Remember Tommy Tolles?
Youâre forgiven if you donât.
The co-leader after the first round of the Cologuard Classic recorded three consecutive top-five finishes at PGA Tour majors in 1996 and â97. He played regularly on the tour for another six years. Then he basically fell off the golfing grid.
Tolles last played in a PGA Tour event in 2005. He has played in nine PGA Tour Champions events since last year, including Q School. He was as surprised as anyone that he finished second in the event at TPC Scottsdale, earning exempt status for the 2018 season.
âNobody expected the likes of me to qualify,â Tolles said.
Equally unexpected: Tollesâ 8-under 65 Friday. He had four birdies on each nine and didnât make a bogey.
âI havenât played a lot of competitive golf the last 10 years, so it was kind of a learning experience,â said Tolles, who spent much of that time running a landscaping business in North Carolina.
âBut itâs fun. Iâve never lost the love for the game. I guess I kind of lost a little bit of my competitive edge. Maybe itâs starting to come around; maybe itâs not. I donât know.â
Tolles is tied with Scott Dunlap, another surprise name on the first page of the leaderboard. Dunlap has earned more than $4 million on the PGA Tour Champions over the past five years. But he rarely has played well at Omni Tucson National Resort, dating to his college days at Florida. Over the past three years here, Dunlapâs best finish is a tie for 28th. Before Friday, extensive experience at the course hadnât helped him.
âTherein lies the problem â itâs completely and utterly unchanged,â Dunlap said. âIf it suits you, thatâs great. If it doesnât suit you, youâre kind of in a world of hurt.
âI donât ever seem to make many putts out here, and today I did. Iâve always liked the golf course and expect to play well. Today was more like it.â
Dunlap will play in the final group Saturday with Tolles and Steve Stricker, whoâs seeking his first Champions Tour victory after making his debut here last year.
Stricker, who has won 12 times on the PGA Tour, has come oh, so close, finishing in the top three five times in seven Champions Tour starts. Heâs one shot behind the leaders.
Stricker came oh, so close to playing with his friend and former University of Illinois teammate Mike Small, who also shot a 7-under 66. Tollesâ birdie on No. 18 bumped Small to the second-to-last pairing.
Small has been the menâs golf coach at Illinois since 2001. He plays only a handful of Champions Tour events a year. Being a coach doesnât necessarily help him as a player.
âItâs a hindrance a little bit because I evaluate people all day long,â said Small, whoâs competing on a sponsorâs exemption.
âI evaluate my team, I evaluate recruits, I evaluate my lineup, I watch the guys, I work with them. And the last thing you can do when youâre out here playing is to evaluate yourself.
âI have a tendency to evaluate myself, so I need to just dispose of things and get them out of there.
âGood or bad, get them out and move on to the next shot. Thatâs what I did today.â
The gallery at the 18th hole welcomed Small with a familiar chant: âI-L-L âĻ I-N-I!â He responded with a birdie, the fourth on his front nine.
Stricker made par on 18, and he was satisfied with that result. He bogeyed the hole in the final round last year, when he finished second âĻ by one stroke.
Stricker eagled No. 2 and made five subsequent birdies. He didnât have a bogey. About the only thing that didnât go right was missing out on the chance to play with Small.
âHeâs a good guy,â Stricker said. âHe still plays great golf, and he embodies everything a professional golfer and a good person should be. So itâs cool to see him playing well.â
Four other players were within three shots of the lead entering Saturday. Gene Sauers sat alone in fifth place at 6-under 67. Billy Mayfair, 2016 Tucson champion Woody Austin and seven-time PGA Tour Champions Player of the Year Bernhard Langer were tied for sixth after shooting 5-under 68s.
Langer punctuated his round by making a 60-foot birdie putt on 18. After the ball curled into the cup, Langer spiked his visor and bowed to the crowd.
Mayfair wasnât so lucky. He had a chance to be the leader in the clubhouse but hit his drive on 18 through the fairway into the left water hazard. The Scottsdale resident and Arizona State product ended an otherwise splendid day with a double bogey.
Chip shots
âĸ Langer has shot 37 consecutive rounds of par or better, one shy of the all-time Champions Tour record.
âĸ No. 18 was the most difficult hole of the day. The scoring average on the 469-yard par-4 was 4.429. It yielded only seven birdies.
âĸ Paul Broadhurst made a hole-in-one on No. 14.
âĸ David Toms had recorded 13 consecutive rounds in the 60s before shooting an even-par 73 Friday.
âĸ Colin Mongtomerie was disqualified after failing to sign his scorecard. He had a quadruple-bogey eight on 18 to finish at 5-over 78.
âĸ John Daly shot a field-worst 7-over 80.
