Durango native Sean Johnson’s crowning achievement in his professional athletic career was nearly two years ago, but it doesn’t feel like it to him.
On August 11, 2024, Johnson became the World Long Drive World Champion in Atlanta, driving his golf ball 411 yards for victory, a yard longer than second-place Jack Smith. Nearly two years later, it doesn’t feel like it was yesterday for Johnson, but it doesn’t feel like two years ago. Johnson said it feels like it was months ago.
That championship was in the past, and there’s not that pressure on Johnston to achieve that anymore. There’s also not pressure on Johnson to defend his title after he fell short of doing that last season. So now, Johnson’s ready to show he can do it again as the 2026 world championship from Oct. 14-17 in Sparks, Nevada, approaches.
“It’s been a really good season so far ... I gained a couple miles an hour of ball speed, and have been hitting it more accurate than I ever have,” Johnson said. “I've had two events so far, and in both events, I filled up the grid, the landing area, more than I ever have my entire life. So I'm feeling extremely confident with the swing right now.”
Johnson’s confidence in his swing and his results so far this season are very impressive considering where his game was a few months ago. After the world championship last year, Johnson did some ESPN charity events at country clubs around the nation and he injured his wrist. This stopped him from swinging a club for about six weeks.
Once he started slowly ramping up his training in March, he thought his swing looked as bad as it had ever been. He was hooking, slicing balls and had no idea what he was doing. So he focused on his training and reinvented his swing. Johnson got his hands higher to give him more leverage and that led to more ball speed. Johnson got back into competition and won the WLD Palm Beach event on June 13, his first world long drive regular season victory.
“I pretty much train like I'm still a baseball player ... there is still things that you can do in the weight room that I use a cable row machine for that can really help you embrace certain aspects of the swing,” Johnson said. “I'm still working on trying to leverage my lead leg a little bit ... It's kind of like a row with a squat, so I extend my arm and drop down into my lead leg, and then explode back into a row.”
Heading into the world championship, Johnson feels like there are 10 players in the world long drive scene who can take the title. The world championship will be on a golf course, so Johnson expects the grids the players have to hit into for their drives to still count to be smaller. This means that accuracy will be just as important as power.
Despite his desire to win another title and become world No. 1, Johnson knows he has a lot of other great things going in his life. He lives in Charlotte and works as a performance baseball coach at Trend Athletics. At 32, he hopes he has another eight years left in his long drive career of hitting 400-yard bombs.
“I’m really proud and happy to say I love my job,” Johnson said. “I'm happy to go to work every single day. I love my life right now. It's a good life, hitting golf balls and helping kids get better.”
bkelly@durangoherald.com
