Back Home Again in Indiana

Summer is over, and I'm home again and not for long. I got home Friday and get to head back to Richmond today.
This last week I got to go back to one of my favorite golf courses, Stoney Creek at Wintergreen Resort for our Tour Championship. It was a fun two day tournament of our favorite (and least favorite) golfers. It was hard to say goodbye to some of our favorite golfers and volunteers ut it was a good ending to a great season.

Finally got a picture of all 3 of us!

Came home to this on mine and the other intern's car.

Not gonna lie, this was a highlight of our day. It's a train if you can't tell.

Wednesday was our final sub-regional DCP at Salisbury CC. Gotta brag though, we set up the range in record time! It went the smoothest yet and I got to see my favorite little girl golfer. It was that night we got to use some PF Chang's gift cards given to us by a parent just because she loves us.
Thursday was the final day in the office. I made a pretty awesome promotional video with the video we took from the Tour Championship. The night I headed to Mt. Hope to visit my favorite West Virginia family. Glad I got to see them on my way back home.

Definitely my favorite part of the drive!

Captain America joined us for dinner! (Oh and I got to see him tie his shoes for the first time!

I finally made it back home and got to celebrate the many August birthdays that happen in the Goda family. Saturday I got to play golf with my dad and as much as I hate to admit it... he beat me. Sunday I got to be at my home church and hear my favorite Pastor Kottke preach one more time. We had the Goda and Kottke clan at our house and had a big birthday bash. It was the perfect way to catch up over ice cream cake. Due to rain I didn't get to play with or watch my sister play golf. But it was fun catching up with family despite all the many doctor appointments I had. I even had time to go to the State Fair with Lydia and one of the Lough boys.

Seeing my pups was most certainly a highlight of my return!

It was fun celebrating my sis and cuz's birthday!

The college and young couple groups were able to get together and go to an Indian's game.

Not gonna lie, taking a younger friend to the fair lets you get away with going to fun places and little hands on the farm!

Power Pose

This is the end of my blog because the summer is over. But who knows, maybe next summer I had an even greater adventure and will need another blog to contain all the excitement.
Thanks for following along and please continue praying while this semester begins.

Sincerely,

Michelle Goda

Last Full Week

This week was full of a lot of lasts, but after watching the movie Paper Towns I am motivated to focus on all of the firsts that will come because of them. To summarize my summer would contain a lot of firsts. My first time living away from home while working for more than a week. The first time I had to find a church and attend all by myself. The first time I got to work a professional golf tournament. The first time I felt confident in giving a ruling on a golf course. The first time I went to DC & Arlington Cemetery all by myself. The firsts could go on forever but I'm alright with just saying that this summer has opened so many doors for me.
But to do my usual rundown of my week we should start with Monday which was my first shotgun I'd ever been a part of with the MAPGA. It was at Springfield CC which I was able to play earlier on in the summer. It was interesting to say the least. And if I thought pace of play was important before it was even more important now! But like a well oiled machine every player understood what we expected of them and every rules official rose to the challenge and shoved the kids from shot to shot and got it done in a reasonable time. The kids were exhausted by the end of it, we forgot how hilly it was and how long the course plays with the many elevation changes.
Tuesday we went to Stoneleigh GC. This was the cutest course we've been to yet. The clubhouse was an old home. The cart barn was literally an old red barn. And the view from the second tee was unforgettable. It was the highest point on the course and being amongst the Shenandoah Mountains made it out to be a breathtaking view, despite the hike to get up there. The hole played 200 yards straight up, and the stone wall in front of the green didn't help either. It was another exhausting course. But I'm glad I got to play the front 9 with my coworkers and two really great volunteers. I also had a blast dancing with my boss to Footloose and the Dirty Dancing soundtrack. Definitely and unforgettable day!
Wednesday was our last regular tour event. And I hate to say this but it was probably the worst event yet. If it hadn't been for communicating with a non-golfer to help us plan the tournament then sure it would've been a long day; but the tournament was pushed back 15 minutes to allow the play through that the course let on. Then we had to start all the kids on holes that could be used for a rules seminar! Hazards were rampant and our kids have a tendency to find them whether they want to or not. It was a mess, but we made do. When it was done we were thanked by many parents and even spoiled a little.
Then we headed to our intern dinner. Which was more or less our going away dinner to say thanks and goodbye to our co-workers and favorite volunteers. Rocky & Donna, Slavy & Fluff, Merle & Dianne, Skull, German & Susan, Pat, the entire office and John Madden (President of MAPGA) were all there. It was definitely  a great way to say goodbye. It was nice to go around the table and say a brief thing to each person in attendance. I was weirded out by Bob's description of our dancing duo and humbled by his downing my singing abilities. But I was very thankful for all the kind things that were said and realized that I have gotten so much more out of this summer than I asked for.
Thursday we had our first sub regional DCP and wasn't surprised by the amount of kids I didn't recognize despite the fact that I had seen them all! It was a long DCP because we didn't have very many no shows. River Bend was a great host course and John Madden didn't disappoint in being a great host. I even got to return to my favorite Irish pub that Grace and I visited last time we were in Great Falls.
Friday was my last full day in the office and I had my exit interview and I got to reflect on so many firsts that can come out of this. Including an opportunity with teaching golf to women in the Middle East. I don't know who I've mentioned this to, but this is a huge dream of mine. To introduce a gendered sport to a minority in a foreign country where just being a female is frowned upon, let alone playing a man's game. Sure I'm looking at it from an extreme standpoint but I really do want introduce the opportunity to so many women. Just be praying that something might come out of this.
Also please forgive me but I don't have any pictures for this week :)

Sincerely,

Michelle

P.S. I forgot to mention I finally got what I wanted, a Congressional putter cover! 

The Office

I know I've said this before and I'll say it again: If any office should have a television show it should be us. I spent a week in the office and have realized that we are too funny not to be shared with other humans. Any way this week wasn't exactly eventful so I'll spare the details. Because, I want to shout it from the rooftops just how much fun I had this weekend. We got to volunteer at the Quicken Loans National Tournament at Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Manassas, VA. We worked on the driving range which consisted of changing out name plates, loading up all the many color coded bags of brands of golf balls, and drooling over the pros we were inches away from. Saturday started with the adventure of taking the shuttle to the course and meandering our way back to our post. We finally made it there to be next to Tiger, Ricky Barnes, and Rickie Fowler. We learned ways to mess with the masses of orange. We took Rickie's name plate and proceeded to walk all the way down to the end of the range and ponder over which stand we were gonna put it in. Then we had a revelation that oh you know what he's not even out here yet, then would walk all the way back to our tent. Saturday was just a day of getting starstruck and learning the ins and outs of our role in the tournament.
Sunday was the best day of my summer. We got there early enough to see the first tee times warming up on the range. This included Patrick Rodgers from Avon, IN with his Colts carry bag. We also got to be up close and personal to all of the leaders and the not so leaders but it was so neat. The secret ingredient to how awesome my day turned out happened to be the two other pros we got to work with. Two teaching instructors from The First Tee of Chesterfield made my day that much more interesting. They were very keen on watching the professionals routines on the range and seeing their swings and what their swing coaches had to say about it. They were able to get videos of Ernie Els, Justin Rose, and even Rickie Fowler (after talking to their agents of course). I got to wish many players good luck for their round to come and chat it up with some caddies (while they weren't peeing in the woods). I even got to give a lift to some really down to earth golfers like Tony Finau and bat my eyelashes at golfers like Ollie Schniederjans. We saw a lot of our MAPGA Junior Tour players behind the fence of the range and on the course observing or being a standard bearer. All-in-all it was an incredible day that I can't sum up even for myself to remember but I'll try to do my best with pictures and anything that pops up in my head.

Look Mom I'm on TV! I mean my mom sent me this picture because I told her to watch and look for me, but here we go! I'm pretty excited, but also you cannot miss me with my red hair. You'll never get me confused.

Ernie Els spends all of his time on the short range. He will spend hours here and only hit a couple of drives into the woods.

Ricky Barnes on the range.

It's all fun and games until the crowd gets mad at you for messing with them.

KJ Choi has the funniest warm up. He uses resistance bands to warm up and then hits for maybe 30 mins and he's all set.

Tony Finau and his really cool caddie, which I saved his life because I got a beetle off of his back!

Fedez-Castano (coolest accent)

This is Ed. He is a Britt. Therefor he is insanely obsessed with Justin Rose. He danced like a girl when he walked onto the range, he wouldn't move from his post behind Justin just so he could take it all in. And when Justin was finally finished on the range he was sure to take his name plate. Someone just had to give him the idea to grab some golf balls (jokes aside) and even his water bottle. Some day he will most likely baptize his children in the water Justin drank from... yeah he's crazy about Justin.

These were my rental friends, that became my real friends before the day was over. They made my day so much more entertaining than I ever expected.

Troy Merritt was the leader and winner after breaking the course record. He was a fun guy to watch and his Australian caddie made great conversation. Fun fact about him is that he plays with a very large silver chain necklace. And I watched Rickie's caddie smack him on the butt and Rickie didn't want to miss out so he was soon to follow and nearly knocked Troy over.  

Watching Rickie on hole 3 was pretty interesting because not only did I get to talk to him both days but I also got to run into a couple of my favorite golfers from our MAPGA Junior Tour which are featured in the bottom of this picture.

I also enjoyed watching Justin Rose on the range and seeing all the respect him and his caddie held with all of the other players. 

As much as I hate to admit it I enjoyed watching Tiger on the range. Despite the flying explicative, his swing left me in awe and being the biggest name in golf he always drew a crowd.

It was definitely my favorite day of my summer so far!

Sincerely,

Michelle