Bill Doyle
\n\u00a0|\u00a0 Special to the Telegram & Gazette<\/p>\n
Brittany Altomare was still regaining her strength after the birth of her son Wyatt, so she skipped the inaugural FM Championship in her home state last August, but the Shrewsbury native is looking forward to playing in the event at TPC Boston in Norton this coming week.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m really excited,\u201d she said. \u201cI was sad to miss the first year last year, but I\u2019m really excited to play this year and to see a bunch of family and friends and to play in front of a home crowd. So it should be fun.\u201d<\/p>\n
Altomare has lived in Tampa, Florida, for several years in order to work on her game year-round, but Shrewsbury remains important to her. She and her husband, Steven Stanislawzyk, both grew up there, and her father-in-law still lives there.<\/p>\n
Wyatt, Altomare\u2019s first child, was born on March 7, 2024. He will travel to Norton with his mother. Altomare\u2019s father, Tom Altomare, will be on hand as well. Steven works in accounting and finance for Morgan Auto Group, which owns about 80 dealerships in Florida, and he\u2019s trying to rework his schedule to also attend.<\/p>\n
This week, Steven and Wyatt traveled to Canada where Altomare missed the cut in the CPKC Women\u2019s Open in Mississauga, Ontario.<\/p>\n
When Wyatt was born, Ping sent him a putter with his name, birth weight and birth date on it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been with Ping my whole career, so it was really sweet of them,\u201d Altomare said.<\/p>\n
Wyatt has shown some curiosity in golf already.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe sees me practice, and he seems interested,\u201d Altomare said, \u201cand he likes to swing stuff around, but he\u2019s only 17 months old. He just started walking two or three months ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
What is it like being a mother to Wyatt?<\/p>\n
\u201cOh my God, it\u2019s awesome,\u201d Altomare said. \u201cWe\u2019re so lucky. Obviously, he has his moments, but overall he\u2019s a very happy baby. He brings Steve and I a lot of joy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wyatt didn\u2019t travel with his mother much early in the golf season.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat made it really hard,\u201d Altomare said. \u201cI didn\u2019t enjoy that at all, but this half of the year, he\u2019s going to be out with me pretty much all the time, which is a lot better.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to the LPGA Tour, Altomare is one of only five mothers currently playing on the tour. The others are Stacy Lewis, Caroline Masson, Azahara Munoz and Sophia Popov. The other mothers are on maternity leave or have announced their retirements.<\/p>\n
Altomare admitted it took her some time to adjust to returning to the LPGA Tour and not only because she was a mother for the first time. Some golfers she grew up playing against, including Marina Alex, Ally Ewing and Angela Stanford, retired at the end of 2024.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt like a lot of girls that I knew retired last year,\u201d Altomoare said. \u201cSo it was kind of weird coming back. I felt like I didn\u2019t know as many people even though I only took a year off.\u201d<\/p>\n
This will be Altomare\u2019s first LPGA Tour event in Massachusetts. She did play in an Epson Tour event at Thorny Lea Golf Club in Brockton in 2015 and tied for 49th.<\/p>\n
TPC Boston is less than an hour drive from Shrewsbury.<\/p>\n
Altomare played on the boys’ golf team at Shrewsbury High, and some of her friends from high school have told her they plan to attend the FM Championship.<\/p>\n
Even people who don\u2019t know her personally will root for her because she\u2019s from Massachusetts.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo play in front of people that support you and know you, it makes it that much more special,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Playing while pregnant for much of 2023 proved challenging for Altomare, who missed 13 cuts in her final 15 events and earned only $39,000 for the year. She didn\u2019t play on the LPGA Tour at all last year so she could recover from giving birth and spend time with Wyatt and Steven. She did play in one Epson Tour event in July in Milford, Connecticut. Rain forced her to play her final 30 holes of the 54-hole event on the last day, and she tired. She finished tied for 69th and then took the rest of the year off.<\/p>\n
She returned to the LPGA Tour this year in February in Thailand, and after the CPKC Women\u2019s Open, she had made four cuts in 13 starts and earned $25,129.<\/p>\n
Asked how she thought she had played this year, she replied, \u201cNot great. Physically, it took a while to get back. I spent a lot of time in the gym last year. That was hard, but I felt like I came out of it really strong, which was great. But it\u2019s been different coming back. I wish I had taken more time off, like completely off, and spent time in the gym. I felt like I rushed back a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Altomare didn\u2019t play in the three LPGA Tour events in Europe in July, and she spent the time working on her game with her coach.<\/p>\n
Altomare usually ranks among the most accurate drivers on tour, but that hasn\u2019t been the case so far in 2025.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve struggled a lot off the tee this year,\u201d she said, \u201cwhich is abnormal for me and I think that was tough, but I worked a lot this past month on it, and I feel better.\u201d<\/p>\n
The LPGA Tour is off the week after TPC Boston, but Altomare plans to play the following two weeks outside Cincinnati and in Rogers, Arkansas.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love Arkansas,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019ve played really well in the past, and I have great housing there, so I\u2019m really looking forward to that event.\u201d<\/p>\n
Altomare has stayed with the same family in Arkansas since her rookie year in 2014.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve known these people for 10-plus years, so it will be fun to bring Wyatt back with me,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Last year, her father stayed with Altomare and her husband to help look after Wyatt while she resumed training.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlso, Wyatt got to spend time with his grandpa, which is great,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Altomare is only 34, but she said when people tell her that she\u2019s not old, she replies, \u201cYeah, but I feel like it when I\u2019m playing against 18-year-olds.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since joining the LPGA Tour in 2014, Altomare has earned $3.3 million, and she has finished in the top 10 17 times and in the top 25 55 times. She also compiled a 4-3-1 record in the Solheim Cup in 2019 and 2021.<\/p>\n
Her best finish on the LPGA Tour came in a major, the 2017 Evian Championship in France. She lost in a playoff to Anna Nordqvist. Two weeks earlier, she tied for third in the Cambia Portland Classic. The year before, she won the Symetra Tour event in Sarasota, Florida. The Symetra Tour, now known as the Epson Tour, is the developmental tour of the LPGA Tour.<\/p>\n
She has never played TPC Boston, but a couple of years ago, she hit balls off a par 3 there during an outing for one of her sponsors. She also attended the PGA Tour event there, the Deutsche Bank Championship, many years ago with her father.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I remember correctly, it\u2019s a very big, open, long golf course, so I don\u2019t know how that plays to my strengths because I definitely prefer narrow,\u201d she said, \u201cbut it looks nice, it looks like it\u2019s always in good shape, and I\u2019m excited to play there. I\u2019m excited to be in Boston, especially this time of year when the golf courses are in great shape. And it\u2019s a great time of year to be up there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Megan Khang of Rockland and Westborough native Alexa Pano also are scheduled to play at TPC Boston. So three women from Massachusetts will tee off.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s great,\u201d Altomare said. \u201cI think it shows that you can live anywhere and be good. I think it\u2019s pretty cool. There\u2019s not many of us Northeastern girls.\u201d<\/p>\n
Popov will also play. She grew up in Germany, but was born in Framingham and spent her childhood summers with family on Nantucket.<\/p>\n
The 144-player field will include 36 of the top 40 players in the Rolex Women\u2019s World Golf Rankings, including No. 1 Jeeno Thitikul and No. 2 Nelly Korda. Defending champion Haeran Ryu and last year\u2019s runner-up Jin Young Ko are also scheduled to play.<\/p>\n
The FMC Championship will be held Thursday through Sunday and offers a $4.1 million purse, the tour\u2019s largest outside of majors and the tour championship.<\/p>\n
Tickets are available at SeatGeek.com and start at $59 per day for general admission and $124 for weekly passes.<\/p>\n
Would Altomare like to play on the LPGA Tour long enough for Wyatt to be able to remember it?<\/p>\n
\u201cI have to get my butt in gear if that is going to happen,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019ll see. I\u2019m just going to play it year by year. I\u2019m playing it day by day at this point. I would like to focus on the last part of this year and see if I can get something going to make a run at keeping my card.\u201d<\/p>\n
Altomare figures after taking maternity leave, she\u2019ll be eligible to play in a few more events this year and one or two at the beginning of next year. During that time, she\u2019ll need to earn enough money to keep her playing card.<\/p>\n
Wyatt will be rooting for her.<\/p>\n
Ideas welcome<\/p>\n
You can suggest story ideas for this golf column by reaching me at the email listed below. Comments are also welcome.<\/p>\n
\u2014Contact Bill Doyle at bcdoyle15@charter.net.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bill Doyle \u00a0|\u00a0 Special to the Telegram & Gazette Brittany Altomare was still regaining her strength after the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":103532,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[69008,69009,14805,52956,3006,664,23908,427,2976,33055,3,13470,13471,5573,99,2415,12853,48871,1765],"class_list":["post-103531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-epson","tag-epson-tour","tag-exclude","tag-exclude-from-home-front","tag-family","tag-from","tag-front","tag-golf","tag-home","tag-lpga","tag-news","tag-overall","tag-overall-positive","tag-positive","tag-sports","tag-sports-news","tag-tour","tag-womens","tag-womens-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103531\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}