Golfer Toby Schulman began her winning reign at West Hartford’s Rockledge Country Club when she was 20 years old. That was in 1966, and her championship dominance on the green lasted there for 20 years. Her name at the 100-year-old club—one of the most esteemed 18-hole public golf courses in the country—is legendary. Now 78, Toby looks proudly back on a golf career that lasted over five decades, and one that not only gave her much pride, but gave countless spectators a lively and awe-inspiring show. Toby has participated in many women’s golf championships in Connecticut over the years. Among her triumphs were the Hartford Times Tournament of Champions in 1976 and, as runner up, the Connecticut Women’s Golf Association (CWGA) Championship in 1994. Six years ago she had another win which she considers one of her most gratifying of all, because it included her grandson Matthew Schuman, who was 14 years old when he and his grandmother won the CWGA mixed-net division championship. One of the later clubs at which she was an esteemed member was the Tumble Brook Country Club in Bloomfield, a facility founded almost a century ago, reinforcing the fact that playing on the most venerable greens is part of her athletic DNA. Toby won titles there well into her Seventies. It is without a doubt that this grandmother and championship golfer has had an incredible effect on women’s golf in Connecticut.
Toby Schulman
