My Return to Blogging!

Well, I am a little late on starting this but I am writing this blog to let everyone know what I am up to this summer. I really enjoyed the one I did last summer in Paris and I think this will be a great way to remember my crazy summer. Hopefully I will have the time to update it regularly. The first question everyone asks me is what exactly am I doing this summer. The answer is I am traveling as a communications intern with the American Junior Golf Association. What does being a communications intern mean? That’s where it gets a little complicated.

To begin with, I am on a team of 8 that will travel to different tournaments all summer. There are 5 operations interns (from here on known as ops), 2 communications interns (comms) and 1 flex who does a little bit of both. As a comms intern, I am responsible for all the documents that are given to players, parents, coaches, media and staff, the software which handles all the scoring, player entry and tournament/golf course setup, the recaps of each day’s round, pictures of every player and other events on the course and numerous other details. I also help the operations staff stencil the golf course and work as rules official for certain groups (which for some of you I’m sure is a scary thought considering before this I knew nothing about golf!!). As you can imagine, the days fly by and are always jam packed with things to do. On set up days, we arrive at the course around 7-8 and on tournament days it is usually 5:30-6:30. The schedule during the week typically goes like this:

Friday: Travel Day

Saturday: Set-up

Sunday: Qualifier or Set-up if there isn’t a qualifier

Monday: Junior-Am and Practice Round

Tuesday: Round 1 of Tournament

Wednesday: Round 2

Thursday: Final Round

Every day of the week is different but typically from week to week the events play out the same. Last week we were in Rock Island, Illinois and had a 144-player field (the largest tournament the AJGA puts on) so we had a hard learning experience. This week we are in Hilton Head Island, SC for the Rolex Girls Junior Championship. It is very different because there will be only 78 players and it is an Invitational which means no Qualifier and a lot of our work is already done for us because they need things to be a specific way. Rolex is a Premier Partner for the AJGA so this tournament is a huge deal.

Most everyone has questions about what exactly I do every day so if I can keep this updated I hope you all can get a good idea because it is very hard to explain. I am slightly scared that this will get pretty dull because every week typically goes the same way except it is in a new location but I have a feeling there will always be something new and exciting going on.

Another question people ask is why I am doing this internship, especially since, as I said before, I have zero previous golf experience. The main thing is that it is just a great opportunity. It will really make me more well-rounded in PR experience, I am going to learn how to work in high pressure situations, plus, I get to travel the country with 7 amazing people and see some really great places.

I probably won’t update this every day but I will attempt to do it on a regular basis.

In the mean time, here are links to a couple of recaps I wrote last week:

http://www.ajga.org/TournResults/2010/Results.asp?TN=T23&RD=1

http://www.ajga.org/TournResults/2010/Results.asp?TN=T23&RD=3

And I will try to get some pictures up but also in the mean time, you can see a picture of my team (Team 3) on page 20 of the latest issue of the AJGA Insider:

http://www.ajga.org/magazin/theajgainsider.asp