Boyhood and a Career,
Both Brief and Hot
as a Summer Afternoon
By Chris Hutelmyer
When Tommy Tolles emerged on PGA Tour leaderboards in early 1996, contending in five early-season events — including a T2 in the 1996 Players Championship — he seemed a certain young star.
It was easy to group Tolles in with the likes of Justin Leonard and David Duval: young Americans with seemingly few flaws in their games. At 6-foot-2 with a long, classic swing, Tolles looked the part of the young stud.
In truth, Tolles was a 29-year-old journeyman with little amateur pedigree. A walk-on (and dropout) at the University of Georgia and veteran of the South African and Nike Tours, Tolles had found his game at a later age than most. 1996 was Tolles’ sophomore season on the PGA Tour, having narrowly retained his card the year prior. Starting the year outside the top 300 in the Official World Golf Rankings, there wasn’t any reason to believe that Tolles would be a breakout star. Although he had modest success on the various tours he’d played, Tommy Tolles could count on two fingers the number of amateur and professional tournament victories to that point.
After his hot opening stretch, Tolles’ 1996 heater continued with a T6 at the Colonial — his fifth top-6 in a seven-week stretch. After a middling summer stretch, Tolles closed out his 1996 season with a T3 in the PGA Championship, finishing a shot out of the playoff won by Mark Brooks. Tolles ended the season by making the Tour Championship and finishing 16th on the season’s money list. He’d established himself as one of the top young American players in an era when many of the stars were starting to fade.
In the spring of 1997, I talked Lucas Stuckey into trying out for the Walter Williams High School golf team. Lucas was a friendly, lanky clarinet player whom I knew from playing hacky-sack outside the band hall before school. I wasn’t particularly close with Lucas, but I knew he played golf, and I needed an ally for tryouts that year. Our home course, Alamance County Club, is a surprisingly bland Donald Ross design set amongst tall oaks in the western end of Burlington, N.C. I knew Lucas and I would be the only non-members of the club trying to make the team.
Although no one in my family played golf, I fell in love at an early age, picking up some starter clubs from a local Play It Again Sports and creating holes in our backyard. By the time I was in middle school, my mom would drop me off at a local muni on summer days, where I’d play low-stakes money games with high school and college kids. I became a decent player — good enough to win or place in some small junior tournaments in the area, but never a threat to consistently challenge par.
The Williams High golf coach was also the school’s legendary basketball coach, Tommy Cole, an alumnus who starred at Elon College before having a short drink of water with the Boston Celtics in the early 1970s. At the golf interest meeting, Cole’s words of advice were, “I don’t play golf and I’m not going to pretend to tell you what to do.” Nonetheless, Williams had been one of the top teams in the state for decades and had two studs already on the team. Players were on their own to play nine-hole practice rounds with a partner, keeping and submitting their scores the next day.
Alamance was a long course for Lucas and me. It had several holes that demanded a draw that I did not have. Still, I was able to crank out scores in the upper 30s and lower 40s. My time on the course with Lucas was enjoyable, talking about girls, music, and math. Lucas and I would make small wagers on each day’s performance. One day, on the short par 3-third, we agreed that if either of us hit our tee shot within three feet, the other had to ask out their crush on a date. I stuck it to a foot. He didn’t ask.
After a somewhat slow start to the 1997 PGA Tour season, Tolles once again started popping up at the biggest tournaments. A T7 at the Players Championship was followed by a T3 at the Masters and a T5 at the U.S. Open. By mid-summer, Tolles had rocketed as high as seventh in the U.S. Ryder Cup standings, captained that year by Tom Kite. Tommy’s summer results were decent, but not outstanding. By the 1997 PGA Championship — the final event for Ryder Cup qualification — Tolles held a tenuous grip on the ninth spot (the top 10 earning automatic spots).
That Ryder Cup team was relatively young, with first-timers Leonard, Jim Furyk, Scott Hoch, and a 21-year-old Tiger Woods already locked in for their first appearances. Tommy knew he’d probably need to qualify automatically in order to make that year’s team, but hedged by asking Captain Kite to play practice rounds early in the week.
The ’97 PGA was staged at Winged Foot, a notoriously long and tight course that didn’t exactly set up well for Tolles’ game; although he played well, a nightmare scenario occurred. The two players behind Tolles in the standings, Davis Love III and Jeff Maggert, finished first and third, bumping Tolles down to 11th on the standings and out of the automatic qualifiers. Maggert’s finish in particular was painful, shooting a final-round 63 to leapfrog Tolles in the standings. Tolles had played well, firing a 66 on Sunday (the second-best round of the day) and finishing T13. When the captain’s picks were announced two days later, Tolles was left out, with Kite choosing the experienced pair of Lee Janzen and Fred Couples instead.
I can’t pinpoint when Tommy Tolles became my favorite golfer. He was from Flat Rock, a small and sleepy town in western North Carolina where I’d once spent a week at church camp. I dug the white Ping hat and the baggy sweaters. And it was fun to pull for the underdog.
Tolles’s game was aggressive and sometimes erratic, echoing his golfing idol Seve Ballesteros. Tolles finished outside the top 160 on Tour in driving accuracy in 1996 and 1997, but was in the top 13 in birdie average. Unlike Duval and Leonard, Tolles wore his emotions on his sleeves, slamming clubs and letting loose the occasional F-bomb. His interviews were funny and full of self-deprecation. Tolles seemed a rarity in the golf world: a player self-aware enough to realize how bizarre it is to make one’s living in the game.
I didn’t make the golf team in ’97. At the end of the qualification, I had apparently tied for the final spot with a senior, Jay Brannock, who could barely get off the tee. Even though the others on the team knew I was the better player, Coach Cole took Brannock over me, only a sophomore. I pleaded for a head-to-head playoff, but wasn’t given a chance.
By that fall, music started to occupy the space in my life golf had long held. I was given a cassette tape of Pavement’s “Brighten the Corners,” which opened my mind to what music can be. I taught myself to play guitar and started making the short drive to Chapel Hill to see shows. I got a job refereeing soccer games. I still kept up with golf, but found myself having less and less time to play.
As far as I can tell, prior to 2021 there’s never been a U.S. Ryder Cup member who had never won on the PGA Tour. The U.S. lost in Valderrama in ’97 by a point. Both Janzen and Couples played decently, so it’s hard to tell if Tolles’ inclusion would have made any difference. It’s probably a better question as to how Tolles’ career would have changed if he had made the team. At best, it would have given him confidence that he was a great player. At worst, Tolles may have been grouped in with the likes of Brett Wetterich and Chris Riley, forgettable golfers trivially known for making a Ryder Cup.
Tommy Tolles’ career plateaued in the 1997 season. The drop-off was more steady than precipitous: Tolles was still able to make a large number of birdies, but was unable to avoid big numbers. In 2000, a series of nagging injuries and missed cuts caused him to lose his card for the first time. Tolles promptly won his card back at Q-School, but was never again able to keep full status. While he never gave up the dream — popping up randomly on PGA Tour and Nationwide Tour leaderboards from year to year (sometimes sporting green hair) — Tolles never again contended at a major event.
I get out to play golf a few times a year and can break 80 on occasion. Last month, I bought a new driver to replace the Burner Bubble that’s been in my bag since ’97. The small college town where I live is only a few hours’ drive from Flat Rock. Part of me hopes that one day I’ll happen into Tommy and ask him about the 1997 Ryder Cup team — and whether he hates Jeff Maggert as much as I do.
Chris Hutelmyer lives with his family in Boone, N.C. He has dined in a Pizza Hut with Rasheed Wallace and believes that Fred McGriff belongs in the Hall of Fame.You can follow him on Twitter at @WallDwarf and listen to his band at nakedgods.bandcamp.com.
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