Sunday, June 30, 2013

Day 42: I'm on a boat

When my alarm went off this morning, I thought about hitting snooze and just sleeping. I didn't, but it was tempting. All of the stress and craziness from last week and long days have finally caught up to me. Thankfully, Tori figured out how to work the coffee maker at our lake house so I have some energy in the morning. We started registration and not 30 minutes later, the angles decided it was time to bowl. There was lightling and thunder in every direction. The shotgun qualifier ended up getting delayed two hours and 15 minutes. It was a hectic morning, but I did get to put up a banner (the yellow bar) on the website for the first time today.

When I was following groups around for the qualifier, I was down in the fairway on No. 7 spotting balls for players. I saw a players shot hook right, so when I saw him step off the teeing ground I rode up to try to find his ball so that I could motion to him whether it was in or out of bounds. It wasn't 30 seconds after he stepped off the teeing ground that he had already reteed and hit a provisional. I heard the smack of the ball, saw it take off in my direction and stomped on the brake simultaneously  My immediate reaction: "I DO NOT like where I'm sitting." It was one of those where I started squinting my eyes in anticipation for impact. I heard a snapping as the ball ripped through the trees above me and I suddenly felt a huge pelt as the ball stuck my hip. I opened my eyes. The ball had bounced off my hip, back over the passenger seat of the cart and landed about a foot outside of my cart. I looked up towards the teeing ground, gave the baseball "you're safe" motion and drove off. I was way too embarrassed and still in pain from the hit to stick around. If I hadn't of been there though, the ball would have gone out of bounds again, so I sacrificed myself to help that kid out... At least that is what I'm telling myself. 

Once I walked off that golf ball bruise, I took awards photography and then Tori, Tschida and I got off early. We headed home and spent the afternoon on the boat. We drove the boat and two jet skis out to the middle of the lake and just floated and hung out. It was wonderful and absolutely beautiful!


Day 41: Lake time

The view from No. 18 green is gorgeous!
Headed to the course nice and early, got HQ set up and then rode the course to get some course
photography. This course is so beautiful! Around every turn you can see for miles over the rest of Horseshoe Bay and the neighboring city of Marble Falls. No. 18 has a panoramic view to die for; the video does not do it justice! We were chugging along in HQ when we started getting really hot. We had just finished eating lunch, so we thought maybe the food was making us warm. Over the next two hours we slowing watched the thermostat rise to 85°F.The air conditioning was stuck and wouldn't kick on. When it's 102°F outside, air conditioning is a necessity.

Now that is a lake house!
We left around 4 and headed back to our private housing, which is a lake house this week! Bridget, Tori, Michael, Tschida and I are in the lake house. When we got home, all of the doors were locked... we didn't lock the doors when we left. It was so strange. We finally got a hold of Mr. Goodman, who owns the home, and got the code. We headed over via boat to Mr. Goodman's other lake house for dinner. It was the biggest and nicest lake home I have ever seen! It was enormous and came complete with pool and hot tub, four jet skis and two boats (that's not including the boats and jet skis that are at the house we're staying at). Mr. Goodman is currently the Chairman and CEO of Genesis Network Enterprises, but he also co-founded Goodman Networks and was the founder, chairman and CEO of Greater Cell Communications. With credentials like that, I want to see his resume! A bunch of us took out jet skis and rode around the lake. It was so carefree and relaxing! I had forgotten what it felt like to just take a breath and be on the lake with friends. The view from the Goodman's dock was beautiful! God is so good!

Pink at night, sailors delight!

Saturday, June 29, 2013

Day 40: Back to Texas

We loaded up this morning and made our way back through Texas. We didn't get a photo with the state sign the first time we went through, but since we'll call Texas home for the next three weeks it was time for a picture! It was supposed to be an eight hour trip, but with changing drivers four times, bathroom breaks, food stops and traffic, it turned into a twelve hour drive. Today was the first time all summer that I drove the trailer. I drove straight into Houston during the lunch hour traffic. It was a little stressful, but "slow and steady wins the race."
The scenery as we got closer to the course was amazing! There were mountains everywhere and the road wound through them. When we finally got to Horseshoe Bay, the views only got better! The golf course and resort are situated right on top of a mountain (not sure you'd call it a mountain, but it's elevated) and there is a lake at the base. It is stunning! Our tournament director had putt putt lined up for us when we got there. It was a full par-72, 18 hole course. It was so fun, but really frustrating! I was clearly the only one in the group who wasn't a golfer. I got lucky with a few putts, but the greens were actually pretty quick. I do understand though why I never took up golf... it is SO frustrating! Maybe I should just stick to the driving range for now. Although, I would love to try actually playing a course. I would have to block out an entire day for that though since there would be a lot of time wasted searching for lost golf balls.

 

Friday, June 28, 2013

Day 39: Last day at The Bluffs

Got to sleep in again this morning, which was so nice! I went into work and jumped right into following groups to rules officiate. Before I went one hole, Adam, our senior rules official this week, radioed me and asked me to speak to a player about her shorts length. The AJGA has a strict 5" inseam for shorts and skorts. When I rolled up on this group, it was clear who I needed to talk to. When the player walked off of No. 2 green, I spoke to her and she started crying telling me that it was her first event and she didn't have any shorts to change into. I just wanted to give her a hug, poor thing! But I reassured her and told her to play a good round today. Then her dad strolled up and tried to tell me that her shorts were close to 5"... I'll say her shorts were a two inch inseam and that's being generous. It wasn't a bad thing to deal with, neither her or her dad were rude, but it just made me laugh. I felt like a middle school teacher, ready to whip out my ruler and measure shorts length.

Landon came and took over my groups again on the back nine so I was able to go in and start getting scorecards into the computer. I actually moved my computer down to the clubhouse so that I was closer to the scoring tent. When the final groups came through, the scorecards were entered and I interviewed the champions, I was able to sit down, crank out a story, and have it proofed in less than 45 minutes. I was pretty proud of that time frame; it proves to me that I am learning more and becoming more comfortable with golf. The best part of the day: I got all of our comms equipment packed by 6:30 and we were out of there by 7 p.m.! A family had us over for dinner again today and had homemade pasta sauce! Delicious! 
Team 3 survived week 4 in St. Francisville!

Thursday, June 27, 2013

Day 38: Reading for fun

I need to own this mug.
Between sleeping in, only having 2 groups to follow and being done with work at 6:45 p.m., today was a great day! The 8 a.m. sleep in helped and the huge amount of coffee I drank sure didn't hurt. I found this huge mug in my host family's cabinet and I've adopted it for the week! It's filled to the brim each morning.

 I got to follow two of the same groups I followed yesterday today. They were great yesterday and they were all green today as well. I stopped at the grassman on No. 5 to snap a picture. Someone put a sign on his club saying Welcome AJGA staff and golfers; it was cute. I had taken one picture and one of the juniors from the group I was following casually slid into the background. When I got to the back nine, my groups were actually waiting on the groups in front of them to play so there was a lot of down time. While I was still watching the groups around me and making sure they were all set with rulings and such, I started reading the Rules of Golf book. I would watch the groups out there and think of "what if" scenarios and figure out what the ruling would be for it. It was funny, sad and interesting all at the same time.

Landon actually came to take over my groups around No. 11, so I was able to distribute water to the back nine and make my way inside to start entering scorecards and writing my story. I was able to have all of the girls groups entered and the Girls Division part of the story written before I had to go interview the boys leader at the end of the day. It was great! We were able to wrap everything up by 6:45 p.m. and headed to the tournament chairman's home for dinner and a little pool time. They had homemade burgers, deer sausage and homegrown vegetables. Just when I thought it couldn't get any better, they brought out watermelon! Only my favorite summertime food (shout out to my dad)!
The grassman on No. 5


Reading the rules for fun.


Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Day 37: Red cards, time par and bugs. Oh my!

The tough week continues. There are so many parts of this tournament that are different than others that I've been a part of that I am getting really confused. Thankfully I now figured out the uploading confusion that I was having. I felt bad for the people I was talking to because I asked a lot of questions, but I asked them each about 5 times, phrasing it at least 2-3 different ways to have 100% certainty that I was doing things correctly.

I was in the starters tent this morning and got eaten by bugs! These remote courses are beautiful, but there are so many water elements and wildlife areas that bugs seem to attack you. When I left the scoring tent, I went to catch up to my groups, whom another rules official had been watching for me, and before I drove by one hole I was pulled into watch a group on red card. That group got back on green, but when I went back to meet my groups, everyone was 25-30 minutes behind time par. It was so strange. Thankfully my groups were quick players and were all under 10 minutes of each other. 

Once I got back into HQ a few different things happen that weren't good and fell onto my responsibility list. I take full responsibility. I said it once and I'll say it again, this internship gives an enormous amount of responsibility to each person and with great responsibility comes great reward and a great opportunity to mess up. I am trying so, so hard to take things in stride, which is so hard for me, but I'm trying.

I don't want to go into the details of today, because my hopes in these posts is to celebrate the blessings and joys that this internship provides me. I will say is that this tournament has some of the nicest juniors and families in attendance. They are all so kind and welcoming that even on difficult days, I can't help but smile. And on that note, I'm looking forward to a fresh start tomorrow.
Found this guy roaming on No. 12.
This is what our assignment sheets
look like each day.

Monday, June 24, 2013

Day 36: Sauteed veggies

Sunrise over The Bluffs
The Bluffs Clubhouse, complete with a helipad.
If you haven't picked up by now, I normally name my daily post after the highlight of that day. If the highlight of my day was the fact that we had sauteed vegetables as a side for dinner, you know it was a tough day. This morning started of badly before I even left the driveway, but thankfully I found a coffee mug bigger than my face in my host family's cabinet so I was hyped up on coffee. While I put up the tent tops on No. 1, I got to see the GORGEOUS sunrise over The Bluffs. The Bluffs is this huge sea of sand situated in a sort of valley. When it rains really hard, the valley fills with water and it is a small lake. The picture to the left served as a reminder to me all day that God is always looking out for me and to lean on him. No man can create the beauty seen in the sunrise this morning. It's all God.

We had a few more technical issues around lunch, but I got it sorted out. Unfortunately that "sorting out" pushed my work back about 45 minutes. Michael got the afternoon off, which I wasn't aware of at the start of the day. Since he wasn't there, I inherited the rest of his tasks for the afternoon, which is fine, but again it scattered my assignments and ended up adding about another two hours of work to complete. Dinner, though, was delicious! The chef at the clubhouse is spoiling us!

Today was a reminder that without the bad days, we wouldn't have good days. On the bright side, with the tournament finally starting tomorrow, the anticipation and guessing games should (key word = should) be over and it will hopefully be smooth sailing from here on out!

Day 35: Task swap

Storm clouds over The Bluffs.
I didn't have to go into work until 1 p.m. today and when do I wake up? 5:30 a.m. That internal alarm clock that I've developed is annoying on sleep in days, but great for days like tomorrow when I have to be up at 5:15 a.m. I got a workout in this morning and was able to get caught up on a few emails. When I got to the course, the Qualifier was just going off, so I helped with the last little bit of send off. I then proofed the tournament field and updated a few forms that we'll need for the tournament. I went over to the clubhouse and set-up the scoring tables for the Qualifier. About five minutes after I got back from setting up the scoring tables, our weather data started going crazy... I had to go move the scoring stuff inside. Murphy's law! I didn't mind though; it was nice to be up and walking around. We get stuck at the computers or sitting on a cart for hours at a time so being able to walk around is nice.

HQ is inside The Cottage.
HQ: home sweet home!
We ended up having a one hour weather delay, which pushed all of the comms work back an hour. With Infoscore and website difficulty as well, we were pretty flustered. Michael and I finally got to the point where we switched computers and tasks because I am able to edit in InDesign faster than he is and he can crank out a news story much faster than I can. I was honestly really proud of us. We are both capable of doing the tasks assigned to each comms position, but we definitely have our fortes. The fact that we were able to switch up the game plan so quickly and complete everything we needed to in a quick and orderly fashion was awesome! We've definitely grown as a comms team and I think it really shows in instances like tonight.

When we were finally done, we met the ops crew over at one of the tournament chairman's house for some fish and chips. There is nothing like fried food after a frustrating day! The good news is that tomorrow is one of my favorite days of the week and we get to start fresh! Here's to another day!

Sunday, June 23, 2013

Day 34: Infoscore woes

Got to sleep in this morning and my goodness I needed it! Five and a half hours of sleep was my average last week and I got eight and a half last night! It was such a treat! I even got to speak to both of my parents and my brother this morning, which never happens! I usually speak to one member of my family once a week so to speak to all of them was amazing! In short, this morning was a great start to any day... then I got to the course.

Tschida praying that course markings would end.
Michael and I started off the day by doing the normal "busy work:" printing out forms and sheets we'll need throughout the week and stuffing registration bags. Our ops team was awesome and got us the information we needed to make hole location sheets for the week before lunch. After lunch, Michael and I rode the course. We were coming up on No. 16 green when we came up on Tschida. There's a lot of course marking for this course and he was ready to be done! Such a goon! When we got back into the office we finally had things to do in Infoscore, the program used to run and organize the golf tournaments. I started working, got all of the qualifier data entry completed, worked on a yardage sheet and when I came back to Infoscore all of my player entries wouldn't show up. It was so strange. I called a full time staffer for help and we couldn't get it to work, so she had me email the file to Pierre. Now Pierre is the creator of Infoscore; he was built up as a legend during training. About 25 minutes after sending that email, my phone rang. It was Pierre. He couldn't figure out why things weren't showing up on my computer, so Michael and I ended up switching computers because the files appeared correctly on his computer.

On the phone with Pierre trying to solve our
Infoscore issues. 
This is an unusual tournament because we are actually playing No. 18 twice. There was a frost in Louisiana in late April and it killed the grass on a lot of the greens on the course, so a lot of players have withdrawn from the field. It's been stressful for our tournament director and we've really pulled together to try to make this situation make sense and work well for the players and spectators coming. The tournament chairmen and golf course staff have been so helpful and so nice, which has made things a little easier. Once we figured out how to play the course and how we were going to work the tournament, I went into Infoscore to make the pairings and it wouldn't export the file to Word (Problem 1). Then I went to print the scorecards and it had the shotgun time at 1:30 a.m. (Problem 2). Two hours later with a call to another full time staffer and another email to Pierre, we finally figured out what was wrong. It then took another hour to correct the problem and get everything in place for the qualifier tomorrow. Michael, Matt (our TD), Tyler (our assistant TD), and I missed dinner, but our teammates brought us plates back to our host home. Nothing like dinner at 10:30 p.m. while watching Pitch Perfect. A good end to a hectic and frustrating day!

Friday, June 21, 2013

Day 33: Louisiana, we're back!

We drove back to Louisiana today. It was six hours on the dot from Houston to St. Francisville, La. even though we hit a little Houston traffic this morning.We're at The Bluffs Country Club and Resort this week and it's the first time an AJGA tournament has been here, so everyone is really excited! The drive wasn't too bad. We actually stopped back at our Gray Plantation exit (where we were two weeks ago) for lunch and to buy some more course marking stakes. It felt like ages since we had left Gray Plantation, yet it was only eight days ago. The Bluffs is tucked away down a country road with dense trees and brush on either side. After a few turns and a few more minutes of driving, the trees break and you come up to a field with "The Bluffs" sign. It's really pretty, but remote (no cell service).

When we got here, we set up HQ and started some of the initial downloads. We met Lori, the food and beverage manager, and she showed us where the all important copier is located and even gave Michael and I a sneak peak at our box lunch menu for the week: wraps, yogurts and fresh fruit! Yum! Once the guys got back from picking up courtesy cars we headed to our host homes. Bridget, Tori and I are all staying together at a home, but the man had to leave suddenly because his mother is very sick. It's the best of both worlds for us because we are able to come back to a home and we are able to go right to sleep. Normally when we stay at host homes it's harder to sneak away to bed because the host family wants to hear about your day and what the schedule is for the next day. So, we will hopefully get to bed relatively early this week!
Tori, Bridget and I get a host home all to ourselves
this week!

We went to dinner at a local place called Magnolia Cafe. It was a large screened in porch with a small stage set up in one corner where two guys were playing the guitar and singing some slow classic southern songs. We met the tournament chairmen and the men who were so instrumental in making this tournament possible. They were so nice and SO excited to have us here. It was a wonderful night!
Great musicians at dinner.

Day 32: Calm before the storm

We still had a few computer problems when we got to the course this morning, but thankfully they were all solved before the first groups went out! I was in the starters tent again this morning, but I opted for no jokes today. I'm not sure if I was too tired for jokes or if the players were too tired for them, but I was able to talk with a few before they started the round which was nice!

My favorite photo of the day! She was so happy!
I moved inside after starting and began moving files over to the USB drive for our tournament director. Each week, Michael and I put everything that we've worked on onto a USB drive to send back to headquarters in Braselton with our TD. With over 800 photos, it takes a while to transfer. While that was transferring, I started packing up anything that we were done with in HQ. I was honestly trying to find things to do because I was waiting for the leader boys and leader girls groups to start to go get pictures. I ended up scoring the first couple of groups while I was waiting for the photography call. That was the end of the calm.

When I did finally get out for pictures, I wasn't two holes from the clubhouse when I had to give a red card to a group. When you're the AV/Media (which is mainly photography) role, you don't have any groups to follow and rules officiate. It never fails that when the AV/Media person goes out for photos, they will also give a random ruling. Either way, I got the photos that I wanted! My favorite of the day was when the winner of the Girls Division finally holed out on No. 18. Her friend and fellow AJGA player ran to the green and gave her a huge hug; I think the picture conveys the winner's happiness and I love it! When the boys leader group came in to No. 18 green they had putts on every corner of the green. So, I was hustling to get in good angles for each shot.

Thursday's are my favorite shirt. We had a skunk sighting
on No. 18 this morning and then a beautiful sunset later.
Had to get a photo with the golf ball Landon found for me!
To condense a few hours of the "storm", we had a sudden-death playoff in the Boys Division, held the awards ceremony, took photos of all of the winners, named all of those photos, uploaded them to Facebook and the Microsite, checked all the scores, checked Michael's news story and packed up all of our equipment. During all of this mayhem, I remembered that I needed to go buy a golf ball from the pro shop. I am collecting a golf ball with the course logo on it from each course we go to. When I ran up to the pro shop though, it was already closed. I was pretty bummed, but had to jump back into our tournament wrap up. Not 30 minutes later, Landon, my teammate, walks through the door and throws me a Woodlands CC golf ball. He had run into the assistant head pro in the cart barn and Landon asked if they sold logo golf balls. The head pro just threw him and a ball and said to keep it... he gave it to me! I was pretty excited!

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Day 31: Computer problems

The Woodlands clubhouse.
When my alarm went off at 4:30 a.m. this morning, I didn't know who I was, where I was or what was going on... I was that tired! We didn't have to be at the course until 6 a.m., but we had to pick up two teammates who lived further away from the course. After we picked up Alyssa, we got a text saying that Tyler found another ride and thus the search for a Starbucks open at 5:30 a.m. began. I called about 5 different Starbucks all around The Woodlands and all but one opened at 6 p.m. We went to that one and still made it to the course with five minutes to spare!

I started this morning for about two and a half hours. I did my usual and told jokes to the players. I got a few new jokes from the players and still more eye rolls... although I did get a few winks from one player. I moved inside and fixed a few live scoring glitches before heading out to the scoring tent to score the teams that I had just sent off four hours earlier. The player who had winked at me in the starters tent came in to score and told me that he thinks my jokes helped him relax and thus play better. I think he was just sucking up, but it was still nice to hear. I went out and took photos for the rest of the afternoon.

We grabbed a few photos with our complementary cars as well. We've been driving three 2014 Chevrolet pick-up trucks and a 2014 Chevrolet SUV. They are so nice!!! When we picked them up from the dealership on Friday, they each had less than 20 miles on them. One of the trucks had 6 miles on it; we're talking brand spanking new!

Around 6 p.m. when all of the scores were entered into the computer, my photos were all named and Michael was just submitting his story to the website, everything seemed to explode. When Michael went to repair the players for the final round, Infoscore, the golf/player software, wouldn't respond and repair the players. After texting our mentor and full-time comms staff and troubleshooting some ourselves, Michael finally got in touch with Pierre, the French guy who created Infoscore and is "famous" around the office. Pierre came to the conclusion that Michael's Infoscore files are fine, but his computer is corrupt. We finally ended up getting the files onto my computer to print out the scorecards, but then Infoscore wouldn't print the pairings list. So we transferred the files back onto Michael's computer, formatted the pairings and printed those... It's now 8:30 p.m. After Michael posted his story and I text the field about updated pairings, we left the course at 9 p.m. Everyone else had gone to dinner, so they got back to the course around 8:45 to give us a ride home and give us some to-go orders from dinner. What a night!!!

HQ is in the clubhouse daycare room this week.

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Day 30: Shade on No. 7

Pat and I got her WiFi figured out tonight (she didn't know she needed a password for guests), so I can now type my posts on my computer!!! Since I've been here, I've been writing them on my phone and it takes so much longer! Today was my "sleep in" day; I wasn't supposed to go in until 9 a.m., but I decided to go in at 8 a.m. so that I could get on the course early, start getting photos of every player in the field and then get off the course earlier. I'm so glad that I did! 

My cart sitting under the girl's tree. The boy's tree is
the one in the foreground on the right.
Since I have to get action photos of every player, I stake out on one hole and don't leave that spot until every player has teed off that hole. On photo days, it isn't boy's tee and girl's tee; it's boy's tree and girl's tree, as in find a shaded spot to put your cart in so that you don't even have to stand up to get the player photography. It's not only challenging to figure out the player's name that correspond to their photos, but it's also tough because there is no bathroom break on action photo day. Everyone has something to do, so no one can fill in for a few minutes and if you leave your spot, you'll miss a group. So while I did find shade to sit in, I was super dehydrated after 5 straight hours of taking photos! But I got all the photos, which is all that matters!

After I named all the photos, I uploaded some to Facebook and the website. I also worked on a few techie issues we had with our live scoring feed and proofed a few things for Michael throughout the afternoon. We got to eat the barbecue that the course had catered for the parents and players, which was yummy. We left the course a little after 7 p.m. and I decided to walk home since our host home is so close to the clubhouse (just five minutes)! I talked to Ms. Pat for awhile and then went for a run. It felt much better than my workout did two days ago! Plus, I was booking it because it was starting to get dark.
No. 8 green with Ms. Pat's house in the background.

Day 29: Getting some sun

Even though we got an early start this morning, today was a great day! We had the Junior-Am this morning and the practice round this afternoon. Monday's are the longest day of the week, but there are definitely high points on Mondays. For example, we get to eat the breakfast and lunch provided for the Junior-Am, which is always very nice food. During breakfast this morning, I was saying how I need coffee in the morning to have any hope of getting things done throughout the day and Alyssa mentions that there is coffee in the women's locker room 24/7!!!! Best news ever!!! My week just got so much better! There is also more down time during the day to finish getting things prepped for the tournament.

We have a graphic artist writing our scoreboards this week. I was watching him write the scores for the Junior-Am and started talking to him. I got so interested that I ended up interviewing him a little later in the day so I could add his story to the tournament News and Notes blog. He taught himself calligraphy and was asked to write the scorecards for the US Open 6 years ago, which was actually the last year they had hand written scorecards. He described the writing as bringing a player's score to life. It was really neat!

To make the day even better, Tori and I got to leave at 2 p.m. today! We came home and I went straight to the deck in my bathing suit with a book to try to even out my golfers tan. It's not cute. We also got up to the mall and went to dinner. It was a nice and relaxing afternoon! When we got back from dinner, Ms. Pat, our 73-year-old host mom, was home. She came up to us as we came in the door, asked us what we did this afternoon and then asked us if we wanted a drink. Although we declined, it was so funny! We ended up sitting on her living room floor talking about a little bit of everything for about an hour. She was a physical education teacher for 28 years and has now work the drink cart on the golf course for 13 years. She is just as sweet as can be! She gave us a big hug goodnight just in time because I was struggling to keep my eyes open!
Ms. Pat volunteered at the tournament today.
We shopped around for non-collared shirts.



Monday, June 17, 2013

Day 28: Happy Father's Day!

The Woodlands monument on No. 15
Today was the qualifier round, so we didn't have to be at the course until 11 a.m. Tori and I got up and went to 9 a.m. mass, which was great! Before we left for church, I called my dad and we got to speak for a little bit. My goodness, it was good to hear his voice! I am seriously so blessed. Best Dad a girl could ask for!

When we got to the course, we transformed into firefighters. For some reason, we had so many things happen that everything seemed to snowball into larger problems. We were all running around like crazy before the qualifier went off. One of my tasks was to put in the cart signs for the volunteers and the players for the shotgun. We needed 60+ carts... The golf course staff only had about 35 when I got there. It was chaos trying to magically make carts appear. We ended up with about 50, but when I went back to my cart to head out to follow my groups for the day, my cart was nowhere to be found even though it had a cart sign with my name on it. People were getting cart hungry! Even with the fires, we got the qualifier started 2 minutes early! 

It was a hot one, but we got the kids around the course. We had a 9 person playoff that lasted for about 90 minutes to determine would be the last person to be in the tournament this week. Tomorrow is Big Monday as we call it and I have to be at the course in 6 hours, so I'm calling it a night!

Sunday, June 16, 2013

Day 27: Family

Her coffee pot is so big!
I ran part of the course this morning since my host mom's home is right on the course. It was great to get out and run again, but man, I am out of shape! I was going to go to Starbucks afterwards, but I "made myself at home" and found some coffee. Her coffee pot was a throwback... to when I didn't drink coffee. When I did go in to work, I worked on some prep work for Monday's Junior-Am.

For dinner, my sweet cousins, Melissa and John, took me to dinner! It was so good to see them and to see family again! When they dropped me back off at my host home, Ms. Pat was home so I was finally able to meet her! She is the sweetest lady! She actually reminds me a lot of my grandma Pat, really thoughtful, asking a lot of questions and just sitting and talking to pass the time. 

I was only home for about 10 minutes before the whole team picked me up so we could go walk around The Woodlands little downtown area. They have a river walk with different little shops and restaurants. We stumbled upon this rooftop bar and lounge that had a DJ playing. So we ended up staying there and dancing for about three hours! It was so much fun and the view was amazing!

Melissa, John and I
The view from the rooftop lounge.

Friday, June 14, 2013

Day 26: The Woodlands, Texas

It's a group effort to park the trailer.
After making it to The Woodlands late last night as sleeping towards the end of the drive, I'm officially saying that this is our first day in Texas. We got to the course this morning, set up HQ an rode the course. It is a beautiful course, but boy is it hot!

Tori and I moved in with our new host family, who is actually just a woman named Patricia. Her friend took us to the house and let us in, because Patty was working--she's the drink cart driver on the neighboring course. She still wasn't here when we got back from dinner, so hopefully we'll see/meet her tomorrow. Her home is cute. It overlooks the green of No. 8, so I'm going to try to walk to HQ each morning.

Classic rock to the orchestra
The tournament chairman took us to dinner at a sports bar and grill and then we walked across the street to an outdoor arena when there was a concert. As we were walking up, I could hear a classic rock band playing and I got really excited! When we got inside, I realized that the classic rock was from the opening act. The actual performance was a symphony orchestra. The jump from rock to string music was hard to wrap my head around. Although the venue was cool and the symphony was good, we left at intermission. There was a poster for fun., who is coming next month... Now that would have been awesome!

Thursday, June 13, 2013

Day 25: Box lunch

Final day of the tournament! I followed three groups again today an then headed inside to start inputting scores a writing the post-round story. All of the full-time staffers told us that you would end up judging a course by their box lunches, which we get every tournament day. It's so true. I thought that we were spoiled last week because Steelwood's lunches were great, but Gray Plantation is giving Steelwood a run for their money! Gray Plantation had fruit cups in their lunches every day and they put full size candy bars in there... It's like the house at Halloween that has full size candy bars: it's the best house in the neighborhood. I held out on my box lunch today so that I could eat Darrel's, a restaurant that serves the best poboys in Lake Charles. They were messy to eat, but they were so good!

Every AJGA event guarantees that the awards ceremony will start within 8 minutes of the last group exiting the scoring tent. It's up to the Infoscore person, which was me this week, to enter in all the scores, proof them and print the awards/results sheet within that 8 minutes. Thankfully, I was able to input the scores as they came in, so I was able to complete the scores, check them and print the reports in 2 minutes and 30 seconds! 

3 guys in matching pink polos across the front seat of
a pick-up truck driving to Texas... hilarious!
The Boys Division winner was 11-under-par 205 and it was his first AJGA tournament. He shot a 61 yesterday, which was an AJGA 18-hole record! PS he's only 14! The Girls Division went into a sudden-death playoff! It was a cool end to the tournament. I focused my recap story on those things and I was really proud of the result! It was the first golf story that I wrote that I felt I knew what I was talking about, which is a beyond wonderful feeling! 

We packed everything up right after the awards ceremony and hit the road to The Woodlands, Texas. Our tournament director, assistant TD and comms assistant traveled with us so we sat 6 deep in the truck I got stuck in. It was me an 5 guys... Enough said. 

Day 24: Red card

My first red card
Matt trying to fix the copier.
I handed out my first red card today. I was shaking as I wrote it; it was tough. I was sticking with my 9:15 group because they were close to going on red card, so by the time that group got through the checkpoint and a got back to my 9:25 group things were all backed up. My 9:25 group needed a rules official and I wasn't able to be there so they waited around for one, which put them behind time par. So when I did hand the kids their red card, which is pretty much just a warning to keep up pace with the group ahead of them, I got an ear full from one of the boy's mom. I tried to be kind and just apologize, but then the mother told me not to get an attitude with her. It was a lose-lose situation. But I stuck with that group and they got back on green card at the next checkpoint, which was great news!

The talk of the course today was the Boys Division, a little 15 year old who shot an 11-under-par 61 for the round. His 61 tied the competitive course record!

When I got done, I inputed scores, wrote the news story and prepped everything for tomorrow. Unfortunately, we were there about 45 minutes later than we were planning on because the copier kept getting jammed. It was frustrating,
but it challenged me when I did leave to shower an get ready for dinner in 15 minutes! If you know me, that's worthy of its own blog post! We went to a fun seafood restaurant for dinner. The couple that took us out insisted that we try alligator bites, which were like hush puppies but with alligator. They were delicious!
Team 3 at Steamboat Bill's

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Day 23: Hat day

Our HQ this week
Believe it or not, today was my first day wearing a hat on the course! I was the first person to HQ this morning. It was nice to have a moment to collect and organize my things before the craziness of the day began. I set up tent tops, the media and coaches sign-in and organized the carts. I was starting this morning, so I spoke to and announced groups off of No. 1 tee. I didn't tell as many jokes today; I didn't seem to have as much time with the groups as I did last week. 

After I announced from 7:15-9:15 a.m., I had three groups to follow on the course throughout their round. I rode back and forth between all three of them to help them with rulings and spot balls. I gave four rulings today, three of which were lateral water hazards, so I am getting more comfortable with knowing the rules and when to do what. My last group finished at 1:26 p.m., so I was roaming around on the course for six hours. I can tell you one thing: it was HOT! It was 92°F and 65% humidity today and it's only supposed to get warmed the next two days.

Once my groups were done, I began imputing scores, writing the press release for the round, interviewing the leaders and prepping all of the paperwork for tomorrow. It was a busy afternoon. I was the first one there this morning and I was the last intern to leave tonight. We headed over to another family's house for dinner. They served sausage and chicken gumbo, a crawfish and shrimp casserole, pasta salad and bread pudding. It was all delicious, but heavy. We got to their home at 7 p.m. and I was falling asleep standing up at 8:30 p.m. 
The snazy new Operation Hydration tent tops.
My view for the day; not a bad "office."