Kris Tamulis Savors Hometown Crowd At CME Group Tour Championship

— -- NAPLES, Fla. -- With epic distances between most greens and tees as it winds through marshes and housing, Tiburon Golf Club is a slog for spectators. For Thursday's opening round of the CME Group Tour Championship, it was hot and humid to boot -- even before noon -- which made it feel more like mid-July than mid-November.

But that didn't keep a couple dozen friends and family of Kris Tamulis from following their hometown golfer. Tamulis was born in Michigan and now lives further up the Gulf Coast from Naples in St. Petersburg, but she still most closely identifies with this city, where her parents, Walt and Carol, began spending the winters when she was in elementary school.

"I'm a proud Michigander and am a huge Lions fan, and I am very proud of that state, but this is my hometown," Tamulis said Wednesday.

Tamulis doesn't usually draw a crowd, not even a tiny one, when she plays. That made the onlookers an uncommon occurrence.

"Usually I'm out by myself," she said. "I can literally hear my dad holding his breath over putts. It's slightly distracting, but I'm very thankful."

Walt was in his daughter's modest gallery, enjoying her presence in the season-ending tournament for players who have had a good year. There are only 71 golfers in the field, and Tamulis barely missed making it last year. But her opening 3-over 75, which puts her 9 strokes behind leader Austin Ernst, wasn't the kind of start she wanted.

"I don't think shooting 75 is ever fun," she said afterward -- but making it into the tournament was a blast.

This is Tamulis' 11th year on the LPGA Tour and by far her best season. In her 186th LPGA start, after seldom contending for a title, Tamulis won for the first time at the Yokohama Tire LPGA Classic in August, shooting a final-round 65 to beat Ernst and Yani Tseng by a shot. At age 34, Tamulis was the rare LPGA winner in her 30s in 2015, along with Cristie Kerr and Suzann Pettersen.

Coming into the final event of the year, the average winner's age has been 24, with 15 events -- nearly half the schedule -- won by players under 23. It is a young tour, one that is getting younger all the time.

"I don't think I'm old, but I'm really old out here," Tamulis said. "Thirty-four is really freaking old. Everybody is super young. What else am I going to do? I'm decent at this, so I might as well keep playing until I don't want to."

Prior to this season, Tamulis' best finish on the money list was 72nd in 2014. Five times she had never finished a year higher than 90th in earnings. She stayed pleasant. She stayed upbeat. When Tamulis won the Yokohama, it was one of the more popular wins among her fellow LPGA players.

"It was really awesome," said two-time major champion Brittany Lincicome. "To see someone who has struggled so much and has worked really hard to keep her card every year, to finally get a win was kind of like a dream come true."

Tamulis points out that she has made a living doing something she loves. Thanks to her 2015 winnings of $402,367, her career earnings have risen to $1,260,534. But nonetheless, it has taken no small measure of perseverance to stay in the game.

"A lot of gals that have been out there have come and gone, and she continues to stay right in there," said Walt, a golf professional who encouraged his daughter's distinctive full, upright backswing when she was 13 and wanted to keep up with boys off the tee. "I said, 'Kris, the longer you can take it back, the more room there is to get clubhead speed. She started making that big, big turn, and she kept it."

Tamulis has also retained her down-to-earth, perky approach to life.

"Same person, same disposition as the first day I met her when her dad brought her to the driving range where I'm the golf professional," said Tim Fredeen, who coached Tamulis at Naples High School. "She's cheery, happy-go-lucky, but a grinder, too. She had some lean years on tour, but she kept at it."

Tamulis got married to her longtime boyfriend, Dr. Jeremy Maddox, a doctor of physical therapy who counts New York Yankees baseball players among his clients.

"Professional sports is a cool thing, but she understands that people don't live and die over golf," Maddox said as he watched his wife play. "You don't see that attitude in every pro athlete. Derek Jeter is a guy I was blessed to spend some time around. Just a class act. With some guys, things go to their head. Kris is gracious and forever will be. Golf is a tough game, and everybody has bad days. But you've got to get up the next day. The sun is going to rise."

Tamulis got a dose of perspective in April, when the three-bedroom Texas home of her caddie, Thomas "Motion" Frank -- one of a dwindling number of African-American caddies on the professional tours -- was hit by lightning and destroyed by fire.

"He's going to be OK," Tamulis said. "He will probably knock that house down and find a nice condo. I keep paying him and he keeps growing his bank account. I don't think that necessarily I won and had a good season because of that, but sometimes things all work out. Luckily, I was able to write him a very good check, and I know he'll put that to good use. It probably came at a great time for him."

Tamulis talked to a few reporters after the first round, pausing the interview to greet friends who had come to see her play.

"Nice to see you, Judy."

"Bye, Jane. Bye, Frank. Thank you."

In a few hours, she would be going to the LPGA's Rolex Awards dinner, where she would be recognized as one of 2015's first-time winners and would get to pick out one of the sponsor's steel and gold timepieces -- much different from the plastic "$28 Casio" Tamulis wears most of the time.

"I did get a watch. It's very nice," Tamulis said. "I love this [Casio] watch, but that Rolex is like, 'Wow.' It's probably not something I would spend the money on. I'll wear it when I'm doing something nice."

Whatever is on her wrist, Tamulis' outlook doesn't figure to change.

"My teacher, Herb Moreland, is always reminding me I'm not curing cancer out there when I'm playing," she said. "Most of my bad shots come when I'm not feeling comfortable over the ball. I have to tell myself, 'You might not be able to find it, but it's going to be all right.'"

It was a winning attitude, well before she won.