The most extreme of the longest drives in PGA Tour history is the 787-yard tee shot by Carl Cooper on the third hole at the 1992 Texas Open. It finished beyond the green. The 12th green that is. His shot had hit a downhill sloping concrete cart path on the 456-yard par-4 and bounced along. Cooper took another three shots to get back to the green.
So some drives are counted as official by the PGA Tour and some are not. The peculiar circumstance of Cooper’s shot means that his mammoth hit is excluded from the long-drive records. So, too, Dustin Johnson’s 489-yarder on the 12th hole at at Austin Country Club during the 2018 WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play. In this case it was for being in matchplay.
In 2000, the PGA Tour started using the laser-based ShotLink system at some of its tournaments to record and measure drives and since 2003, the PGA Tour has used ShotLink at all its tournaments to measure the golf shots.
On the 18th hole in the third round of the Mercedes Championship of 2002 at Plantation Course at Kapalua, Tiger Woods’ drive was recorded at 498 yards. The 15 longest drives of that season were all recorded on that hole during that round. All these drives were later excluded from the official records. If they were not, then Davis Love III's official longest drive would merely be the joint-ninth longest drive.
The official 10 longest drives in PGA Tour history:
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7qLvLn6SopqSdubp6wqikaJ6VlsG2vsSsZmpoXaG8r7PErKtmnKKew6a%2FjKKlZqiXlnq1u9SrZKGho6m8s8U%3D