NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — When the best golfers in the world tee it up this week at Baltusrol Golf Club for the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship there will be eight club professionals in the field.
One of them is Emily Miller, who will be fulfilling a dream she has had ever since she learned the game of golf from her step-dad almost two decades ago.
Miller, a Livingston, Tenn., native, lost her biological dad when she was just eight years old. But only two years later her step-father Steve entered the picture and changed her life.
“I owe him everything,” Miller said. “Honestly, I really do. He did not have to be the person he was to me. He raised me. He is the greatest man. I literally wanted to make every step he made, so I deer hunt. I golf. I do everything with him.”
The greatest of those shared passions is golf. Steve taught young Emily the game, then watched as she pursued a career as a competitive player.
Miller earned a scholarship to Middle Tennessee State University, where she played for five years before a brief pro career.
“He would drop me off and pick me up, and we would go play,” Miller said of her dad’s dedication to her growth in the sport. “It’s the joke on family vacations that when I was a kid I wasn’t good enough to go play golf with him. He wouldn’t pay for me to go. But now the joke is, ‘you’re not good enough to play with me, dad.’”
Miller quickly grew tired of the weekly grind of travel on the lower tour and returned to Tennessee to be near family. She became the teaching pro and facility manager at Old Fort Golf Club in Murfreesboro, and still competes in various tournaments throughout the area.
It was Steve that convinced her last summer to travel to Williamsburg, Virginia, and play in the LPGA Women’s PGA Championship.
“I had played a tournament the week before and I was playing terrible, so I almost didn’t go,” Miller said. “My dad’s like, ‘let’s just go’, so we drive over. I don’t do a practice round. I don’t do anything. I show up on the first day and I shot three-under and I was leading the tournament.”
Miller finished tied for sixth in the Championship, finishing with eight consecutive pars in the final round to earn one of the eight club pro invitations to this week’s KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, one of the five major championships on the LPGA TOUR schedule.
She’ll travel to Baltusrol in Springfield, New Jersey, where she will tee it up Thursday at 1:23 p.m. with Jing Yan and Charlotte Thomas on one of the most historic courses in the sport.
“I’m so excited,” Miller said. “I’ve looked at everything you can look at online. I’ve looked at the website, pictures, YOUTUBE videos. I am so excited to go up there.”
Miller will be playing alongside the biggest names in the sport. From world no. 1 Jin Young Ko to American stars Lexi Thompson and Nelly Korda and 20-year-old phenom Rose Zhang.
And now it will be Steve and the rest of her family tagging along, cheering her on from behind the ropes, as her golf dream culminates at a major championship.
“I’ve played golf 18 years and on my bucket list there’s only one thing left,” Miller said. “And it was to win (a major), but who can say that you’ve almost checked everything off your bucket list? You know what I mean? That’s just amazing. I’m just so blessed.”
