TOMS LOOKING TO GET FIRST CHAMPIONS TITLE IN BOCA
2001 PGA winner has three straight top-five finishes.
BOCARATON — There’s a misconception that the top players come out on the PGA Tour Champions and immediately start winning. The numbers prove otherwise, as former major champion
David Toms learned last year.
Since Miguel Angel Jimenez won his first start on the 50-and-older circuit in early 2014, there have been 22 first-time winners since, and on average it has taken almost 30 events for that breakthrough moment, according to PGA Tour Champions research.
Toms knows he’s getting
closer after finishing third, tied for fourth and third in his past three starts. This week’s Boca Raton Championship at Broken Sound Club will be his 24th career start on the PGA Tour Champions.
“It’s not as easy as you think to win golf tournaments,” Toms said. “Every- one out here is a champion. Everyone out here has won tournaments. It’s not like you’re going against guys who haven’t experienced winning.”
Just as it was on the PGA Tour — where Toms won 13 titles, highlighted by the 2001 PGA Championship — it gets easier the second time around. Toms is more familiar with the courses used on the PGA Tour Champions
and he only has to play in one pro-am a week instead of both pro-ams as a rookie.
He learned last year that hitting fairways is the key to playing well on the Old Course at Broken Sound. He opened and closed with rounds of 67, but a 72 in the second round left him with a 23rd-place finish. “I do like the golf course,” Toms said. “I had a couple of hot streaks last year, but I just couldn’t keep it going.”
Toms was known as one of the best putters on the PGA Tour, which is how you earn more than $40 million. He may be best remembered for laying up out of the rough at the par-4 18th hole of the 2001 PGA at the Atlanta Athletic Club when he was leading Phil Mickelson by one. Toms ignored fans yelling at him to go for the green. He laid up, hit a wedge to 12 feet and made the putt to win his only major.
Now, the numbers and his recent play indicate it’s time for Toms to win again, perhaps this week.