last year to claim the Nationwide
Tour’s distance crown at an eye-popping 318.6 yards, win a pair of
events and earn a PGA Tour card by finishing fourth on the devel-
opmental tour’s money list. “He’s a solid player with a surprisingly
good short game,” says Danny Lee, who played the Nationwide with
Kokrak. “But mostly, he can really bomb it.”
Kokrak’s bombs make a decidedly different sound when club
and ball collide. Yet unlike the grunt-and-groan swings of long-
Powering his way from obscurity to a breakout
season on the Nationwide Tour, Jason Kokrak
looks to wow fans, peers on the game’s big stage
BY E. MICHAEL JOHNSON
PHOTOGRAPHS BY J.D. CUBAN
