Texas Golf Association summer intern Kristin Glesne was struggling with an important task in the hours leading up to the 2019 Women’s Pinehurst tournament. Thankfully, her mentor from the Women’s Championship Department, Andrea Daly, was nearby.
“Andrea and I drove the course and selected the hole locations together,” said Glesne, a USGA Boatwright Intern from San Antonio who played collegiately at Iowa. “She had me work with the Pinsetter software to input the hole locations for the sheet we pass out to all the players. After playing around with it for a bit, I still needed help. Andrea taught me how to do it correctly.”
The P.J. Boatwright Jr. Internship Program was established in 1991 by the USGA. The program is designed to give experience to individuals who are interested in pursuing a career in golf administration, while assisting state and regional golf associations in the promotion of amateur golf, on a short-term, entry level basis.
At the TGA, these seasonal interns aid the Men’s, Women’s and Legends Junior Tour Championship Departments in conducting nearly 200 days of onsite events, which include multi-round tournaments and qualifiers.
The Boatwright Interns play a vital role in helping manage day-to-day operations during the TGA’s busiest months of tournament administration and are often called upon to handle important assignments – like using Pinsetter for hole location sheets.
“Andrea stressed how critical it was to get everything exactly right,” Glesne said. “If your hole locations are off by even a few feet, the players will let you know about it.”
In 2019, the TGA established the Mentorship Program that helped Glesne complete the Pinsetter task perfectly. The Mentorship Program’s goal is to make each intern a more valuable team member by building his or her confidence and initiative through open communication. The program assigns each intern a staff mentor they can go to for continual training, coaching, and support throughout the duration of each internship.
Each season, the TGA employs seven interns that start and end at various times to coincide with the most active dates of the annual Men’s, Women’s and LJT Competitions Calendar. The interns are assigned to events conducted by different staff members of the three Championship Departments and while the end goal is always to produce high quality tournaments, different staff have different ways of getting to the finished product of a TGA Championship.
“My guidance was to let my mentee learn through working closely with others and when ready, try a task on his own,” said TGA Tournament Director Neil Gilman. “I wanted to remain a resource throughout the internship while allowing him to learn all the different facets involved in golf administration.”
After a few days of orientation and in-house training, within a week most interns are onsite at an event or qualifier getting first-hand experience. Each event has a variety of tasks that need to be completed, including setting up the golf course, putting out tournament signage, starting, scoring and cleanup, to name just a few.
“My big thing was to lead by example and be available for the interns,” said TGA Tournament Manager Justin Guthrie. “I wanted to make sure that if they had any questions, they knew they could come to me, but I also wanted them to try and work things out by themselves or together first.”
Though the Mentorship Program was just in its first year, it was successful with the interns who learned throughout their time with the TGA.
“My mentor definitely enhanced my internship experience,” Glesne said. “Being a competitive golfer, I had an idea of what the internship would include, but I didn’t know as much about the structure of work or what went on while you were in the office.”
The preparation leading up to tournaments is a critical process that ensures the success of each event. Interns help with organization and keep things running smoothly by printing tournament paperwork, getting materials packed and ready for the event and welcoming players and answering any questions they have.
Through the TGA’s Mentorship Program, interns will gain more experience and knowledge toward finding a full-time position, whether it is in golf administration or not.
“My biggest takeaway was the valuable experience I gained from the program, not just on the golf course, but in the office as well,” said P.J. Boatwright Intern Jason Lopez. “My mentor helped me so much by leading me in the right direction and not just telling me what to do.”
While having a mentor with golf administration experience is a plus, having one that was a previous P.J. Boatwright Intern is a big help. All five TGA mentors last year were previous P.J. Boatwright Interns and went through the same steps as the current-day interns.
“Considering that the majority of our Championship Departments, and some of our other TGA staff members are former interns (eleven in total), the program is very valuable,” said John Cochran IV, Director of Competitions, South Texas.
Continuing the Mentorship Program in 2020 will help the TGA in conducting world-class events while also strengthening its golf administration procedures by growing the interns’ abilities on and off the golf course.
For more information on the P.J. Boatwright Internship Program and to view current openings with the Texas Golf Association, visit www.txga.org/careers.html.
