Sean Fister knows the exhilaration of hitting a golf ball farther than anyone else on earth.
The three-time World Long Drive champion doesn’t expect his pupils to reach those same heights and lengths, but he does want to help them hit it as long and as straight as they are capable.
That’s what he’s been doing for the past five years at the Dustin Johnson Golf School at TPC Myrtle Beach.
The man known as ‘The Beast’ has settled into his post-long drive life as a golf instructor on the Grand Strand.
“When I started teaching regular golfers I had to get over the hurdle that they were thinking I was trying to make them a long driver,” Fister said. “That’s not what I’m trying to do. I’m just trying to get you better, and hit the ball as far and as straight as you can. If you want to hit the ball farther I’ve got a few things that might help you that I figured out.”
Becoming the best, and The Beast
Fister, 63, never hit a golf ball until he was out of college.
The Missouri native attended the University of Florida as a pole vaulter and decathlete.
He was a candidate to qualify for the 1988 U.S. Olympic trials. “I had a shot at that, a slim shot but it was a shot,” he said.
He went to Virginia to train for several months in 1986 and had a vaulting accident that he said resulted in a broken back. He had to give up vaulting and track.
“After I recuperated enough to start getting active again, I played golf with my younger brother who had just been released by the Atlanta Braves [organization],” Fister said. “I drove a par-4 the first day I ever played, flew it on the green 345 yards. He was like, ‘Dude, you don’t know how far that is.’ I was like, ‘I don’t know.’ I didn’t know what I was doing.”
He soon did, however.
He won the World Long Drive Championship in 1995, 2001 and 2005 to become the face and nickname of the sport in the U.S. He said his longest drive in competition was 455 yards, which he accomplished twice, in Toronto and Mesquite, Nevada.
He was the only American to win the world title three times until Kyle Berkshire won his third and fourth titles in 2021 and ’23.
“In long driving, the biggest thrills come when you beat everybody else, all the long drivers,” Fister said. “If you can walk out of the competition with your head held high to say, ‘I beat everybody,’ that is a euphoric feeling, when you’ve beaten the best in the world and become a world champion at anything.”
Through pole vaulting, Fister learned to appreciate small gains, which he carried with him to long driving.
“You start off at 9 feet or whatever, and you improve by inches,” Fister said. “You set goals, like ‘I want to jump another inch higher,’ and it’s these incremental inches, then finally you’re at 17 feet and somebody’s like, ‘What does that feel like?’ It feels like an inch higher than 16-11. You don’t notice it.”
He received a call from the White House congratulating him on a world championship victory, then became a fairly regular playing partner of president Bill Clinton. “I played with him enough that when he was interviewed he told everybody his favorite playing partner was Sean Fister, and that was kind of cool,” Fister said.
Fister is 6-foot-5 and competed at about 250-260 pounds. “I was never a flat belly. I drank a lot of beer and stuff, but I was strong,” Fister said.
Fister compiled all of his long drive notes to create tips that he separated into categories such as address, takeaway, backswing, downswing, etc., and created a laminated wallet-sized notebook that he carried with him and called his long drive bible.
During an interview with Golf Digest reporter Guy Yocom for a multi-page article, Yocom suggested he write a book based on the tips and his accumulated knowledge, which he did with Golf Digest writer Matthew Rudy.
The Long Drive Bible, which includes Fister’s 10 Commandments of Distance, was published in 2008. “It did really well for about an hour and a half, and then it was normal,” Fister quipped
Fister said he’s occasionally approached at the DJ school by people looking for him to sign the book.
After he retired from long drive competitions, Fister played on a celebrity golf tour and played in other celebrity events.
He also founded the Fister Golf Company, primarily to design and manufacture high-performance drivers, with a plan to expand to woods and irons.
He initially created a driver and thought he produced enough for three months of inventory, but he said he sold out in 28 days. It took a couple months to get more drivers.
“By then my momentum was [gone],” Fister said.
An investor from Charleston, who owned a shipyard, offered to keep the company afloat so Fister moved to Charleston and into a building that he renovated into a research and development, and golf teaching facility with hitting bays, a golf simulator and launch monitor.
The company and golf school were open for nearly five years until 2015. “We just ran out of money. It’s expensive to get into the golf business,” Fister said. “I just didn’t have enough to sustain it.”
His own style of teaching
Already in the Palmetto State, Fister looked north to the Myrtle Beach area and found the DJ school, which is operated by Johnson’s former college coach at Coastal Carolina University, Allen Terrell.
“I thought to myself, if I’m going to be in the golf business, what better place to be than Myrtle Beach because it’s the golf capital of the world?” Fister said. “I researched all the places around, and they’re all very nice, but this one stands alone. This is different, because this was built by a tour player, a No. 1 golfer in the world player, and his coach. . . . This is tour level. I’ve been to PGA Tour facilities, and this is tour level.
“It’s the best facility in the state of South Carolina as far as I’m concerned. I like to be in the best place, and this is the best.”
Fister initially wanted to go into instruction to teach others how to add distance to their games, and do it with accuracy. Long drive competitors must drive the ball relatively straight in order to hit a grid to have the drive measured and count in the competition.
“I researched how to hit the ball far, but straight,” Fister said. “Because if you hit the ball a long way but it doesn’t hit the fairway it doesn’t count, so nobody’s going to know anything about you. I did a ton of research on how to hit the ball accurately long, and I learned a lot.”
He participates in the DJ school’s clinics and academies, and his weekly schedule includes teaching youth groups a few days a week, ladies groups and giving individual lessons.
“I love it all. I love teaching and sharing what I know,” Fister said. “That’s what I enjoy doing.
“I get emails [and texts] from people all the time telling me how much better they’re playing, and that makes me feel awesome . . . That’s very rewarding to me. Having an impact on people, that’s pretty cool.”
He has appeared numerous times on Golf Channel’s “Morning Drive” and “Academy Live” shows, and has been an instruction content provider and swing analyst for Golf Channel and Golf Digest.
“I learned by doing,” Fister said. “I didn’t learn it in a book, I didn’t study the programs and all that. I’m homegrown. So I have a different take on things that will maybe work for some people and maybe not others. But my goal with each client is to try to get them to hit the ball farther and straighter and swing within themselves and hit it solid.
“I’m happy because I’m making an impact on other people. It’s a challenge to get people better, and I accept that challenge. I like it.”
Between pole vaulting and long drive, Fister has suffered a number of Injuries. He said he has had five back surgeries, surgeries on both shoulders, and knee surgery, and also broke 35 bones in a foot while pole vaulting and has a plate in his neck.
“I don’t play a lot of golf anymore because it’s too painful,” Fister said.
Fister is a father of three now adult children. His daughter, Paige, played on the Coastal Carolina women’s rugby team and graduated this year. She is enlisting in the Army. One son is a South Carolina graduate and Army Ranger, and his other son is a master auto mechanic in Charleston.
“I’m very proud of them,” Fister said.
He loves being in the Myrtle Beach golf industry, teaching and working with his pupils.
“People are never not in a good mood when they come in for a golf lesson,” he said. “Anything to do with golf, they’re always in a good mood. A lot of people in business can’t say that with customers. When you’re dealing with people in golf, they’re almost always in a great mood and they’re looking forward to getting better. And that’s what I like to do.”
