Long Drives: Smoke 'Em If You Got 'Em

By Matthew Rudy
Photos By James Rexroad June 2009

If the goal for the Long Drives series is to take an interesting new car on a real-world weekend golf trip, call this particular adventure an exception. From using long underwear as a bribe to get the car onto pedestrian-only Beale street (for the photo above) to destroying racks of dry-rub ribs with a long-drive champ called The Beast, my trip from Memphis to Little Rock in a slick, electric blue Audi A4 was like something from a Mel Brooks movie.

The sight gags started when my wingman met me in the lobby of the Peabody Memphis hotel. Sean (The Beast) Fister is a three-time World Long Drive champion, and at 6-feet-4 and 265 pounds, if he says he's moving the seat back, suck it up and get your knees out of the way -- which is what our wiry, 175-pound photographer did.

"Dynamic five-link front suspension" might be nothing more than geek-speak on the A4's long list of standard equipment, but the midsize Audi swallowed the two of us XXL guys without protest, and The Beast's cartoonishly large staff bag disappeared into the trunk with plenty of room to spare for my clubs and bag cover.

Map by John Burgoyne

After the requisite snickering from Fister about the Audi's fashion-forward "Aruba blue" paint -- The Beast rolls in a black pickup with a lift kit and custom 22-inch rims -- we set out for Cherokee Valley Golf Club across the border in Olive Branch, Miss. (★ ★ ★ ★ , $40-$56, olivebranchgolf.com), the best public course in metro Memphis.

Entertaining as it is to play with a guy who can carry the ball 390 yards off the tee, it makes for some interminable waits for the group ahead to get out of the landing area -- an activity made less fun by a cold snap. Shivering, we had plenty of time to plot the route to the best meat palaces on the I-40 corridor. Fister's old friend John Daly pointed us toward the legendary Rendezvous barbecue joint in downtown Memphis, but Sean swore that we'd find places just as good over in Arkansas.

We'd get to investigating that potential barbecue heresy, but first we needed some pictures of the Audi on Beale -- which would prove to be an unexpected challenge. Beale is closed to car traffic, but trucks come through the portable barricades for deliveries in daylight, before the crowds arrive. Our photographer sidled up to the homeless guy who "supervised" the barricades, and for $40 and the new pair of long underwear we were using to dust the car for the pictures, we got an escort through. He even chased off other "enemy" panhandlers.