THE MEMORIAL TOURNAMENT

May 30, 1997

Tommy Tolles

TOMMY TOLLES: No bogeys, that's the key. No mistakes today.

TOMMY TOLLES: Well, I got off to a mirror image of yesterday, yesterday about threw it in the jar from the fairway, and today I hit about four feet. I've got No. 1 figured out, now I have to work on the other 17. The third hole I also hit a good shot yesterday and a good shot today, as well. Made about a 4-footer for birdie.

TOMMY TOLLES: Hit 7-iron on the first hole and a sand wedge on 3.

TOMMY TOLLES: You know, 8 in the last two years, today I think was the first time I've hit that green. I know I missed it all four times last year, and I definitely missed it yesterday. It's amazing what happens when you hit it on the green. I hit it on the left fringe, I think the pin is probably five from the left, so maybe a 125-footer there.

TOMMY TOLLES: 6-iron. And then I've been talking to my caddy and my teacher was here this week, and he had asked me during my recent struggles, what was the problem. And I told him if I made a birdie it always seemed like I made a bogey and compounded the problem. I was never able to string birdies together. And it was kind of pleasant today. I made a good birdie putt at 10 and was close at 11. Made a good long putt at 12, made it over the edge on 13, and birdied 14 and 15. Just to piece parts together and get a string going was very exciting.

TOMMY TOLLES: The 10th hole I hit an 8-iron from a little over 150 yards, probably 15 feet, dead pin-high. No. 11 I drove in the right rough, just barely hiked it out over the creek and was left with a 9-iron. Hit it, I think it was about 12 feet, pin-high left of the hole. No. 12, I hit a horrible 9-iron left side of the green, made about a 50-footer there. Ran it right over the edge on 14 from about six feet -- 13, excuse me. No. 14, hit it just behind the hole there, probably about 20 feet. And then 15 --

TOMMY TOLLES: I hit a 9-iron. No. 15, I probably hit the best 3-wood I've hit all week, probably ended up about six feet just in front of the hole, and probably hit, probably the weakest putt you could ever ask for. It was a left-edge putt straight uphill, it's the kind you take home to mom. On the low side of the hole. And then had some good birdie putts on 17 and 18, a little tentative, pulled both of them, it would be nice if they went in, but you can't ask for them all.

TOMMY TOLLES: Jeff Heilman, he's a teaching pro down in Bonita Springs, Florida.

TOMMY TOLLES: He usually comes in on Sunday and leaves on Wednesday. We don't like to work on mechanics during the tournament. If you start thinking about that, you're going to run into problems.

TOMMY TOLLES: Well, everything. My swing wasn't very good. You run into those problems. I haven't seen him since Augusta, and right after Augusta I took two weeks off. I could put a good swing on it every now and then but no consistency. When he's there to see every swing, he can tell you it's this one time and this another. And he can point out flaws that repeat themselves. If you can eliminate those little flaws you start shooting good scores.

TOMMY TOLLES: Yes, right here (indicating) the biggest flaw is in between my ears.

TOMMY TOLLES: Yes, I've always picked the club up, taken it outside a bit and rerouted it through the inside I guess kind of a stiff arm, kind of a block move. I don't really release the golf club like you're supposed to. It would be equivalent of hitting an undercut backhand for a left-handed person. It's something that is going to take me a long time to get out of. It's more of fear. When I do feel like I release it, I usually feel the shot is going to go left. It doesn't, but in the back of my mind it's telling me if I let it go that it will go left. It won't, but I'm not smart enough to believe it.

TOMMY TOLLES: It goes back to Nolan Henke bought a plane ticket to go down there, and I was just getting out of school.

TOMMY TOLLES: Yes, sir. And I played the fall, and the Gossie Tour down in Orlando, and he had lost his card and had already purchased a plane ticket to go down there. He was pretty positive about Qualifying School. He ended up getting his card back through the Q-School, he had a plane ticket and sold it to me and off I went.

TOMMY TOLLES: No, they've changed the rules since then, but before, when I used to go down there, if you were American you can go straight into the money qualifyings, and they usually had 30 or 35 spots, so money qualifying wasn't overly difficult.

TOMMY TOLLES: Jeff, J-e-f-f, H-e-i-l-m-a-n.

TOMMY TOLLES: Since I was nine years old.

TOMMY TOLLES: He made a profit. You don't know him very well.

TOMMY TOLLES: Just confidence. If you believe in yourself, you can do anything. And the first year I was out here I believed I could play. I didn't believe I could play with the Greg Normans and now the Tiger Woods' and the Jack Nicklauses. Now outside of Tiger, I really don't fear anybody anymore. And everybody is a little scared of him. But like I said, if you really believe in what you do, and believe you can do it as well as anybody else, nothing really bothers you anymore, you go about your business. And before I was in a little bit of awe. I'd look around at my surroundings and see the Calcavecchias, your Azingers, and Crenshaws, and I really felt like I was out of my element. But now they're friends of mine and I've become a lot more accustomed to what I do and actually believe that when I'm playing the best, I'm the best player out here, and that's what it takes.

TOMMY TOLLES: I think it was the first -- maybe it was my second or third tournament of my year, my first year at Palm Springs. I had a chance to really choke it away on Sunday, and I played as smart as I could, and not as well as I could, and held it together, and ended up finishing 3rd in the tournament. And that's when I stopped having my eyes in the back of my head, I put them back in front where they belong.

TOMMY TOLLES: Two years ago.

TOMMY TOLLES: Yes, it was a learning process. I was playing 25 brand new golf courses, courses I'd never seen before, getting one practice round. I'm not a big fan of the Monday Pro-Ams. So Tuesday was my first look and last look, before the tournament started. I knew I could do it. But it's still -- it's a big learning process out here. The more you play golf courses, the less you have to look at what can happen, because you know what will happen.

TOMMY TOLLES: Uh-huh.

TOMMY TOLLES: Once I became more familiar with the golf courses, with the tournaments, with -- just little things that -- everything just kind of fell into place.

TOMMY TOLLES: Yes.

TOMMY TOLLES: I think Quad City's I'd already made, Quad City's I already made a hundred thousand dollars. And they said that's more than enough, you can take the rest of the year off.

TOMMY TOLLES: It was PGA, and top 30.

TOMMY TOLLES: It was real big, especially Ryder Cup points. I kind of backed into that. Actually when I came to the media room, I think I was in 5th or 6th place, and a few guys missed a few putts coming into the stretch. It was a big confidence builder. The golf course is perfectly suited to my game, I love to hit the ball right to left, and I hit it fairly low so you can get a lot of run out of the fairways. The greens play a lot smaller, but I feel like my iron game is solid enough, and obviously the better you play the more of a reward you have at that tournament,so just knowing that I could play well there and actually doing it.

TOMMY TOLLES: I'm not sure. I mean, I talked to Paul Azinger at the Phoenix Open, I played with him on Saturday. And he said it makes men out of boys. I think I got that backwards one time, and I felt stupid in the newspaper. He says the one time you get in or the first time you get in it, he says you will not believe how much fun you can actually have, and how competitive you become afterwards. He says it will change your whole game, whether you never win a match or win all your matches. It makes you really grow up in one week. He said it's probably the greatest golfing event there is. And that's coming from a guy that's one of the majors.

TOMMY TOLLES: It's my third year out here on TOUR. I've been playing golf for a while, but when it came to a putt like Langer had at Kiawah and does everybody want me in that position? I don't know if want to be put under the gun like that.

TOMMY TOLLES: It comes down -- if the 3 matches are a sheer loss behind you and, you're the 8th man.

TOMMY TOLLES: Yes, I did, the second year I went down. Actually I met her the first year, but the second year is when we actually started dating. But getting back to The Masters, I just want to say one thing, the last putt I made on 18, I made about a 12-footer for par. My caddy came up to me and said this is just like putting the Ryder Cup. When I made it I couldn't believe it, I felt like I just won my match at the Ryder Cup. So that was kind of a neat scenario.

TOMMY TOLLES: I don't know if he stumbles, he's getting a little tired, maybe. Three weeks of fame and fortune, it wears on you after a while. It's a big credit to football players, basketball players, the Michael Jordans, your great baseball players, how they put up with that for a whole year. And I think the kid is really tired after these three weeks. I think everybody is starting to forget that he's only, what, 21? So that's hard for a 21 year old to go through what he's going through. For him to come out and still win tournaments, I take my hat off to him. There's a lot of people that say they wouldn't want to be in his position, and there's a lot of people say they would want to. There's a lot of pluses and minuses. But I think after three weeks the minuses are starting to outweigh the pluses.

TOMMY TOLLES: The day after I flunked out of school. That was when I said I don't have a degree, I don't have a job, so I better really start practicing on my golf.

TOMMY TOLLES: Yes, sir.

TOMMY TOLLES: About the last six. (Laughter.)

TOMMY TOLLES: Excuse me?

TOMMY TOLLES: '88.

TOMMY TOLLES: No, I was a -- well, it was my fourth year, I was still a sophomore (laughter.) My coaches and everybody did everything they could to keep myself in school. But I was -- it was right when -- it was Prop 19 or Prop 14, whatever was college, if you weren't doing too well they got you out of school in a hurry.

TOMMY TOLLES: Still does.

TOMMY TOLLES: No, I was -- I said I was there for school. I was there when Peter Person was there and Weaver and the Browns were All-Americans, and I was this 150 pound, five foot ten shrimp from Fort Meyers, Florida. And I really wanted to make a name for myself. And these guys were killing me every week in the qualifyings. And come tournament time I couldn't play with them. And I was a couple of years where Scott Verplank was in college, and he was winning every single week. So did I still go to school or get my golf game another level faster. So I quit going to classes and started -- once I started doing that you start digging a hole for yourself, and it gets bigger and bigger and the hole finally covers itself.

TOMMY TOLLES: Wouldn't that be exciting? (Laughter.)

TOMMY TOLLES: Actually my coach called them first. I think I let the story go for about two or three weeks. When he finally broke the news then all of a sudden the phone was ringing off the hook.

TOMMY TOLLES: The course is extremely receptive right now. Any ball that lands in the fairway, stays in the fairway. Any ball that lands close to the pin, is going to stay close to the pin. Outside of a low iron shot or a 3-wood, almost everything is going to stay within three or four feet of where it lands.

TOMMY TOLLES: A lot of people don't even know that golf exists. There's a lot of farming in that area, it's very agricultural. It's very seasonal. Most of the people are there in the springtime when the flowers bloom and in the fall when the leaves change. But most of the residents are pretty incoherent to sporting activities.

TOMMY TOLLES: We don't have a mayor. There might be a mayor of Hendersonville. Flat Rock is actually a township, so all we have is a City Council.

TOMMY TOLLES: Through little league baseball. Played little league baseball when I was 9 to 12 years old. I kind of became a runt and didn't sprout very fast, needed something -- actually I got hit in the head one time with a baseball, so that changed my mind about playing more of a physical sport.

TOMMY TOLLES: No, Jeff Heilman, my teaching pro, my parents would take me to the golf course, leave me on the driving range with a bucket of balls, and when he wasn't giving a lesson he would kind of point a finger in the right direction.

TOMMY TOLLES: My parents moved up there when I was in college, it's only a couple of hours away from Athens, so it was pretty convenient.

TOMMY TOLLES: Excuse me?

How did you get hit in the head was it a pitch or--

TOMMY TOLLES: With a pitch, yes.

TOMMY TOLLES: I play 25 tournaments a year. And I play in 25 different big cities, and I get really tired of big cities after a while. Asheville is where I fly in and out of. It's a very, very small town, Asheville, maybe 80,000 people. That's the biggest city or biggest town closest to Flat Rock.

TOMMY TOLLES: 1500, maybe, on a good day.

TOMMY TOLLES: It's 30, 40 minutes to the airport.

TOMMY TOLLES: This is definitely a different golf course than we play the rest of the year. The fairways are generous, the greens are fairly soft right now. You don't really have to bring your A-plus game to score well out here. The key is just getting the ball in play, keeping it in play and making the putts. And the greens will speed up, obviously they won't let them stay as slow as they are now. But I don't think it's anymore forecast for moisture, and that right now is what's basically throwing it down. There's a little mist that comes through about every hour, and puts water on the green to keep them faster.

TOMMY TOLLES: No, I didn't say that. I'm saying if you're in the lead it's not a golf course that's extremely demanding off the tee or the iron shots. To make a birdie you have to hit it in the fairway and make it close to make your putt. But you can still go out with an average day, with your average game or whatever, and still break par. Breaking par -- winning or whatever you've really got to break par.

TOMMY TOLLES: Yes, there's going to be some good scores today, there's going to be some good scores over the weekend. You have to be aggressive. With all the rain we've had lately it's going to keep the scores down.

TOMMY TOLLES: Driving; it's also my weakness. If I could hit the ball in the fairway, I'm a little longer than average, and I can maneuver the ball both ways, turn it right to left and left to right. And I can really work the ball well. But at times I can work it the wrong way, too.

TOMMY TOLLES: Outside of 14, yes. If you hit driver there it would probably end up in the creek.

TOMMY TOLLES: Uh-huh. It's a par 5, you're supposed to, aren't you?

TOMMY TOLLES: It basically goes down the left side there.

TOMMY TOLLES: Actually it was more downwind, if we were hitting 3-woods yesterday, we were hitting 3-woods today.

TOMMY TOLLES: Hit at the bunker on the right and turn it right to left or pull it, one or two (laughter.)

TOMMY TOLLES: Actually I put a couple of really bad swings on the last few holes. When it's your day, it's your day. And today I actually got some good breaks. I think if the greens were a little bit further my ball would have gone back of the green, but it flew three or four feet short of the fringe and stuck there.

TOMMY TOLLES: I earned it. Actually, the first couple of years I had to walk on, and I wasn't a full member of the team until the end of my sophomore year, when I played a full schedule. And the beginning of my second year the coach had a half scholarship so he threw one my way.

TOMMY TOLLES: Beginning of my junior year.

TOMMY TOLLES: That's about right.

TOMMY TOLLES: The 2nd, 3rd or 4th one.