He’s Driven, and He Longs for Challenges : Golf: Former bodybuilder and pro wrestler Jerry James will compete in long-driving contest in Colorado this weekend.

This is a warning to those who think they can put a golf ball into orbit: Be certain of your length off the tee before you match drives with Jerry James.

Consider the experience of a couple of local duffers who saw James, a former Mr. California bodybuilder, hitting left-handed drives recently at the David L. Baker Golf Course driving range.

“They see me, a big hulking guy, and one of them says, ‘Want to bet me five bucks that I can out-drive you?”’ James said.

“I said, ‘Well, yes. I guess I’ll bet you $5.’

“So he drove three balls. And then I went to my bag and took out my right-handed driver and drove two balls over the fence. And, he said, “Wait a minute, I thought you were a left-handed guy.’

“Surprise, surprise.”

Surprise, indeed. James, a 31-year-old Costa Mesa resident, claims he can hit the ball farther than anyone in the world, and Friday he will have a chance to prove it. James, who finished 11th last year at the National Longdrive Championships in Boca Raton, Fla., is one of four competitors who will go after a place in the Guinness Book of World Records on a pair of courses near Vail, Colo.

Jack L. Hamm, according to Guinness, has history’s longest drive in a regulated competition at altitude--a 437 yard 2 feet 4 inch blast in Denver in 1989--but that apparently will be in jeopardy Friday--the longest day of the year--at Copper Creek and Mount Massive golf courses, which at more than 9,000 feet above sea level are billed as the highest courses in North America.

On the fledgling World Power Golf Assn. tour--a national series of long-driving contests--James has the best drive of the year--a 351-yard drive in the rain in Orlando in May. During a round of golf, James said, he once carried the green with his tee shot on a 411-yard hole--with a stiff wind at his back.

No doubt, James, at 6 feet 5 and 265 pounds, can hit a golf ball a long way. But long driving is just a means to a desired end for James, who besides being a former bodybuilder was once a professional wrestler and played sparingly for the Oklahoma Outlaws of the short-lived United States Football League.

Ultimately, he would like to be as well known for his touch around the green as for his mammoth tee shots. So he puts in the practice time and enters local golf tournaments, nurturing the hope that one day he will be playing on the PGA Tour.

Although he has been playing golf seriously for only a bit more than a year, James speaks with certainty that he will make it onto the Tour.

“If you believe you can do it, I believe you will do it,” he said. “And I believe I can do almost anything if I need to, and I need to win. It’s just part of my set-up.”

But there is at least one skeptic. Doug Ives, a former sportswriter who owns the a satellite tour called the Golden State tour, said James doesn’t rank highly among the approximately 350 golfers who regularly compete on his tour.

“He looks like he belongs in Venice at Muscle Beach,” Ives said. “But who’s to say he can’t learn the game?”

John Grund, for one, believes James has a decent shot. Grund, a former UCLA golfer who coached the Bruins in 1982 and 83, were was in the same foursome with James at a qualifying tournament for the U.S. Open recently.

Grund says he sees “serious potential” in James and that James is blessed with more than brute strength. What James needs most is tutoring on how to play specific shots--when to reign in his big swing, when to hit his iron instead of a driver.

If James stays dedicated and can manage financially, Grund said, the PGA Tour is a possibility.

“I think it’s not a pipe dream for for Jerry,” Grund said. “(But) he’s a little bit of a longshot.”

A recreational golfer since he was a child growing up in Spring Lake, Mich., James took up the sport seriously upon giving up body building after being named Mr. California in May of 1990.

Although he won the state’s most prestigious amateur prize, James discovered that competitors don’t share the profits with the promoters. He found the promotional value of the award was minimal, and tired of the bodybuilding scene.

“I just took a look around,” James said. “You had hundreds and hundreds of competitors that had no identity. Their only identity was in their bodies and they seemed to me a very shallow bunch of characters. At that point, I put the competitive side of bodybuilding away.”

Golf is the latest of a number of athletic ventures undertaken by James, who lives near South Coast Plaza with his wife, Debra, and two children, 15-month-old Justin and Taylor, who was born on Memorial Day.

James started lifting weights as a 190-pound 17-year-old, and gradually bodybuilding turned into an obsession and led to using doctor-prescribed steroids during his 20s.

After moving to Orange County, he attended a USFL tryout in Santa Ana and was signed by the Oklahoma Outlaws as a 280-pound defensive end, even though he had never played any organized football. James said his size and his 4.85-second time in the 40-yard dash made him a project the Outlaws couldn’t pass up.

He spent a season--mostly as a pass rusher on third and long--in the USFL but was cut after the Outlaws merged with the Arizona Wranglers. He then moved to Portland, Ore., and became a professional wrestler, using such names as Jerry Samson and Agent Orange.

He returned to Southern California for its greater opportunities in body building. After his disillusionment, he rediscovered golf.

“I’ve taken my same tenacity in bodybuilding over into golf,” James said. “It’s the willingness to put yourself out on the practice tee every day for at least a couple of hours.”

But breaking into golf is not without its frustrations. James worries that his past won’t endear him to the golf community.

“I was a wild guy, a barroom brawler, you name it,” he said. “But all that is in the past.

“It’s a hard fraternity to break into. But I have a niche and that’s driving the ball longer than anyone else in the world.”