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CME GROUP TOUR CHAMPIONSHIP

November 18, 2015

Kris Tamulis

Naples, Florida

THE MODERATOR: It's my pleasure to welcome in here into the interview room hometown girl, Naples native, Kris Tamulis, a Rolex first‑time winner this year on the LPGA Tour.
Thank you for coming in. I know you are a little busy this week. It must be a little bit different. Tell us how this week has gone by so far and how much different it is balancing requests, dentist appointments, things like that.
KRIS TAMULIS: It's been a great week. At the same time, I kind of planned ahead for that and just prepared myself. I knew that there were going to be a few extra requests just because I am from here and I have‑‑ you know, Greg from the newspaper here does a really good job of writing at about me.
So it was going to be very busy week. So I just planned my day. I write everything down on my calendar and I just plan accordingly.

Q. Perfect. I know I read Greg's article. It was great. We had you missing out on the event the past couple of yours, and you said it was a little bit of a disappointment. How happy were you to earn your way in and to have a spot in this field and play in front of Naples?
KRIS TAMULIS: The last few years have been a huge disappointment. I tried to make myself accessible. I've done a couple things down here the week of the event just to help out.
I'm very thankful that CME Group has brought us down here and they as highly of Naples as I do. We are very fortunate on Tour to have this event.
At the same time, this year, being here and qualifying has been fantastic. I mean, it's a dream for me. This doesn't get any better. Winning was a great experience, but winning was just the culmination of a week. I didn't know going in there that I was going to win that week. It was kind of like‑‑ after it happened, it was exciting afterwards. But now this was a whole week of an experience instead of just an experience after the tournament.
So it's been terrific. I'm glad it's the last week of the year. I think it's a great way to finish and then I'm going to go home and sit on the couch. I can't wait.

Q. You are in your 11th year on Tour this year. The perfect story of a veteran keeping onto her dream, grinding it out. What do you have to say for yourself just in that regard of‑‑ it's so hard to win on Tour these days?
KRIS TAMULIS: It is, yeah.

Q. You came in and you never gave up and won it?
KRIS TAMULIS: To me winning wasn't ‑‑ winning is awesome and it's something that you want to do obviously. I won, I guess, on every stage now, a junior tournament and college, now on the LPGA. That's awesome.
At the same time to me it wasn't going to define my career. I mean, I remember a few years ago, I was talking to Natalie Gulbis and she was like, How long have you been out here now? I was like, oh, I've been playing for nine years. She's like, you know, the average lifespan of an LPGA player is like four years or something. Which I never thought about it like that. And to me, I was successful, I had a job, I had everything I wanted. I've got a nice home and a nice car and where else can you travel the world and have everything that a normal person wants and strives for and play golf?
I know I'm not a superstar, but that's not my goal. I'm happy to write my thank you letters every week and be a great Pro‑Am partner and support an event and just be me.

Q. Now that this week is here, how has it been so far and what are you looking forward to over the next four days?
KRIS TAMULIS: It's been exactly what I had anticipated. It's been great.
Yesterday my Pro‑Am group was awesome. I played with Bill and a fellow who I know from Tampa. He owned Kane's Furniture. He's friends with my husband. I've been to games with him. We had a great time. Mark Devoe, who I went to high school with his nice and I've known her since I was probably 13 or something. And then another guy that's on the Board for the paper here, so we had a great time. Mark and I had a lot of things to talk about and he was catching me up with Ann and everything.
The rest of the time I've been thrilled to be a part of a couple of the dinners for CME at the Ritz at the beach. I told a couple people I haven't been there since my high school prom. We had our prom at the Ritz Carlton, which probably isn't normal for most people. When you are from Naples and this is your lifestyle, we do that. So that was really cool. Actually the valet guys, they are like familiar, they're like, Are you coming back tomorrow? I'm like, no, no I'm actually having dinner with my parents at home tomorrow which will be nice. At the same time, the food at the Ritz is probably a little bit better than my mom's cooking.
So then the rest of the week‑‑ today is like a really light day for me. Monday I played the Pro‑Am for Mark and then I had the XM interview downstairs and then I played like a quick nine and then I had the dinner. I got dressed at the stoplight while I was on Vanderbilt Road going to the Ritz.
Yesterday I played early Pro‑Am, practiced a little bit and then had the dinner later on. Then today went to dentist and then came out here. So it's been easy.

Q. No cavities?
KRIS TAMULIS: No cavities, which I'm always nervous about. Successful day so far.

Q. You are born in Michigan. Give me the story on when you moved here.
KRIS TAMULIS: I was born in Michigan and that's where my parents worked. They owned a golf course in Lapeer, but I have older sisters and when they had gone off to college in the early '80s, like mid '80s, I guess, my parents would always come down here. I think it was like 1987, we bought a house.
And in second grade I started going to school here. I went to Seacrest. And I would start school in Michigan and then when the weather got bad and it was cold and the course was closed for the season, I would come down here and go to Seacrest and then I would go back.
Then starting in middle school, somebody would stay with me and my parents would go back to work and I would go to school here full time. Then during the summer I would go back to Michigan and work, help out, work for my parents. I was there.
So then obviously I graduated from school here and everything. So we've been‑‑ we've had a home here since the mid '80s and to me I mostly grew up here. Since I went to high school and everything here and middle school and elementary school, all my friends are here. I'm a proud Michigander and I am a huge Lions fan and I am a very proud of that state, but this is my hometown.

Q. How many people have asked you for tickets?
KRIS TAMULIS: I don't know. My mom was starting to email me and be like, hey, can you get tickets for these people? I was like, make a list and during the tournament week, I will fulfill this and put this in will call for them. So I probably put in maybe like 40 tickets. The club that I represent, Gray Oaks, they talked to the tournament director to put a package together so they could come out and support me.
I usually do a good job of thanking the volunteers on the holes and everything and this week I've been even more aware of that just because I know they know who I am. At the same time, I'm very thankful for everybody who is taking time out of their days and weeks and their golf and their tennis to help us out here. So they're fans and everybody says, "Go Naples" to me as I walk by. I'm very appreciative and thankful.

Q. When was the last time you played a tournament in Naples?
KRIS TAMULIS: High school. I mean, high school matches, really. So that was a long time ago.

Q. When did you graduate?
KRIS TAMULIS: '99.

Q. We love having you here because of the story line, but there is no better story line than you being in contention and winning on Sunday. Is there any added advantage to an unforced performance and the fan support, knowing the area? Is there anything that you can lean on in that respect?
KRIS TAMULIS: I know everybody is cheering for me. At the same time that doesn't really‑‑ that doesn't lead into made putts. I know that I have a lot of local support here and people will be cheering for me and for that I'm very thankful.
At the same time, I don't want to put that pressure on myself. I'm just here to enjoy the week. I obviously want to play well, as does the other 69 girls playing this week. So we're here to play the best we can and then give ourselves a break. It's been a long season. We've been playing since January and I'm thrilled to be here.
It's a little extra pressure just because I want to play well for my town, at the same time I know that that doesn't tally help me. So I'm just going to tee it up and keep it in the fairway and see how it goes.

Q. You don't strike me as somebody that would be a changed person after winning on the LPGA Tour. Has anything changed in your game or outside of your game just in normal life, anything that's changed so far?
KRIS TAMULIS: No. My trophy is still in the box. We need to find a good place for that. No, I still vacuum my own house and do everything normally. I don't think anything would change, so no. Just me.

Q. Can you talk about Mo? Do you think all of this would have happened without him?
KRIS TAMULIS: Yeah, I don't think that a caddie necessarily makes a player. I work really hard on my own. At the same time, it's a relationship as it is anything. I probably spend more time with him throughout the course of the season than I do with anybody else. He bugs me sometimes just like I'm sure I bug him.
But he's great. He's pretty calm, but he gets pretty excited out there, too. I think he puts things in perspective just because of his great attitude. At the same time, I think that my parents have always‑‑ my parents and my coach have done a good job of putting things in perspective for me. Nothing is really life or death, especially on the golf course. As long as my family is doing well and they're healthy, I have food to eat at night and I have a roof over my head and people that care about me, I don't think that anything really changes for me.
At the same time, sometimes I think people forget about that. And Mo is a daily reminder. People ask him all the time what's happening with his house and we've been gone so much that nothing has happened with his house. He's the first person to say that he's not the only person in Houston with this situation. There's been plenty of people that have lost their homes and had a lot of issues. They had unbelievable flooding this year, so we can't forget that. There's a lot of other stuff going on in the world that is important as well.
So he's going to be okay. And he will probably knock that house down and find a nice condo and I keep paying him and he keeps growing his bank account. It will be great. I don't think that I necessarily won and had a good season because of that, but sometimes things all work out.
And luckily I was able to write him a very good check and I know he'll put that to good use and it probably came at a great time for him.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you for coming in. Have a great week.

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