Mike Austin (golfer)

Mike Austin
Austin at his home in 2003 at age 93
Born	(1910-02-17)February 17, 1910 Alabama, United States
Died	November 23, 2005(2005-11-23) (aged 95) Los Angeles, California
Height	6 ft 2 in (1.88 m)
Spouse(s)	Tonya

Michael Hoke Austin (February 17, 1910 – November 23, 2005) was an English-American golf professional and kinesiology expert, specializing in long drives.

He was credited by Guinness World Records with hitting the longest drive in tournament play (471m/515 yards) in 1974 at Winterwood Golf Course (the Par-4 455-yard 14th Hole now called Desert Rose Golf Course) in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Details of Austin's life and golf swing are included in the highly rated 2004 biography In Search of the Greatest Golf Swing by Philip Reed.

The book has the following 19 chapters:

During the Depression, Austin ran a local golf shop in Atlanta during the summer. In the winter he frequented the courses farther south in Florida playing big money games against vacationing gangsters from Chicago. After the first year, they wouldn't bet against him so he found a set of left-handed clubs and played with that handicap. The next year he played one-handed. He often thought up impossible-sounding side bets. Once, he won a $5,000 bet that he could make par hitting the ball with a Coke bottle. His exploits earned him the nickname of "The Golfing Bandit."

Austin also traveled across the country performing trick shots and challenging anyone to try to outdrive him. He said he could hit a variety of shots with an ordinary set of golf clubs. He told a biographer that he "lived like a maharaja" during that time. When steel shafts were first introduced, Sam Snead received a set (a rather stiff set) and promptly gave them to Austin, saying, "You're the only one who swings fast enough to hit these."

In the late 1930s, Austin moved to Los Angeles to become a pro at the Wilshire Country Club. When he arrived, the job fell through so he worked at other golf courses, teaching and competing. His roommate was Errol Flynn and they frequented local nightclubs in search of women. Austin also auditioned for roles in movies and eventually appeared in a number of motion pictures. However, his golfing and acting were put on hold when he joined the service. Having never completed U.S. citizenship, he went to Canada and joined the R.A.F.