Gold Coast golfer Matt Stubbs off to US for World Long Drive tour

This big-hitting Gold Coast golfer smashes the ball almost 400m at speeds of over 250km/h. And he’s about to put his talent to the test in golf’s version of cricket’s Big Bash.

He might be the son of the “coach whisperer”, but big-hitting Gold Coast golfer Matt Stubbs is set to make a big noise on the world long drive circuit.

The 30-year-old, whose father Bradley has been a controversial mind coach to top sports mentors including Kevin Walters, smashes the ball almost 400m at speeds of over 250km/h – further and faster than even the world’s top professional golfers.

Gold Coast golfer Matt Stubbs is off to the US World Long Drive championships. Picture: Nigel Hallett

He and fellow Gold Coaster Seb Twaddell, 22, head to the US this weekend for the World Long Drive tour, golf’s answer to cricket’s Big Bash. The US$1.1m (A$1.63m) tour, which starts this month in the Nevada desert city of Mesquite near Las Vegas and finishes with the world championships in Atlanta in October, sees big-hitting golfers trying to slam the ball as far as they can within a grid.

Stubbs has been playing golf his whole life but he took up the long drive game last year.

“I entered a local long drive event and won it by an absurd margin,” he said.

Seven months on, he’s one of the top five fastest hitters in the world and regularly belts the ball 380m at speeds as high as 250km/h.

He and Twaddell train 40 to 50 hours a week, both on the golf course and in the gym as well as spring training to build explosive power, with world No. 1 Kyle Berkshire in their sights.

“All the other long drive athletes have mentally restricted themselves to thinking he can’t be beat, but a couple of underdogs from Australia are going to go over and push as hard as we can to try and knock him off,” Stubbs said.