The driving range

Long-drive golf is fast achieving cult status among those who derive their golfing thrills from watching John Daly "grip it and rip it" rather than Retief Goosen displaying surgeon-like precision with a putter.

A crowd of 5,000 attended last year's televised world championships at a desert golf course in Nevada, where American Dave Mobley drove 377 yards in

unusually wet conditions to bank a first prize of £60,000 from a total purse of £250,000.

The sport is becoming so popular on this side of the Atlantic that plans are being drawn up for a Ryder Cupstyle competition, to be held this year in Dublin, pitching Europe against the United States.

Naylor, who might have become a tournament professional had he not sustained a serious hand injury while skiing 15 years ago, is passionate about driving for show as well as dough.

He said: "There's a raging debate going on, with some insisting that long drive isn't golf, it's a separate event. But to me it's just taking one element of the game and making a competition out of it.

"It's a great spectator sport because you don't have to go tramping all over a golf course to watch it. If I go to a golf tournament all I want to see is big drives. To me that is what golf is all about and I believe a lot of people think the same.

"The trouble with real golf is that it's more about your misses. It's making sure that your bad shot is not that bad. Long drive is totally the opposite. It is about your best drive and forget the rest."

Players in official long-drive tournaments compete with sets of six balls, with the furthest in each set counting towards the score. His target area is a rectangular grass grid up to 50 yards wide, which is meant to represent a fairway.

Winning distances are at the mercy of conditions. Balls travel further at altitude - Naylor's "carry" record has since been beaten by someone hitting at a mountain venue in Austria - and competitors sometimes have to cope with headwinds.

Players are only allowed to use tournament-legal balls and clubs, a move towards the use of outrageously long shafts having been blocked by new rules.

But there is nothing to prevent a club being specially adapted for long driving and Naylor's driver features a loft angle of just six degrees, four degrees less than Woods uses. This is not a pastime for fairway wimps. Typical swing speeds of 150mph - Woods is one of the fastest swingers in tournament golf with speeds of around 125mph - demand a high level of fitness.

The Long Drivers of Europe website helpfully advises: "Long drive isn't a sport for couch potatoes. Big guns in the sport train feverishly. With few exceptions, long drivers are chiselled and ripped."

Naylor makes almost as many visits to the gym as he does to the driving range. "It's all about strength, speed of movement, timing and technique," he said.

"Most golfers trying to drive the ball don't coil the body in the correct way. It's a bit like those karate people who chop bricks.

"If you try and chop a brick by simply throwing your arm down you'll break every bone in your hand. The experts get their power from hip movement, and it's the same with us.

"You have to get the sequence of hips, shoulders, arms and hands spot on. Timing is crucial because when you get it wrong you can look an absolute twit.

"I can hit a 400-yard drive with one ball, and then top the next one only 50 yards. It gives spectators a laugh but those in the sport don't raise an eyebrow. You're swinging on the limit and you only need one ball to score.

"Get it right and the feeling is unbelievable."

The London Golf Show, supported by the Evening Standard, at the ExCeL Centre in the Docklands from 21-24 April.