Perhaps you’ve seen the 374-yard drive he hit in Mexico. Or the 661-yard par-5 that he reached in two shots with a majestic driver off the deck. Maybe you’ve even watched the video of the driving iron he hit 355 yards on the DP World Tour.

The numbers are eye-popping – the latest reminder of the incoming generation of PGA TOUR pros who have prioritized speed and distance gains, in which Aldrich Potgieter is the benchmark.

And for the 20-year-old South African, they are the norm.

A rookie this year, Potgieter leads the TOUR in driving distance by a comfortable margin. His average of just over 326 yards per drive is 6 yards ahead of No. 2 Rory McIlroy, long considered the longest player on TOUR.

Potgieter’s average ball speed is cruising a hair above 190mph. For most pros, that’s an aspirational goal, one that a handful might hit in training. They may do it on the range from time to time, but only a few have the ability and confidence to deploy it on the course. Yet that’s just Potgieter’s cruising speed.

But how does he generate that elite length?

The building blocks of Potgieter’s power come from a background unique to most TOUR pros. While many out on TOUR were multi-sport athletes, very few competed in the one-two punch that prepared Potgieter: rugby and wrestling. And it’s the wrestling in particular that both Potgieter and his swing coach, Justin Parsons, attribute to his distance prowess.

“His base and his ability to wind his body up is incredible,” Parsons told PGATOUR.COM. “And his ability to generate torque comes from wrestling.”

Potgieter began wrestling shortly after his family moved from Middelburg, South Africa, to Perth, Australia, when he was eight years old. A rugby player in his early youth, Potgieter transitioned to wrestling at the behest of his father, a former rugby player who was forced to quit at age 24 because of injuries, along with one of his best friends, who took up the sport.

“I wasn’t terrible,” Potgieter said unassumingly. “I was kinda good.”

Better than kinda. Potgieter quickly became a threat in country-wide wrestling competitions and won a national championship at age 11 in his weight class (which he believes was 70kg). He attributes the quick success to his hand-eye coordination, which always allowed him to pick up sports quickly as a kid. He also spent many of his early years playing rugby, a sport that shares the physicality required to succeed. But by age 14, Potgieter quit wrestling to focus on golf full-time, where he had shown even more promise and saw a path to a long-sustaining career, something not available to top wrestlers.

The signs of his past life are still ever-present. While some of the game’s longest players sport unassuming builds – McIlroy and Min Woo Lee, for example – Potgieter lives up to the gaudy stats. Standing 5 feet 11 inches and weighing 211 pounds, Potgieter is a golfer in a wrestler's body. And it’s intentional. He continued his wrestling workouts after he stopped wrestling. That meant a ton of core work, squatting and bench press – all movements that contribute to hitting it further in golf.

“In wrestling, you’re sitting in that squatted position, you have to stay in there for three or four minutes while the other guy is grabbing you and trying to get you to the floor. Everything is just core and lower body,” Potgieter said. “You’re in that position all the time, and the same when you’re driving, making a topswing and when you’re hitting the ball, you’re sitting in that position, bending down, using all your muscles, using everything. That built the right things in my body to swing it hard.”

That distance advantage made him a formidable amateur in the golf hotbed of Australia, and he maintained that advantage when his family moved back to South Africa when he was 17. Potgieter’s breakthrough moment came in 2022 at The Amateur Championship at Royal Lytham & St. Annes Golf Club, roughly three months before his 18th birthday, becoming the second-youngest to win in the history of the event. His other notable amateur victories included the 2021 Amateur Championships of Western Australia, 2022 South African Boys U19 Championship, 2023 African Amateur Championship, and 2023 Junior Invitational at Sage Valley.

Potgieter broke more records when he reached the Korn Ferry Tour. At 19 years old, he won the 2024 Bahamas Great Abaco Classic at The Abaco Club to become the youngest winner in Korn Ferry Tour history, usurping Jason Day, who previously held the title. Most recently, Potgieter became the second-youngest graduate in Korn Ferry Tour history, earning his TOUR card at 20 years and 23 days of age.

All the while, his distance was his separating factor. He led the Korn Ferry Tour in driving distance last year and that incredible advantage has translated to the PGA TOUR. At an average of 326 yards per drive, Potgieter is 26 yards longer than the TOUR average. Put another way, if Potgieter hits an average drive, he’s likely to have two or three clubs less with his approach shot than a normal TOUR player. More than 85% of Potgieter’s measured drives have traveled over 300 yards and more than 55% have gone over 320 yards. His carry distance average is 314 yards. He leads the TOUR in all of these stats. He ranks fifth in Strokes Gained: Off the Tee.

His elite speed has helped supplement the rest of his game, which, at 20 years old, is still developing. After losing in a playoff to Brian Campbell in Mexico, Potgieter has missed seven cuts and struggled particularly with his approach play. He ranks 141st in SG: Approach this season. “There’s a certain amount of rawness,” Parsons said.

That shows up in his technique and his club gapping, which vary greatly because of his clubhead speed. His 7-iron goes 200 yards, and his 8-iron goes 181 yards. Figuring out how to fill those gaps has been a challenge.

“He’s an unbelievably talented player,” Parsons said, “but there’s a certain amount of rawness.”

Combine that with all the other trials of a rookie – playing a new course every event with a sporadic schedule – and Potgieter’s acclimation to the TOUR has been sporadic. But a T6 in his last start at the Charles Schwab Challenge might be a sign of improving form. Potgieter ranks 73rd in the FedExCup, within striking distance of the FedExCup Playoffs.

That’s the scary part. Potgieter has room to grow. With his mental game, comfort level, technique, strategy, and yes, even with his power.

“With that base and his ability to generate torque, he’s going to be one of the longest players on TOUR for a long time,” Parsons said