How Michael Tothe overcame poor grades at his GTA high school to become tournament director at this week’s PGA Tour stop

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 26/05/2021 (1956 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When Michael Tothe was nearing the end of his time at Acton High School in Halton Hills, northwest of Toronto, his grades weren’t great. But his golf was.

Tothe sent 500 letters to college golf teams in the southern United States and the replies trickled in. He got a letter from Shorter College in Rome, Ga., and off he went on a full scholarship.

“There were 3,000 kids on campus, and I was the only Canadian. They made fun of my accent,” Tothe says. “But I made fun of their accent. It was great.”

After a worldly career in golf that saw him go from Georgia to Canada to Singapore to Texas, Tothe is now the tournament director at this week’s PGA Tour event, the Charles Schwab Challenge, in Fort Worth, Texas.

He has worked in various capacities with the tournament since 2008 and is the only Canadian to hold such a position at any event on the PGA Tour — the RBC Canadian Open aside.

In a fun twist, Tothe isn’t the lone Canadian involved with the tournament. Mike Zinga, of Burlington, Ont., is the director of sales at the event. He worked at Golf Canada alongside Tothe in the early 2000s.

Some other Canadians holding big-time management positions in non-Canadian professional golf events include:

• Ryan Hart, executive director of the 2024 Presidents Cup;

• Wayne Bannatyne, championship director of the 2023 U.S. Senior Open;

• Paige Ottaviano, who helps run the Marathon LPGA Classic Presented by Dana; and

• Keith Pelley, chief executive of the European Tour.

But it’s still a rarity.

“There are a few Canadians in the golf world who are slowly infiltrating,” Tothe says.

Tothe’s infiltration of the golf world began just one day after his commencement ceremony from Shorter College, when he started working at the American Junior Golf Association. He was hired full-time after driving to the head office in Atlanta to try to cold-call his way to an internship while in school (which he got).

Tothe was there for three years before returning to Canada as the director of amateur championships for the Royal Canadian Golf Association, which was rebranded to Golf Canada in 2010.

“As a Canadian you go to Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary … but you don’t really get to Lloydminster or Kamloops or Red Deer or some of these smaller places. It was fun for me to get to see Canadians who are crazed about golf in small markets.

“I went from a progressive golf organization to one that was very traditional and stale at the time, but I did a nice job of elevating the championships. Made them more fun. Invited more Americans. Let everyone wear shorts. I just fixed some things that I felt needed to be fixed.”

Not long after, Tothe got a call from the giant management firm IMG to go work in Singapore. It was an opportunity too good to pass up at the time, he says, and his decision was supported by his wife, Holly. They loved Asia, but when Holly Tothe got a call from the University of Texas-San Antonio to become the school’s first women’s golf team head coach, they headed back to North America.

While in Singapore, Tothe learned that he had dyslexia. That explained his poor grades through school and why he took such initiative early in his life — the 500 letters, the first-job effort, the travel to Singapore were all tied to that, he says.

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“People think that dyslexia is all bad all the time, but it forces you to do different things and it forced me to take initiative,” Tothe says, “and that’s why my path has gone the way it’s gone. I’ve adapted.”

Although Tothe hasn’t yet become an American citizen, that will likely come soon. But with Adam Hadwin, Corey Conners, Nick Taylor, Michael Gligic and Mackenzie Hughes in the field this week at Tothe’s event in Texas, he says he would “100 per cent be OK with a Canuck winner, for sure.”

And even though his journey has brought him around the world in golf — and to one of the most unique positions for a Canadian in the sport — he can’t quite shake his homeland.

“I am the resident hockey expert. Everyone is a Dallas Stars fan, but nobody knows the game,” Tothe says, laughing. “But here we are at one of the most traditional events on the PGA Tour, and part of the leadership team is a guy from Canada.”

Adam Stanley is an Ottawa-based contributor to the Star’s Sports section and the host of golf podcast Next Round’s On Me. Follow him on Twitter: @adam_stanley