Lakewood residents Andrew Eigner, Monica Lieving crushing it on World Long Drive tour

For two Coloradans, there’s only one option when stepping on the tee box: Bomb it.

Andrew Eigner and Monica Lieving will be competing at the World Long Drive Championships at Bobby Jones Golf Course in Atlanta starting Wednesday. Eigner, 28, was the tour’s top-ranked amateur after four wins this summer capped by winning the amateur world championship in August. He’s ranked No. 42 in the open division and is making his pro debut this week.

Lieving, 25, is the No. 2 women’s player in the world amid a breakout rookie season. Lieving won the tour’s first two events of the year, held the No. 1 ranking for a while and is one of the favorites to win the women’s title this weekend.

For the Lakewood residents and close friends, it’s been an intertwined ascension in a niche sport as they each strive to be the longest off the tee in the world.

“As an 11-year-old, I remember watching long drive on ESPN and wanting to be the world champion in long drive in the open division, and that dream remains reachable,” Eigner said. “I still have to go further in the process to really give myself a great chance at that, but I believe that I will at some point. This season has been (a springboard). And for Monica, I believe that title is inevitable.”

Eigner’s gone all-in on his dream, quitting his engineering job to do charity golf outings and play on the World Long Drive tour full-time. He first tried a WLD event in 2012, but it wasn’t until last year that he started to seriously apply himself to the sport.

“A couple years ago, he didn’t really care about actually competing on tour, because he was just content with doing the charity stuff,” explained Eigner’s coach, Dillon Fay. “But now, he has pushed the chips all in the middle to go compete and carve out time in his schedule, and even sacrificing money (from hosting charity events) to go compete.

“He’ll be the best in the world, I have no doubt. There’s no reason why he can’t. And it could be the greatest bottom-to-top transformation of a competitor in the history of the sport. He’s not a big guy — he’s 5-9 and he’s strong — but in a sport where (height) matters he will win a world title, because he won’t settle for less.”

In his career, Eigner’s longest competitive drive is 451 yards, and his longest-ever came during a charity event when he blasted a 525-yard shot at Flying Horse North that drove the back of a par-5 green.

He’s now seeing results in advanced metrics. Since he began working with Fay a year ago, his ball speed (the exit velocity of the shot off the tee) is up significantly from around 200 miles per hour to 215.5 entering the world championships. His club speed also increased, currently sitting at 145.5 mph.

That still puts Eigner behind most of the top pros, whose ball speed is usually 220 mph and above, but Fay said Eigner’s ability to hit clutch shots will be his differentiator in Atlanta. To win the amateur world title, the southpaw hit a 382-yard drive to advance on his final shot of the quarterfinal round and then a 384-yard drive on his last shot in the finals to win in dramatic fashion.

Fay said Eigner is a “darkhorse” to win the open championship.

“Over about 220, 225 miles per hour, the ball starts giving diminishing returns where it’s really hard to control the flight and the spin,” Fay explained. “So Andrew’s in a position where he can still be competitive if he’s throwing up 215, because even with the speed gap, the optimization of the ball means a lot more.”

While Eigner’s goal is to make it to the Round of 16, Lieving has emerged as one of the female faces of the sport less than two years after one of her drives crossed Eigner’s path at Arrowhead Golf Club.

An Illinois native who played Division I golf at Arkansas State, Lieving was playing in a company tournament that day — her first time touching her clubs in over six months. During that 2021 round, she hit a drive about 320 yards and the ball happened to land right next to the green, and beside Eigner, an Indiana native who was working a charity event on the adjacent tee box.

“The first thing I did when I saw him was apologize,” Lieving recalled. “The first thing he said was, ‘Do you always hit it that far?’ Then he told me he wanted to talk to me after the round. I found it interesting, and subtly in the back of my mind, I thought about how when I was younger I’d watch long drive on the Golf Channel with my dad. It was something I was familiar with, but hadn’t thought much about it.”

When the two finally met up at Family Sports Center a few months later, Lieving’s readings stunned Eigner.

That day at the heated range, Lieving’s advanced metrics (168 mph ball speed and 116 club head speed) already would’ve made her a Top 10 women’s player in the world. Eigner pushed her to start competing. After a growth year in 2022 in which Lieving figured out her equipment, she got her own coach and honed her technique, and has been a breakout star as a rookie.

Currently, Lieving’s longest drive at elevation is 375 yards during a WLD event at the Bigfoot Turf Farm. She’s hit 345 yards at sea level, and her current ball speed PR is 183.3 mph, with hopes to soon get to 190. That would put her in rarified air for a woman.

“I believe I have what it takes to be a world champion,” Lieving said. “I just have to stay confident, execute and stay true to my game, because I know that potential is in there.”

While Lieving and Eigner try to crush their way to the top, they’re doing a financial balancing act in a sport where sponsorships are rare and competitors often pay their own way around tour. For Eigner, hosting over 100 charity events a year has become his bread-and-butter, while Lieving is a Denver-area realtor who balances her tour schedule with her business.

Their roundabout journeys are commonplace in a sport that has few full-time pros. The first long drive championship was held in 1974, but the sport didn’t get into the national consciousness until the 2000s, when for two decades the event then known as the Re/Max World Long Drive Championship was broadcast on ESPN. It later became the World Long Drive Championship and moved to Golf Channel. When the pandemic hit, it became the Professional Long Drivers Association, and has since morphed back into WLD.

Along that evolution, the sport’s developed a brand it self-describes as golf at “full throttle.” WLD features drivers that are USGA legal, but are a couple inches longer than the average club.

“I’ve never met a golfer who said they hit it too far,” joked Lieving’s coach and WLD longtimer Bobby Peterson. “Golf is hard enough, but long drive is this intense pursuit of how far you can push your body to gain speed and power and distance. It’s more adrenaline-packed than golf is, which is keep calm and stay in the moment, and that can be fun. But I never get the thrill from playing golf that I do in long drive.”

Besides Lieving and Eigner, two other locals could make noise at the world championships.

Josh Cassaday, a notable trick shot artist in the charity golf world, is ranked No. 65 in the open division and capable of a deep run with a 220-plus mph ball speed. Plus, Jared Foerter is ranked No. 52, and has the raw talent to be in the mix despite a 210-mph ball speed.

Vegas favorite Kyle Berkshire is ranked No. 1 and has won three of the last four years, and No. 2 Martin Borgmeier is the defending champ. The final three rounds of match play for the open division and women’s division will be broadcast on Golf Channel on Sunday, Oct. 22 starting at noon MT. Eigner, a regular Joe in the sport turned bonafide competitor, hopes to be among the heavyweights hammering drives that day.

“I wouldn’t consider myself someone who has naturally picked this up or someone who has a knack for hitting the ball far,” Eigner said. “I’ve overcome a lot of bad habits in my swing by working hard, and it’s taken a long time to realize those improvements. But that’s what is really rewarding about this sport.”

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