The last time Kris Blanks was in South Carolina – other than trips to his then-home at Hilton Head Island – was not quite a year ago, when the burly mini-tours veteran made an appearance at the Hooters Tour’s Capitol Chevrolet Classic at the Country Club at Woodcreek Farms. He didn’t win – a so-so final round took him out of contention – but his easy-going attitude and bar-bouncer physique (Blanks is, in fact, a former bartender), not to mention his odd first name, ensured that those who met him would remember him.
Nowadays, Blanks is registering on the golf world’s radar for other, more financially lucrative, reasons. Two weeks ago, after two on-and-off seasons (2005 and 2007) on the Nationwide Tour, the Warner Robbins, Ga., native broke through at the Bank of America Open near Chicago. It was the biggest win of his career, and his first Nationwide victory, period.
Now, with $135,000 in first-place money boosting him to fifth on the Nationwide Tour money list, Blanks is suddenly within range of a long-awaited moment: His first PGA Tour event. In fact, given that the top 25 players on the list at the end of the year earn a PGA Tour card, he could be en route to the realization of a life-long dream.
“I can’t even imagine what it will be like to tee it up in Hawaii next year,” he said after his victory, a reference to the PGA Tour’s season-opening Sony Open in Hawaii. Then Blanks caught himself: “But I’m not going to look at the PGA Tour just yet.”
This seemed a good time to take a look at Blanks, though. In a recent interview with PGATour.com, he lent some insight into who this guy is.
First, there’s his South Carolina “connection.” Blanks lived in Myrtle Beach for a while, and the Grand Strand still claims him when professional golfers are mentioned. Too, his wife, Tami, is a golf professional who, until recently, worked at Sea Pines Resort on Hilton Head (for the record, she has beaten her husband on the course nine times in nine years).
Because his father was in the Air Force, Blanks lived a lot of places growing up: San Antonio, Omaha and Fort Worth before a stop in Great Falls, Montana, and finally northern Virginia, where his dad retired. Blanks obviously inherited the traveling gene from that side of the family; he’s lived in Montgomery, Ala., Orlando, Myrtle Beach and Savannah. Most recently, he and his family moved to Frederick, Md., so his two sons, ages 3 and 1, could be close to his parents.
As for Tami, she’s “the exact opposite,” he told PGATour.com. “She went to elementary school, junior high and high school all with the same people, so she has a lot of lifelong friends. I don’t have that one lifelong friend.”
That has served him well, though. “Pro-am days, I’m used to being the new guy and I’m pretty comfortable speaking to people I don’t know,” he said. “If I went into a room with 100 people in it and didn’t know any of them … I’d weasel my way into somebody’s conversation.”
Probably, given his golfing ability, his pro-am folks would want to get to know Blanks. At the Bank of America Open, he played a game that, some day, might suit him well in a U.S. Open, where accuracy is crucial. Blanks hit 61 of 72 greens that week, including 18-for-18 during his final round. “For four days, (that was) as good as I’ve ever hit it,” he said.
Blanks gave Tami credit for the victory, after the former Ohio State women’s golf team player walked the final round with him at the Melwood Prince George’s County Open in Maryland. Afterward, he said she told him his game was in great shape and he had nothing he needed to work on. “She told me it was all there for me to win on this Tour,” he said.
This week, as the U.S. Open rages at Torrey Pines, Blanks is back in Maryland, preparing for next week’s Knoxville Open. Most golfers are glued to their TV sets this week, but not him.
“I rarely watch golf on TV,” he said. Not even the majors? “I liked watching the Masters the last couple of years to see what they had done to the course. But it’s not exciting for me to watch golf on TV. It’s tough to watch guys when you feel like you should be doing what they’re doing.”
Chances are if he does make it to the PGA Tour in 2009 – or earlier, if he were to win twice more and earn a Nationwide Tour “battlefield promotion” – Blanks will make a quick impression. Besides his 5-foot-10, 240-pound build that is far from the PGA Tour image, and his outgoing personality, there’s that name. No, he says, it’s not that his parents couldn’t spell.
“I’m named for Kris Kristofferson, the country singer-slash-actor,” Blanks said. “My mom thought he was cute. I think the movie ‘The Rose’ (in which Kristofferson played opposite Bette Midler) was coming out at the time, and that’s where my name came from.”
Figures. Where else would someone get Kris from? Well, as Blanks said with a laugh, there WAS one other possibility.
His favorite person of that name? “I have to go with Kris Kringle,” he said. “You gotta like the guy who brings you presents every Christmas.”
Yeah. The PGA Tour is going to love this guy.
BOB GILLESPIE
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