David Toms - From Tee to Green
David Toms likens his success on the tour to investing: You have to focus on the fundamentals
By JOHN D. NESTOR
Reprint from ADVISOR - Summer 2003
In June 2003, when David Toms won the Fed Ex St. Jude Golf Classic, much was made of what sportswriters consider one of the most fundamentally sound swings on the PGA tour. Toms dominated the field by reaching more greens in regulation (over 80%) than any other player, scoring the ninth-highest percentage in driving accuracy (76%) and playing all four tournament rounds in the 60s. (In the final round, Toms blew past the field with a seven-under-par 64 to finish at 20-under for the tournament.)
Like every great golfer, Toms attributes his success, in part, to hours of preparation. His favorite practice method is to simulate situations he will see in tournament action. "I'm not the kind of player who goes to the range and hits a ton of balls," says Toms. "I get a better understanding of what really needs work on the course, and there I can work on what matters most in tournament play - scoring."
Toms's Merrill Lynch Financial Advisor, Jack "Bo" Smithwick, is another strong believer in fundamentals. By adapting to changes in the financial marketplace and in Toms's growing income, Smithwick has helped his client steer a sound, steady course. "I've told David several times, "I'm not going to make you wealthy, you are. But I'll help keep you there," says Smithwick. "It's my job to handle his money and investments so he can concentrate just on golf."
It helps that Smithwick has earned Toms's confidence over years of working together. "I've known Bo for a longtime," says Toms. Smithwick is close friends with Toms's wife, Sonya, and son, Carter Philip. Smithwick and Toms live near each other, they're members of the same country club, and Smithwick helps manage the David Toms Foundation (www.davidtomsfoundation.com), which provides assistance to underprivileged children. "I trust Bo," says Toms, "and you need trust when you're dealing with money."
By professional standards, Toms was a late starter. He didn't pick up his first golf club until he was 12. "But I felt a passion for the game from the start," he says. "And I learned to use that passion to hone my skills." By age 17, Toms had won both the Junior World Championship and the PGA Junior Championship. And in his senior year at Louisiana State University, he was named the Southeastern Conference Player of the Year and a first-team All-American.
In the early 1990s, when Toms was breaking into the PGA, he and Smithwick invested aggressively in growth mutual funds. "But David has since generated a lot of wealth playing golf," says Smithwick, who has been a Merrill Lynch Financial Advisor for more than 17 years. "So we've adopted a more conservative plan to preserve that wealth using high-quality stocks, bonds and cash."
"I don't know enough to play the stock market," says Toms. "I just want to concentrate on golf and make my money there. I'm a fairly conservative person and I put in a lot of hard work to earn what I make, so I want to know that it is going to be there for me and my family down the road."
Both the financial markets and the game of golf can be affected by a multitude of factors, so Toms favors the same conservative approach when on tour. "There are so many variables in golf I can't control, like the cut of the greens, the weather or how my competitors are playing," he says. "So I prefer to focus on my swing, my putting stroke and improving as a player," he says. "That's how you generate wins. And so long as I know I am competing to the best of my ability, you can bet that I'm having fun doing it."
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