DECATUR, Ala. — On Saturday, Caleb O'Toole won the 2021 Spirit of America Golf Tournament at Burningtree Country Club in Decatur, seven years after his brother, John Michael took home the trophy in 2014.
"I've been here for the last seven or eight years caddying for my brother and he won one of these and I finally got to get him back and get me one of these," said O'Toole. "I learned a lot from him and this course is awesome. I had a great time. I want to thank the sponsors, all the people in the blue shirts. Thank y'all very much. I've been playing junior golf against Sam and Mac Murphy and they're the big time dogs around here. So, I was trying to avoid them and Sam was coming up my tail towards the end. It's a lot of fun being from Alabama and playing good here. I don't know, it's just a lot of fun. It feels good."
Sam Murphy was the leader at 6-under par heading into the final day. O'Toole began the day in a five-way tie for fifth place at 2-under par. He shot 6-under par on Saturday to finish at 8-under and win by two strokes.
"Someone told me that Caleb, one of my good buddies, was tearing it up," said Murphy. "So, I started watching. I watched a good bit of the back nine for sure."
"The most challenging part was organization...getting all the volunteers together, making sure we had all our sponsorships together," said Colby Odom, head golf professional at Burningtree Country Club. "It took a lot of time. We've been working on it, technically since 2020 because we weren't able to have the event and continuing to keep those sponsorships and make sure they knew where their money was going towards for this year and trying to make it the most successful tournament we could and I think we pulled it off this year."