SEQUIM — A champion long driver will offer players his skill at the 548-yard 14th hole on Friday during the Sonny Sixkiller Celebrity Golf Classic.
Dan “Smackintosh” McIntosh is the world’s longest left-handed golfer with a record drive of 479 yards. (For comparison, a PGA golfer will hit an average of 260 yards.)
McIntosh will be stationed at the Cedars at Dungeness’ longest hole, a Par 5, to make the first shot for each team in return for a donation to the Olympic Medical Center Foundation, which is hosting the fundraiser sponsored by Wilder Auto.
He will send the ball hurtling down the fairway for each donating team, leaving some 150 yards to the green. The individual who sinks the ball from there will win a trip to Pebble Beach on the Monterey Peninsula in California.
“If they don’t, they still get an advantage from being so close to the hole on their second shot and most importantly, they will have had an impact on supporting the Olympic Medical Center Foundation,” McIntosh said, speaking from his home in Ada, Okla., on Wednesday as he looked forward to participating in his fourth Sonny Sixkiller Celebrity Golf Classic.
The 13th annual Sonny Sixkiller fundraiser will begin with a dinner and auction of memorabilia signed by Huskies who have been lined up by Sixkiller to serve as celebrities on each of 36 teams, at 5 p.m. today at 7 Cedars Casino. The shotgun start golf tournament will begin at 10 a.m. Friday at the Cedars at Dungeness.
Proceeds from the 13th annual Sonny Sixkiller tournament will go to the Olympic Medical Center Foundation scholarship program launched in September 2023. The program funds the training of locally grown talent to fill positions at Olympic Medical Center in nursing and a variety of other health care professions.
Last year, McIntosh raised $23,000 alone during the fundraiser, according to Bruce Skinner, executive director of the OMC Foundation.
After a meteoric rise through 12 championship events, McIntosh, 34, has retired from the long drive sport. He has moved into a management role within Charity Golf International, which does some 2,000 events yearly in North America. After participating in 105 tournaments each year for the past two years, he now directly takes part in 50.
OMC Foundation is among those.
“In some of the events, you really start to feel like family,” McIntosh said.
“You understand the cause, you understand the mission and you want to come to the events that are just grateful to have you,” he added.
“Sonny Sixkiller and Bruce Skinner have always been so appreciative so I always want to keep it on my calendar,” he said.”
McIntosh is from High River in Alberta, Canada. He learned to swing with a hockey stick. He played golf in the summer and baseball.
“In hockey I wanted to hit as hard as I could; in baseball, I wanted to hit it as long as I could. Golf was no different,” he said.
In 2011, he qualified for a championship competition. To raise money for the entry fee and travel expenses, he took the advice of his home club and hit drives for $5 apiece.
The day he hit his record of 479 yards was July 25, 2017 in Denver.
“It was the same day that I met my wife, Kasi,” who was working as a volunteer for the golf channel there, he said.
Now they live in her hometown in Ada with a 3-year-old son and one more on the way.
That same day, his appearance on television netted him the opportunity to start doing charity tournaments with Charity Golf international. Since then, he has raised over $5 million for charities.
“Long drives have given me my wife, my career, my family and all I want to do now is to give back to charity through using the sport of long drive,” McIntosh said.
For more information, see www.omhf.org or call 360-417-7144.
