35 Days to Reno: Learn More About Justin James Ahead of This Year's World Long Drive Championship

There's a stat in World Long Drive that nobody else can claim. Justin James and his father Gerry James are the only father-son duo in the history to both win a World Long Drive Championship. Gerry took the Senior Division in 2005 and 2006. Justin took the Open Division in 2017. Two generations, two titles, one family.

With 35 days until the 2026 World Long Drive Championship tees off at Wildcreek Golf Course in Reno, Nevada, that legacy is exactly where the newest episode of Road to Reno starts.

Justin grew up trailing his dad around driving ranges in California, trying to carry a fence his dad could clear and he couldn't. "He would go to the left corner of the range and fly it, it was like a 370 carry to fly the fence," Justin remembers. "I'm 10, 11 years old, 8 years old, trying to carry that fence." He never beat his dad at golf, still hasn't to this day, but he learned to hit a golf ball far by pure osmosis.

Then he took a detour nobody saw coming. Justin played baseball through high school and college and signed as a free agent with the Toronto Blue Jays organization, topping out in Rookie ball as a pitcher throwing low 90s. It didn't work out, and when he got released, he leaned into what had always secretly been his real talent. "I would go hit a golf ball, and my ball speed was higher than that," he says of comparing his fastball to his driver. Right around the time NBC picked up Long Drive as a broadcast property, Justin started training seriously. He debuted at the 2016 World Championship and finished third.

A year later, he won it all, and not without a story attached. Heading into the 2017 final, Justin was under real pressure, his agent had told him a handful of endorsement deals hinged on a top-two finish. His dad pulled him aside with one piece of advice: stop playing it safe, put the hammer down. Justin did, linking up a 435-yard drive to beat Mitch Grassi for the title, then celebrated by grabbing the fence and springboarding himself into the grandstand. "There was some give in the stage," he laughs now. "It was a little bit of a springboard situation." Watch the episode for the full story, because the mental game he describes walking into that final round is some of the best insight into championship pressure this show has captured yet.

These days Justin is Director of Distance at Carmel Country Club in Charlotte, splitting his time between the gym and the range helping members, many of them 55 and up, add yards the same way he trains for Reno: fix the swing first, tune the equipment, then build an engine that can actually use it. He's also dad to three kids of his own, including a seven-year-old who has taken apart most of the electronics in the house. Third generation, and Justin's already joking about putting creatine in the corn flakes.

Last year, Justin came within a single yard of the Open Division final, losing a semifinal heartbreaker to eventual champion Zack Holton, who sat down with us for Episode 1. That one-yard margin is still sitting with him, and it's part of what's fueling his ten-week training block heading into Reno.

The full conversation covers all of it: the father-son legacy, the baseball years, the jump that became a WLD moment, and what it takes to get ready for a championship at elevation.

Watch the full conversation on YouTube now: Tap Here