Schuman’s Driving Ambition : Local Golfer Goes the Distance as Top Long-Ball Hitter

At the end of the practice range at Van Nuys Golf Course, at the 250-yard marker, a wire mesh fence towers more than 60 feet into the air, snatching a few hard-hit golf balls out of the air before they can sail out onto the golf course and whomp a golfer on the head. Two-thirds of the way up the fence, two workers standing in the bucket of a front-loading tractor are making repairs to the wire mesh.

On most days, the men would be very safe. A golf ball hitting the fence on the fly would translate, after the roll, into a 300-yard drive, which is only a dream to all but a few golfers. The leading distance hitter on the PGA Tour at the moment is Tom Purtzer, with an average blast of 275.3 yards.

But on this day, as the two workers mend the fence, they unknowingly have what must be one of the most dangerous jobs in America. For at this moment, 250 yards behind them, a man is slipping the wool headcover off his driver, a fearsome-looking club with a slate-gray steel head and a long, graphite and boron shaft.

And as the fence menders work, Cary “Smoke” Schuman of Sherman Oaks, who has legitimately--not off the rim of the Grand Canyon or across a glacier--whacked a golf ball farther than any man in the world, is about to begin bombing practice.

Fortunately for the two men working 250 yards away and 40 feet off the ground, they are not in Schuman’s range. Unless he took out a four-iron. But with the driver in his hands today, they have little to fear, because Schuman’s accurate rockets are still rising as they buzz over the top of the 60-foot fence.

So just how far can this 6-2, 215-pound, 37-year-old guy hit a golf ball? Well, no one really knows. He is, however, in the 1990 edition of the Guinness Book of World Records for mashing a golf ball--at sea level on a flat course with only a very slight breeze at his back--411 yards, 34 1/4 inches in a PGA-sanctioned contest. He did that early in 1989 in Honolulu.

And while that blast has helped Schuman in the wallet with lucrative sponsorship deals from Nike and other companies, it was not his longest drive ever. Maybe not even in the top 10.

He won the world long-drive championship a year earlier with a launch of 416 yards. And a course marshal at the Van Nuys course was astounded one day several years ago when he watched a Schuman drive clear the 250-yard fence at the course, carry over two fairways and stop against a chain-link fence five feet from Vanowen Street.

The distance from the practice tee where Schuman stood that day to the busy street where his ball stopped was just a shade under 500 yards.

“There was a pretty stiff wind that day,” said Schuman, a scratch golfer.

No amount of wind, however, could explain such shots. Neither could the special driver Schuman designed and uses, although it is to an average golf club what a Ferrari is to a mule.

As a designer for the Pro Select golf company in Illinois, Schuman, with engineers’ help, developed the CS411 (Cary Schuman, 411 yards) with distance in mind. And when Schuman added more than four inches to the normal 43 1/2-inch club shaft to create his custom long-driving weapon, he added about 10 or 15 yards to his drives.

Which means that with a normal club, a club available to any golfer, Schuman would only be capable of 400-yard drives. In a game where 240-yard tee shots are the norm, Schuman’s blasts are freakish.

The remarkable distance comes from a combination of things, Schuman said. His size and strength are major factors. He can bench-press 300 pounds. But some golfers are surely bigger and stronger. The keys, Schuman said, are rhythm and timing, the ability to bring the clubhead speed to its maximum point at precisely the time it makes contact with the ball.

And . . . well, some other factors.

“I studied karate for a long time,” said Schuman, who played golf at San Fernando Valley State College (now Cal State Northridge) for two years and then briefly at UCLA. “That taught me how to focus my thoughts, and that is largely what enables me to hit a ball so far. When you see a little man break a solid board with his hand in karate, that’s focus, putting all your thoughts into that moment of sudden impact and having unwavering confidence that the board will break.

“That’s how I hit a golf ball.”

And with that force, often something did break. Before he helped design and build his current clubs, a shattered driver for Schuman was as common as smog in Los Angeles.

“I broke hardwood persimmon drivers and I broke a lot of metalwood drivers,” he said. “During one six-month stretch about two years ago, I broke 49 drivers.”

He does not break drivers anymore. He does, however, break the spirits of any golfers who might have thought they hit a long ball.

Last year at the Woodley Golf Course in Encino, on the par-five, 518-yard 13th hole, Schuman unloaded a blast that carried over the green, forcing him to chip back onto the putting surface.

“I worked hard to get here,” Schuman said. “I didn’t always hit a ball this far. I worked hard to do this.”

In college he often was outdriven by opponents, he said, including USC’s Craig Stadler. For a decade after college, he worked hard at being an actor and stuntman. He had a role for seven years on the hit television show “Happy Days.” It wasn’t until five years ago that he began a serious quest for golf distance. The karate helped, he said. So did an extensive swimming program, which he claims is the best exercise to build up the muscles used in golf. But mostly, it was dedication, the willingness to work long hours on a practice range, seeking just the right hip movement and shoulder turn that would produce the sharpest impact.

Schuman, who also works as an account manager for the Ticor Title Insurance company in Van Nuys, has found it.

A ball that leaves his clubhead seems to explode off the tee and pass the landing site of an average golfer’s drive in a second. At that point, Schuman’s drives are still boring into the air, still rising and seemingly picking up speed. When the ball eventually settles to the ground, the perspective is hard to come to grips with. Most golfers cannot even see a golf ball 400 yards away.

For his talent and his efforts, Schuman is well-compensated. He estimates that he earns $200,000 a year from the golf business, from his job at Pro Select and his sponsorship deals and the fee he charges for demonstrations and clinics in the art of sending golf balls toward the horizon.

But it is not money that excites him about the big-bang theory of golf. It is just the bang itself.

Several years ago, while giving a clinic in Tokyo, Schuman sent ball after ball over a practice range fence 250 yards away. About 100 yards beyond the fence stood a shiny new office building. With many, many shiny windows. Some of the Japanese golfers at the clinic urged Schuman to go for the building. He politely declined.

A moment later, however, a man stepped forth from the crowd and made his way over to Schuman. Swing away, the man told Schuman. He owned the building.

Schuman, ever the stuntman, obliged and promptly crashed three windows out of the man’s beautiful building.

“Hitting a ball a long way for a golfer is an ego thing,” Schuman said. “It’s a rush of energy and adrenaline. Every time I catch one just right, it’s the greatest feeling in the world.”