Cape Coral golfer Tommy Tolles returns, gets back into swing
Cape Coral golf legend Tommy Tolles is celebrating a Southwest Florida reunion this week while embarking on the second phase of his competitive career.
Arguably the best golfer to come out of Cape Coral, Tolles reappeared last week in Naples, playing in his third PGA Tour Champions event, and will spend this weekend playing the Yuengling Open at the Fort Myers Country Club.
Tolles nearly had a top 10 finish in the Chubb Classic at TwinEagles in North Naples but a second consecutive double bogey on the 18th hole dropped him to a tie for 20th and a $18,784 payday.
Tolles disappeared into the western North Carolina mountains a decade ago, leaving the PGA Tour with over $3.4 million in winnings and raising children, Wiekus and Hannah, with wife, IIse.
A member of the first golf team at Cape Coral High School when the school opened in 1981, Tolles turned to a woodworking and landscaping businesses in Flat Rock, North Carolina, while IIse opened an antique store in Hendersonville.
Tolles stayed away from golf except for 5-10 local charity golf tournaments each year until a friend talked him into attempting to qualify for a Champions event in Madison, Wisconsin, last August after he turned 50.
He entered the Tour’s annual qualifying tournament in December and finished fourth, qualifying for a full year of exempt status on the Tour with four great rounds in Scottsdale, Arizona, shooting 19-under par. Tolles said when he returned home "I was kind of in shock at what I accomplished.”
“I finally realized what happened and said to myself I better start practicing but I hit balls only about five times until I arrived in Boca Raton for my first event a week ago,” he said. “I should have been more diligent because I can still hit some ‘foul balls’.”
“After my back surgery in 2008, I settled on family first with my businesses next."
Tolles was a member of the first graduating class at Cape Coral High School and remembers four years of golf matches, playing the home events at Palmetto Pine Country Club.
“I had a lot of fun with those guys – Mark and Joe Hamstra, Glen Mickelson, Todd Rinehart and coach John Porta – and I hope to catch up with them,” he said.
Tolles left Cape Coral and eventually embarked on a professional career that included nine full years on the PGA Tour with some impressive success. He finished third in the 1997 Masters, tied for third at the 1996 PGA Championship, and tied for fifth at the 1997 U.S. Open. He finished one spot away from making the 1997 Ryder Cup team.
“My dream 30 years ago was to play on the PGA Tour; while today with PGA Tour Champions the goal is to learn and love the game again later in life,” he said.
“You have to realize that almost everyone else out here has never stopped playing while I took a giant sabbatical from the game,” he said. “I don’t intend to place too much pressure on myself, staying patient and taking my time.
“My game is almost opposite now from how I played 15-20 years ago. I’m much better off the tee and I struggle closer to the green, I had not hit a bunker shot in three years until last year.
“I don’t want to go through the motions and not execute and I intend to give this senior career a full effort,” he said.
The family will be watching: IIse, the wife at home with her business; Wiekus, 20, in dental school at Nova Southeastern; and Hannah, 23, in college back home.
Tolles would like to make the woodworking and landscaping career an afterthought, staying on the golf course for a decade.