This guy Esteban Toledo is one of the most inspirational golfers in the history of the PGA Tour and PGA Tour Champions. And now he is one of Lake Las Vegas’s newest residents. Here’s is emotional journey, which might be coming to a move theatre near you soon. –By Brian Hurlburt
The complete article is available at LasVegasGolfandLeisure.com
Across from this writer on a glorious spring day inside the Reflection Bay Golf Club at Lake Las Vegas clubhouse is one of the most unlikely professional golf success stories in history. There sits the one and only Esteban Toledo, a four-time PGA TOUR Champions winner and longtime PGA TOUR player. If you haven’t heard of him, now is the time to get to know his story. This article will help, but then keep an eye out for the movie about Toledo that will soon start production.
Click the previous Reflection Bay link to view this Jack Nicklaus designed course and make plans to play it. It features five holes on the Lake Las Vegas shoreline is very worth the play.
Esteban Toledo with his trophy after defeating Mike Goodes on the third playoff hole during the final round of the Insperity Championship, Saturday, May 4, 2013 at The Woodlands Country Club Tournament Course in The Woodlands, TX. (Photo: Eric Christian Smith/For the Houston Chronicle)Toledo, who has made his home at Lake Las Vegas for the last few years, is Inspirational. Determined. Friendly. Outgoing. Caring. Fun. Genuine. Humble. And so much more.
“No one in the game today has fought greater odds to gain entry into golf’s elite than Toledo,” wrote Michael D’ Antonio, author of Tin Cup Dreams, A Long Shot Makes the PGA TOUR. “As a child of abject poverty, young Esteban scavenged for food and barely survived in a home in Mexico with neither electricity nor running water.”
The conditions were so bad that when Toledo described them to D’Antonio during the book writing process, the author didn’t believe him. Then the two ventured to Mexicali, Mexico, and Esteban showed the writer the home and his circumstances. What D’Antonio observed was more dire and shocking than he had ever imagined. D’Antonio never doubted Toledo’s stories again. But from that struggle a star was born. God was watching and blessed Toledo with divine intervention at a time he needed it most. That fateful moment helped Toledo reach rarified air on both the PGA TOUR and PGA TOUR Champions.
Toledo made 148 of 290 cuts on the PGA TOUR and earned more than $3.7 million during his career. On the PGA TOUR Champions, he is still active and has won four times, finished in the top 10 more than 20 times, and earned more than $5.1 million.
“This is the story of a kid, me, who had a very sad beginning, but a wonderful ending,” says Toledo, 61. “But I don’t believe that this is the ending because it’s still happening. I have so much left to do and to give back. I was this kid who came out of nowhere. I was very poor, very humble, with no direction whatsoever, and I made it to the greatest tour in the world, the PGA TOUR. It is remarkable. I still don’t believe I’m a part of this world.
“Recently, I was playing golf with Greg Hopkins, the former CEO of Cleveland Golf, and he told me I am not supposed to exist in golf because of what an amazing accomplishment it is. How many kids out of poverty and my difficult background make it to the PGA TOUR? That is what he was trying to tell me. It took a lot of discipline and a lot of courage. A lot of practice, patience, dedication, and determination. What he was saying was, ‘What are the odds?’”