owns the best stroke average on the CU team (73.82) and has recorded three top-seven tournament finishes. In comparison, he posted four top-sevens in his first five semesters of CU competition combined.
His most recent top finish was a seventh-place showing at the NCAA Central Regional, a performance which landed Tolan the NCAA Finals berth.
“I’m real excited,” he said as he geared up for nationals. “With all the big amateur tournaments, I’m excited to get there and see how I compare against the best players in the country. When I’ve let that opportunity go by in other years, I’ve been a little brokenhearted.”
Tolan has played in quite a few USGA tournaments considering he’s only 22: one U.S. Open, two U.S. Amateurs, three U.S. Juniors, and three U.S. Publinks. He’s advanced to match play in two Publinks and one Junior, losing in the first round in each instance.
Although this is his first NCAA Finals, Tolan isn’t just there for the experience. He expects a lot of himself.
“The top 10 is very reasonable if I play a little better than I did at regionals,” he said. “The thing that’s exciting for me is that there’s so much room for improvement. If I get hot I could hold up the trophy at the end of the week. I’d really enjoy that.”
Given how highly regarded Tolan was as a junior player, he isn’t thrilled with how his college career has gone so far. It’s been far from terrible, but by his lofty standards it’s left something to be desired. He hasn’t yet won a tournament; in fact, he has yet to crack the top five in a college event.
Asked to rate his college golf to this point, Tolan said, “I’d give it a five out of 10. I’m extremely disappointed. But the good news is that I have a year, plus nationals this year, to prove to myself that I can play with the big boys.”
They say that a person has to hit bottom before becoming determined to turn things around, and that bottom came late last summer for Tolan. “I was missing cuts in tournaments that I made as a 14-year-old,” he said.
“A couple of years ago I changed (his swing) to become more conventional -- for some stupid reason. I lost my instincts and hit rock bottom. I tried to find shortcuts to getting better instead of becoming better at what I already did well. I learned the hard way. I made the decision to get back to what I used to do. And the last couple of weeks I’ve really seen signs of progress.”
In short, the keys to Tolan’s success -- both recently and when he was so successful while in high school -- come when he allows some body movement in his swing, and when he keeps his hands out of the shot and instead relies on his “big muscles.”
“I’m hitting it a ton better this semester, better than I have in years,” Tolan said. “But there is still so much room for improvement, which makes it pretty exciting.”
Both for Tolan and everyone involved with the CU program.
“He‘s been battling a lot of for the last two years,” Edwards said. “He looks like the Derek Tolan I remember from his junior golf days. I’m really happy with him. Anything is possible for Derek. I’ve noticed a change in him. He’ll be back among the elite amateurs in the country very soon, maybe even this coming week.”
