Can Long Drivers Actually Play Golf? Kyle Berkshire and Martin Borgmeier's Handicaps
2026-11-11 · Handicaps
Hitting a golf ball 450 yards is one skill. Shooting a score is another. Long drive is about one swing done as hard as humanly possible, and golf is about 70-odd swings done well, most of them gently. So the question comes up under every long drive video: can these guys actually play?
Two of the biggest names in long drive, Kyle Berkshire and Martin Borgmeier, play full rounds on YouTube all the time, so we have the numbers. Short answer: yes. Both are plus handicaps.
Kyle Berkshire: +4.0
Kyle BerkshireProfile & every round ›
Best round · 60 at Bear Lakes Country Club LinksCan I Break 60 from the Front Tees?Kyle Berkshire is +4.0, which puts him 20th of 119 golf YouTubers on our leaderboard, ahead of plenty of former college players and mini tour pros. And it isn't built on a handful of lucky rounds: we've logged 59 of his rounds, 45 of them full 18s, on 36 different courses.
Fourteen of those 18-hole rounds were under par. A few stand out:
- 60 from the front tees at Bear Lakes Country Club, 12 under, in "Can I Break 60 from the Front Tees?". He missed by one.
- 6 under at Payne's Valley, Tiger Woods' course in Missouri, the best score by any golf YouTuber we track there.
- 5 under at The Reserve at Moonlight Basin, billed as the hardest course in Montana, in the video with a 507-yard drive.
- 4 under at Old Head in Ireland, again the best by any creator we've logged at that course.
- 2 over at Hazeltine National, a US Open and Ryder Cup venue, the best round of the seven YouTubers who've played it.
His typical full round on our record is under two over par, on courses that are often very hard. Pros say long hitting is an advantage if you can control it, and Kyle's numbers back that up: the driver that wins long drive titles also turns par 5s into irons in.
Martin Borgmeier: +2.1
Martin BorgmeierProfile & every round ›
Best round · 71 at Son Gual MallorcaCan A Longdrive Champion ACTUALLY Play Golf? (18 Hole Strokeplay)Martin Borgmeier is +2.1, tied 44th on our leaderboard. Most of his rounds are nine-hole matches against other creators and pros, so we have fewer full rounds for him: 15 rounds in all, three of them 18s.
The best answer to the question is his own video "Can A Longdrive Champion ACTUALLY Play Golf?", where he shot 1 under at Son Gual in Mallorca, a proper championship course. His nines include 4 under at Bay Point and 2 under in a match against the DoD King, and he played the $100,000 YouTube Golf Invitational at Gentle Creek too.
With so many of his rounds coming as nines, his handicap can move more than Kyle's after a single video.
Kyle Berkshire vs Martin Borgmeier
Two of the biggest names in long drive, side by side. They haven't played a round in the same video yet, so their head to head is still 0–0, but on paper Kyle has the edge on every line: a lower handicap, a lower scoring average and a lower best round, from nearly four times as many rounds.
Handicaps and stats as of 3 November 2026. Head to head: 0–0 so far.
Full head to headHow they compare with the longest hitter on tour
Bryson DeChambeau, the longest hitter in professional golf and a long drive competitor himself, is +9.5 on our tour pros table, the lowest of any player we track. He's a major champion, so that's the ceiling. But Kyle at +4.0 would be a scratch-or-better player at any golf club in the world, and Martin at +2.1 isn't far behind.
HandicapsGolf YouTubers With a Plus HandicapHow we work these out
Every handicap on Handicap Tracker comes from rounds played in YouTube videos. We log each round, allow for how tough the course and tees were, and a player's handicap comes from their best rounds among their latest 20 (fewer for players with a shorter record). Nine-hole rounds count too, with the other nine worked out from how the player usually scores. Handicaps change as new videos come out, so check their profiles for the latest.
Live leaderboardSee every golf YouTuber's handicap on the live leaderboardEvery drive, on screen
Long drive videos live and die on the numbers: the yardage, the club, the score. The Score Graphics Generator puts them on every shot from your scorecard, with the distance to the pin or the club on a line under the graphic.