Toledo Getting By as a Fringe Player, but It’s Been Rough

About an hour before David Duval eagled the last hole to end his historic and record-tying round of 59 at the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic in front of a gallery of thousands and a television audience of millions, 36-year-old Esteban Toledo of Mexicali, Mexico, signed his scorecard for a 68 in front of his caddie and the woman who kept his score.

Duval finished first and won $540,000; Toledo finished tied for 28th and won $20,850.

If Duval was happy, Toledo was ecstatic. It’s a matter of objectives, probably. Duval is trying to be the player of the year, and Toledo is trying to make enough money to keep his PGA Tour card for next year.

That’s the way it goes in pro golf. For every David Duval, there are many more Esteban Toledos trying to stay around, hoping for a good week and praying for a chance to make it big.

Toledo signed for his 68.

“I’m tired,” he said.

It’s not easy for all the tour pros, and it definitely hasn’t been easy for Toledo. Born on a farm in Mexicali, he found a golf club one day and started hitting rocks. When he was 8, he hid in the trees on a golf course in Mexicali, then would climb down and fish golf balls out of a pond with his toes. He sold the balls back to members of the country club.

Sometimes Toledo waded across a creek to the course, found the seven-iron he had hidden under a bush and sneaked onto the practice range until somebody chased him away.

He had jobs at the driving range and as a professional boxer before he decided to make golf his career. Toledo, naturalized as a U.S. citizen in 1984, has made 12 trips to the finals of the PGA Tour qualifying school and made it twice. In 1998, he won $254,359 on the tour and kept his card for this year.

So far, it has been a struggle, but he won’t complain.

“A lot of people think it’s going to be easy, but it’s not,” he said. “I have to work twice as hard as I did last year. I want to prove I belong up here. I’m really happy for any success . . . not because of the money, but because of the dream. You work your whole life to get here.”

Peter Jacobsen, who has taken Toledo under his wing to help him adjust to tour life, said Toledo represents a true success story.

“The tour needs stories like Esteban Toledo,” Jacobsen said. “We have enough country club guys, like me. He’s like a poster child for anyone who wants to make it.”

Toledo lives in Irvine and he and his wife are expecting their first child in six weeks. All he wants to do is to be able to support his family by playing golf. He has all year to do it.

“I appreciate everything I have now,” he said. “I am the same person on the golf course and off of it. It is because I came from the bottom. For me, this is wonderful. This is like being in heaven. I can’t wait every single morning to get up.”

59 PLUS 1

All right, so the Hope wasn’t a major tournament and the Palmer Course at PGA West isn’t exactly Cherry Hills or Oakmont, but an argument can be made that Duval’s 59 was the greatest round of golf in history.

It wasn’t Johnny Miller’s 63 at Oakmont in the 1973 U.S. Open or Arnold Palmer’s 65 that won the 1960 U.S. Open at Cherry Hills or Ben Hogan’s 67 that won the 1951 U.S. Open at Oakland Hills when only one other player broke 70 the entire tournament.

But a 59 is still a 59. Compared to the other 59s in PGA Tour history, Duval’s is unparalleled. When Al Geiberger shot his 59 in 1977, winter rules were in effect, so he played lift, clean and place. Chip Beck’s 59 in 1991 was played at the questionable Sunrise Golf Club in Las Vegas.

Beck made a 40-foot birdie putt on No. 1 and had two other putts of at least 20 feet. Geiberger began his round with a 40-foot birdie putt and after making the turn, holed a wedge from 30 yards for an eagle.

* The combined distance of the putts Duval made for 11 birdies and one eagle was 52 feet.

* Duval had putts for birdie or eagle on 17 holes.

* Only four of those putts were longer than 10 feet.

59 PLUS 2

The other players who finished in the top 10 at the Hope averaged 67.5 for the last round, meaning Duval beat his closest competitors by 8.5 shots.

59 PLUS 3

Geiberger happened to be in the desert Sunday and watched Duval finish his round while having lunch with his teacher, Jim Blakely, the pro at Desert Horizons.

Said Geiberger, after seeing Duval stand over a six-foot putt for eagle at No. 18: “At least I knew he wasn’t going to shoot 58.”

59 PLUS 4

It was noted in some news reports of Duval’s 59 that he is not particularly long . . . OK, OK, I wrote it. As it turns out, I was not particularly right.

Duval ranked sixth in driving distance last year, averaging 286.8 yards.

The reason is he’s stronger. Duval said he has bulked up a bit, back from 178 pounds to 195. That’s still down from the 200-plus he carried around in 1995, his first full year on the PGA Tour.

59 PLUS 5

For those of you keeping score at home, here are Duval’s next four victories (or at least where he is playing his next four tournaments): this weekend at the Phoenix Open, the AT&T; Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, the Nissan Open at Riviera and the Andersen Consulting Match Play Championship at La Costa.

That means Duval will wind up playing six of the nine West Coast events. It’s no accident, he said.

“I just think it’s important, at least for me. I don’t want to start at Doral and it’s your first tournament and you’re already

$2 million behind on the money list. If I did that, it would get me in a position where I would force things too much.”

SEE AND SKI

Duval isn’t playing the Buick Invitational at Torrey Pines. Instead, he’s heading back to Sun Valley, Idaho, so he can get in some skiing and snowboarding.

That’s what he did the week before the Hope, so you can’t question his preparation. And you also shouldn’t question how safe it is for him to ski. Said Duval: “It’s hard to get hurt if you don’t fall . . . unless somebody runs into you.”

CONSOLATION PRIZE

Hope runner-up Steve Pate, whose final-round 66 would have been good enough to win, still made $324,000--the biggest paycheck of his 15-year-career.

Said Pate: “I love our new TV contract.”

The tour’s television deal is worth a reported $400 million.

HOLD THAT TIGER

What no golf course has been able to do, video game giant Electronic Arts has accomplished--a complete recall of Tiger Woods.

EA Sports recalled its Tiger Woods ’99 PGA Tour game after it was revealed that hackers in Florida found it included the bootleg original episode of Comedy Central’s “South Park,” called “The Spirit of Christmas,” in which Santa Claus brawls with Jesus Christ.

The game is designed for Sony’s Playstation, but the controversial cartoon can be viewed only when the disc is played on a PC. The cartoon apparently was included as filler.

TIGER PLAYING PEBBLE

Woods will announce today that he is officially entering next week’s AT&T; Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, where he will be teamed with Kevin Costner. As of now (emphasis on now), Woods plans to play five consecutive weeks--Phoenix, Pebble Beach, Torrey Pines, Riviera and La Costa--because he feels pressure from Duval.

What kind of pressure? Money, of course. On the PGA Tour money list, Duval is No. 1 with $1,008,000 and Woods is No. 20 with $94,900--His lowest position since the end of the 1996 season when he was 24th after playing only eight tournaments.

NEW WORLD ORDER

Woods is still No. 1 in the Official World Golf Ranking, despite Duval’s tear. The ranking is based on two years of results. But Duval has bumped Mark O’Meara for No. 2.

Duval would have passed Woods if the Hope field had been stronger (Duval was the only player in the top 10 to play).

The rest of the top 10 is Davis Love III at No. 4, followed by Ernie Els, Nick Price, Vijay Singh, Lee Westwood, Colin Montgomerie and Jim Furyk.

THIS JUST IN . . .

ESPN.com conducted a poll on the Internet asking its users which golfer they considered the best in the world. More than 65,000 responded in three days, choosing among Woods, Duval and O’Meara.

The results: Duval 73.3%, O’Meara 14.5% and Woods 12.2%.

REAL ESTATE NEWS

If you have a few spare million lying around, you might want to consider Payne Stewart’s house in Orlando. It’s a mere 14,000 square feet and is listed at $7.5 million.

Stewart said Michael Jackson looked recently, but didn’t make an offer. Stewart has an idea of someone else who might be interested.

“Tell Michael Jordan it’s a heck of a house,” Stewart said.

Excuse me, Payne, but you should have told him yourself. You had a chance to earn a broker’s fee and close the deal when you spent 18 holes playing with Jordan in the first round of the Hope.

GEEZERPALOOZA

Hale Irwin, Arnold Palmer, Raymond Floyd and Jim Colbert are competing in the Senior Skins game this weekend at the Mauna Lani Resort on the island of Hawaii, which can only mean there’s football on their minds.

For what it’s worth, here are the players’ predictions. Irwin: Denver 28, Atlanta 27; Palmer: Denver 33, Atlanta 28; Floyd: Atlanta 27, Denver 24; Colbert: Denver 21, Atlanta 17.

BIRDIES, BOGEYS, PARS

Golf fans who donate a new or used golf club to the Nissan Open’s “Clubs for Kids” program will be admitted free to the pro-am and practice rounds Monday or Wednesday at Riviera. Details: (800) 752-OPEN. . . . U.S. Amateur champion Grace Park of Arizona State and NCAA champion Jennifer Rosales of USC are part of the field in the TRW Regional Challenge college tournament, Feb. 7-10 at Palos Verdes Golf Club. The 18-team tournament features NCAA champion Arizona State, second-ranked Arizona and third-ranked USC. UCLA is also entered. Admission is free. Details: (310) 375-2533.