That Familiar Feeling

Gadsden, AL – After finishing a wire-to-wire victory for his fourth Gadsden City Championship, Cole off to start he says reminds of his best years on the Calhoun County Tour.

By Joe Medley

Ty Cole stands two points tournaments and four rounds into the 2025 Calhoun County Golf Tour, and something feels familiar.

It’s that feeling that comes with going 72-68-66-66 with three low rounds in four tries.

Cole went 66-66—132 this weekend to win his fourth Gadsden City Championship, finishing 12 under for the tournament and beating John Rollins by seven shots.

“It was good. It was nice,” Cole said. “It reminded me of seven, eight years ago, when I was really in good form for the whole summer.”

Cole is a six-time Tour player of the year, with his last championship coming in 2023. He also won the Gadsden City Championship, one of the Tour’s early events, in 2014, 2017 and 2023.

The time span to which he referred was 2018 and 2019, when he won back-to-back Tour player-of-the-year honors. He also won player of the year in 2015, 2016 and 2021.

His brisk start to this season started in the second round at Cane Creek, where he finished third. Jacob LeCroy prevailed over Rollins in a playoff to win the tournament.

Cole hadn’t played many rounds of golf coming into this season, taking most of his swings on a range. He took no swings after Saturday’s first round at Twin Bridges.

He played in Saturday’s first group and had planned to go see his son’s travel-baseball game in Athens after the round, but plans changed. Upon learning the baseball game wasn’t going well for his son’s team, he went home and relaxed.

“I didn’t do anything, just laid around,” he said. “I didn’t think about golf clubs and this and that.

“The last few years, it seems like every tournament, when I get done with a tournament, I go somewhere and fiddle with golf … changing a wedge, doing something. This is one of the first tournaments in a long time where I just put my bag in my truck and took it back out the next time I played.”

Cole’s Saturday round featured an eagle on No. 11 and a 6–under back nine. He went 34-32 Sunday with five birdies and a bogey in an eight-hole stretch,

“Everything feels natural,” he said. “I’m not forcing it. I don’t feel like my swing is out of rhythm. I don’t feel like I’m in the wrong position.

“It just feels like I stand over it, take it back and bring it through, and everything feels like it’s where it’s supposed to be.”

The county tour went three weeks between the first and second points events but will go on back-to-back weekends, with the Pine Hill Invitational set for next weekend. Cole hopes not to lose that lovin’-his-game feeling between now and then.

“Everything is the way I want it,” he said. “It may not be that way next week, but this week, we’ve got it where we want it.”