Aldrich Potgieter celebrates after sinking his putt in a playoff at the Rocket Classic, where his victory served as validation of his big-hitting style.

Ever since Aldrich Potgieter burst onto the scene as an amateur champion, he’s been one of the biggest curiosities in golf.

Everyone had heard tales about the South African kid who could pulverize his drives with such unimaginable power that he once carded a hole-in-one—on a par-4.

But as Potgieter began to ply his trade at the game’s highest level, those feats started to seem more like the stuff of legend. Sure, he could crush the ball farther than anyone else. He could also barely make a cut.

Aldrich Potgieter credits playing different sports with his remarkable power off the tee.

So when Potgieter survived a five-hole, three-man playoff on Sunday to notch his first victory on the PGA Tour, the 20-year-old phenom didn’t merely establish himself as one of the most precocious up-and-comers in recent memory.

He also proved that his brand of golf works—and that it might just be the future of the sport.

Potgieter is now the face of a new generation of golfers who have grown up at a time when everyone understands that hitting the ball far tips the scales in the modern game.

But even in an era when players are prioritizing distance more than ever, he’s an outlier. Potgieter’s average drive this year has traveled 327.4 yards, 26.2 yards farther than the PGA Tour average and 6.8 more than the No. 2 player, a guy named Rory McIlroy.

What really separates Potgieter from so many of his peers, though, is that he didn’t need to revamp his swing as a professional to add length.

“I haven’t done too much to get the distance that I got,” Potgieter said. “It’s just kind of been given to me.”

What he did do was choose not to spend every waking moment of his childhood on the driving range. Instead, Potgieter, who was born in South Africa and grew up in Australia, mixed golf with playing rugby and wrestling.

That’s also one of the key reasons that Potgieter, who stands 5-foot-11 and 211 pounds, believes he’s so powerful to this day.

“Kind of did everything as a kid, didn’t just focus on golf,” he said, “so that kind of helped me build that strong foundation at the start.”

Still, it didn’t take too long for Potgieter to establish that clobbering a tiny white ball was his calling. He racked up junior titles and became the second-youngest winner of the British Amateur in 2022 as a 17-year-old.

That title earned him an invite to the 2023 Masters, where he was grouped with countryman Charl Schwartzel. The green jacket winner sized up the teenager’s game rather quickly.

“It’s incredible how far the guy hits the ball,” Schwartzel said. “It’s scary.”

In 2022, Aldrich Potgieter became the second-youngest winner of the British Amateur at 17 years old.

Just a few months later, shortly after turning pro, that power produced what Potgieter could only describe as a “weird moment” when he thwacked his drive from a blind tee box on the par-4, 17th hole during a Monday qualifier. All of a sudden, his caddie ran out into the fairway and started going bananas.

Potgieter figured that meant his ball had managed to reach the green and he would have a short putt for eagle. Then he discovered it had actually gone in.

That brought even more attention to his prodigious strength. In one instance, he reached a 661-yard par-5 at the Mexico Open in two shots by hitting his driver off the deck. In another, on the European Tour, he hit a driving iron 355 yards.

But he also found out that against the best players around, there’s more to golf than slamming drives. After losing in a playoff in Mexico, he missed the cut in seven of his next eight events. In late May, he was 165th on Tour in driving accuracy, hitting just 52.1% of fairways.

More recently, Potgieter has shown just how dangerous he can be when he’s straight. His accuracy was 66.1% at the Charles Schwab Challenge, where he tied for sixth. His next start came at last week’s Rocket Classic in Detroit, where he raced out to a 54-hole lead and overcame some early nerves to get into a playoff with Chris Kirk and Max Greyserman at 22-under.

Kirk was eliminated with a bogey, and after four holes Greyserman and Potgieter went back to the par-3 15th.

At 158 yards, it’s the exact type of hole that neutralizes Potgieter’s power. In fact, earlier in the day he had bogeyed it. But this time, he struck his tee shot to 18 feet from the hole.

And once Potgieter sank his putt for birdie, he showed why he’ll likely be around for years to come.