STRENGTH OF SCHEDULE
Altomare made all 26 tournament cuts
in 2019 and recorded five top-10 finishes,
including two as runner-up. In fact, she
has posted second- and third-place finishes
in each of the last three seasons.
The 2013 Virginia graduate credits her
current team of coaches, caddie Charlie
Ryan and her past collegiate experience
of demanding in-conference competition
for her recent progress on tour.
“Coach Kim [Lewellen] always liked
to put us up against the best teams and
best players in the country each year in a
really strong tournament schedule,” said
Altomare. “I really appreciated that because
it pushed me to be a better golfer, which
helped when I eventually turned pro.”
PUTTING IN THE WORK
But Altomare discovered there was much
work to do in her game even on the collegiate
level. She once struggled so much
that her coaches summoned a putting
Altomare high-fives
Team USA teammate
Nelly Korda on 18
during day one of the
2019 Solheim Cup at
Gleneagles Golf Club.
“She has maybe the
best mental game of any
golfer I have ever seen,
she’s just calm and
confident in her ability.”
—Justin Sheehan, swing coach
expert to Charlottesville to help her find
confidence on the greens.
Mark Sweeney, founder of AimPoint
Golf—a putting system that uses simple
green-reading technology to determine
break on greens—was asked to get Altomare
on track. She was a college junior at the time.
“Brittany was a good player, but she was
well below average in putting, so we definitely
had to refine that,” said Sweeney.
“She was not happy with her putting when
I started working with her and she knew
she had to improve if she planned to turn
professional after she graduated.”
That first putting session was held on
a rainy, bone-chilling, 45-degree day in
Charlottesville. For two hours, Altomare
and Sweeney stood in the rain, focused on
what the player needed to do to improve
her technique.
“I’m sure it wasn’t comfortable at all,
but she was dedicated to getting better
and she wanted to stay out there for as
long as we needed for a plan to get her on
the right track,” said Sweeney, who has
served as Altomare’s putting coach since
that first lesson eight years ago.
GOING THE DISTANCE
Altomare also connected with swing
coach Justin Sheehan six years ago. Like
Sweeney, Sheehan served up some honest
criticism as the young pro toiled on the
LPGA’s pipeline Symetra Tour—where she
won one tournament in a five-hole playoff
in 2016—and waited for her chance to
earn a full-time spot on the LPGA Tour.
“When I first started working with
Brittany, we played a lot and it took her
six or seven rounds to finally beat me,”
said Sheehan, director of golf at Pelican
Golf Club in Bellaire, Fla. “I told her if
she couldn’t beat me, she couldn’t beat
the best players on the LPGA Tour. Her
distance was holding her back.”
So Sheehan and Altomare went to work
on lengthening her distance off the tee.
The player improved from an anemic
average of 220 yards to a more robust 255
yards, giving her better scoring opportunities
with shorter irons into greens.
“She’ll never be a long hitter, but my goal
was to improve her distance,” Sheehan said.
“I felt like she could compete at that level
with her putting ability if we could just get
her hitting it over 250 yards off the tee.”
Altomare also could only hit a draw
when she began working with Sheehan.
The instructor insisted that she learn to
effectively utilize a fade.
IN 2019
26/26 5 2 2 ND / 3 RD
TOURNAMENT
CUTS MADE
TOP 10
FINISHES
RUNNER
UPS
PLACE FINISHES IN
EACH OF THE LAST
THREE SEASONS.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
26 V IRGINIA G OLFER | M AY/J UNE 2020
vsga.org