Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Champion defends title
Former boxer Esteban Toledo is self-taught golfer
BOCA RATON — As a teenager in Mexico, Esteban Toledo couldn’t break 100 playing golf, but that didn’t matter because he was determined to be a champion lightweight boxer.
The youngest of 11 kids, Toledo saw boxing as a way out of the barrio where he grew up. But when his professional career ended at age 20 because of complications from appendicitis, he switched to golf.
“I’m a better boxer than a golfer,” Toledo said. “I can say I dominated the boxing. Golf, I don’t dominate.”
But golf has made the defending champion of the Allianz Championship a rich man and allowed him to travel the world.
Yet the self-taught Toledo is still as grounded as when he polished members’ shoes, sold them balls he fished out of water hazards and caddied at a golf club in Mexicali near his family’s dirt-floor home.
“I don’t really care much about myself. Because I won four times or I won millions of dollars, that hasn’t changed me,” Toledo said. “I care about somebody else. I can give my food to someone who
needs it, instead of me. That’s the kind of guy I am.
“I think every human being can think that way and we would be a better country and better world. When you leave this world like Arnold Palmer, people are going to remember you as a person.”
Toledo, 54, played eight full seasons on the PGA Tour and won $3.74 million. Since joining the PGA Tour Champions in October 2012, he’s won four tournaments (three of them in suddendeath playoffs), and $3.78 million.
Having defeated Billy Andrade on the third hole of a playoff last year, Toledo is seeking to become the first repeat winner in the 11 years of the Allianz, which is Friday through Sunday at the Old Course at Broken Sound.
As nice as that would be, Toledo’s signature accomplishment is the orphanage he built in Mexico.
“It’s a lot of responsibility, but it’s a lot of joy to be able to help 30 beautiful babies,” said Toledo, who lives in Houston and visits the orphanage five or six times a year.
Toledo said the importance of helping others was instilled in him by the late John Minnis, a commercial real estate executive who noticed Toledo’s golf ability, got him a green card (and eventually U.S. citizenship), brought him to California where he could work on his game and sponsored him for 12 years on various golf tours.
“I lost my father when I was 5 years old and that guy took over my life,” Toledo said. “I was the luckiest kid in the world.
“Like three hours before John died, I asked him, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ He said, ‘I want you to help people in Mexico.’ ”
Until he met Minnis, Toledo had little help, but he never stopped working toward his goals, first as a boxer, then as a golfer.
“Golf is because I wasn’t born in a hospital, I was born in my house. And a golf course was right next to it. So I probably already had my destiny to be a golfer instead of a boxer,” Toledo said. “But I would’ve probably been a pretty good boxer. I went pro and was 12-1.”
After his appendectomy, he had to have surgery again. Rather than risk serious injury in the ring, Toledo focused on golf.
“I used to shoot in the 100s and my friends didn’t want to play with me,” Toledo said. “And I didn’t have any golf clubs. So I had play with their golf clubs. If I hit the ball on the right and there was a guy on the right side, I asked him for a club. So I always asked the other guy to borrow a club. That’s how I played.
“One guy told me, ‘You will never be a professional golfer at all. You’re wasting your time.’ I wanted to play with Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson and Ben Crenshaw. And they told me I was nuts, I was crazy. But the more they told me negative things, the more I wanted it.”
As successful as he’s been, Toledo has never forgotten those who supported him. He always told Minnis that if he ever won at Pebble Beach, he’d give him the trophy. So in September of 2015 when he won the Nature Valley First Tee Open at Pebble by one shot over Watson, Toledo gave his trophy to Minnis’ widow.
He has given other trophies to his wife, his son and his daughter. Toledo said his next trophy will be given to his orphanage.
“I believe I’m going to win again, there’s no doubt in my mind,” he said. “Not that I’m trying to be arrogant, but this is how I play. I play to win tournaments. It’s not just about the money anymore. My wife can take the money.”
Boros in Allianz
When Tom Lehman withdrew from the Allianz because of an elbow injury, that enabled Marco Dawson to get into the field and also allowed Guy Boros of Fort Lauderdale to receive a sponsor’s exemption into the tournament. Boros, 52, finished tied for 11th in 2015 and tied for 30th last year.
Jerry Kelly, who was set to make his PGA Tour Champions debut here, is instead playing in the PGA Tour’s AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. His place was taken by former PGA champion Mark Brooks.
Also withdrawing Monday were Gil Morgan and Scott Verplank, which allowed Willie Wood and Jim Carter entry to the tournament.
Feeding the hungry
The tournament announced that food that is left over each day will be donated to Boca Helping Hands, whose food center provides lunch six days a week along with a weekly dinner to those in need.