From tee to green, David Toms had the winning formula at Galleri Classic
When the 2023 PGA Tour Champions season began in January, David Toms looked at his senior career and saw something missing.
“I've never really been part of the mix for the Schwab Cup and I think that's why a lot of us play out here, is to win tournaments and be a part of that season-long competition,” Toms said Sunday after winning his second senior event in March at the inaugural Galleri Classic in Rancho Mirage. “This sets me up to be hopefully a part of that if I can just keep it going. I'll have to win multiple more times, but there's no reason why that couldn't happen if I just keep my game in this type of shape.”
Six years after joining the PGA Tour Champions full time for the 2017 season, Toms is having the best season of his senior career. With two wins in six starts in the 2023 season, Toms has doubled his career PGA Tour senior victories. He has also thrust himself to the top of the season-long Charles Schwab Cup race. With $792,160 in winnings for the year, Toms is now just under $7,000 ahead of second-place Steve Stricker.
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It’s a turnaround for Toms, who on the regular tour won 13 times including the 2000 PGA Championship. On the senior tour, Toms earned his first victory with a major, the 2018 U.S. Senior Open. But the Louisiana native then went 86 starts with just one win, that coming in the 2020 season, until his victory earlier this month at the Cologuard Classic in Tucson.
Now with two wins in his last three starts, including a sizzling rally on the back nine Sunday at Mission Hills Country Club for a four-shot victory, Toms seems to have found the winning formula again.
“Really felt calm the last four, five holes. I'm sure winning earlier in the season had a lot to do with that,” Toms said. “Even there on 18, there's water all over the place and I got up and striped it right down the middle. Obviously once you win it makes it a little bit easier to do that, but at the same time you've got to execute and I was able to do it.”
Putting was hot at Mission Hills
Always known as a consistent striker of the ball, at the Galleri Classic it was Toms’ putting that made the difference. In the first round Toms said he struggled on the first nine holes with some reads of the tricky Dinah Shore Tournament Course greens. But on the back nine he started making putts. It seemed like he never stopped making putts after that, twice shooting 5-under 31 on the back nine and leaving longer putts around the hole all week.
“I felt good with my speed and that was the difference,” Toms said. “The tough part was reading them, you know, with the Indio thing going on and grain and overseed and all those made it tough to really read the greens, but speed was pretty solid all week.”
That was particularly true on the back nine Sunday, where he made a key 10-foot par save on the 14th hole and then rolled in a 20-foot birdie putt on the 15th hole that all put clinched the tournament title.
For the week, Toms' average of 26.3 putts per round was No. 1 in the Galleri Classic field. Combine that with leading the field in fairways hit at 78.6 percent and it’s a winning formula.
“If you could keep it in between the trees so that you weren't trying to shape shots out of the trees, you could play out of the rough.” Toms said. “It was enough to where you had to think about it. You couldn't spin the ball out of it, but you could make par out of it. I think on some of the hard holes, if you could just keep it in.”
Toms' driving of the ball was also a key to the victory, he agreed.
“I heard some guys talking before the round (Sunday) of a couple of disasters they had on the golf course, a couple of OBs and things like that,” Toms said. “I was like, please don't talk, please don't talk like that, I've got to go out and play golf. But that was the key in not having the penalty strokes and keeping the ball in play.”
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Galleri Classic: After struggling to find consistency, David Toms again a threat on senior tour
