In golf, they say you drive for show and putt for dough.
I’m not sure about that, but without a doubt Lisa Joyce was putting on quite a show Wednesday on the practice range at White Pines Golf Club in Bensenville.
After just a few warm-up swings, the Fenwick junior began ripping high, deep drives that routinely one-hopped off a chain-link fence 265 yards away. As is also routine when Joyce has a driver in her hands, people started staring, no doubt wondering how a 5-foot-1-inch teenage girl could pound it that far.
The effervescent Joyce loves the attention and loves hitting the long ball even more. For the last five years, she competed in the junior division of the RE/MAX World Long Drive Championship.
In 2003 she won a world title at age 13 with a 260-yard drive in Mesquite, Nev. Last year she set a junior girls world record with a 315-yard drive in the semifinals near Ft. Worth, though she placed fourth in the finals.
Lisa seemed almost born to be a golfer. Her father, Marty, is the senior PGA instructor at White Pines, an assistant coach at Fenwick and a successful long-drive competitor himself.
Lisa, though, played only occasionally and without real passion until she was 12. That’s when the RE/MAX event added a junior division, and a driver suddenly started to look much more appealing.
“I always dreamed of being in long drive,” she said. “I saw my Dad compete for so many years, and it looked like a blast.
“When they started the junior division, it blew my mind.”
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With little preparation, she entered a local event and hit a 192-yard winning drive. Within months she was close to 250 yards, and the following year she won her world crown. She was a runner-up the next two years.
Lisa’s passion for long driving quickly spread to regular golf as well.
“I love golf. It’s so much fun,” she said. “It truly teaches you discipline, and it gives me momentum in life.”
She has qualified for the state girls golf tournament all three of her years at Fenwick. She finished back in the pack as a freshman and sophomore but was sixth in Class AA with a 36-hole score of 156 last October at Stone Creek Golf Club near Carbondale.
Still, Lisa regards the regional title she won last fall with a 74 over a strong field at Cog Hill Golf Club as her greatest golf accomplishment.
It doesn’t hurt, of course, that she can drive the green on short par-4s. Beyond providing great birdie opportunities, that kind of power can unnerve competitors, especially those who haven’t seen her play before.
This only makes the ability to hit it a mile more of a kick for Lisa.
“It’s the adrenaline rush,” she said. “I know there are a lot of good girl golfers, and almost every one of them has a tremendous short game.
“What I love is to be able to step to the tee and outdrive them by 40 or 50 yards because it gives me an edge.”
It also can lead to a few comedic moments, like when competitors wonder why she doesn’t hit her tee shot when the group in front is 260 yards down the fairway.
“Sometimes they look at me like, ‘Aren’t you going to go yet?’
” Lisa said, “and I go, ‘I have to wait.’
“
She has natural power but works hard on her game with her father and hard on her strength in the gym on a series of specially designed exercises. She also has to work on accuracy because to count in RE/MAX events a drive must stay within a 40-yard-wide grid.
Marty Joyce said Lisa used to try to overpower the ball but has learned to shorten her backswing, which has helped her in long driving and golf.
“She’s under control now,” Marty said. “Her potential for the game is tremendous.
“She has proved she can play with the best.”
Lisa will participate in the RE/MAX women’s division this year. If she gets through local and district qualifying, she will compete for the world title in late October in Mesquite.
Long driving has made her a bit of a celebrity. She has appeared on ESPN in the RE/MAX championship and has conducted golf clinics.
She also is part of the show in Marty’s many trick-shot and long-drive exhibitions. Lisa mainly gives tips on long driving but sometimes swings a few of Marty’s trick clubs, including one with a hammer on the end.
Her biggest goal is to play college golf in a good Division I program, and she hopes to compete on the LPGA Tour someday as well. Even if she achieves the latter goal, though, she insists that long-drive competition will stay a part of her game.
“I’ll always be in long drive,” she said. “It really got me started in the game of golf.
“It has helped make me who I am.”
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