Moore's Monthly: Importance of NYSGA Internships

October 01, 2022

A monthly column from the NYSGA’s Executive Director, Bill Moore

The 2022 Championship Season is already behind us, and as always I am surprised at how fast the weather has gone downhill.  While we have a couple of events left to conduct, our Staff is looking forward to some time off the road and back at the office while we plan for 2023.

With the end of the season comes another annual event - saying goodbye to our hard working interns.  This year we had three - Mike Dirkes and Parker Gauthier worked in our Championships department, and Fred Wilkes who worked in Communications.  Thanks to their hard work, our Championships and events were conducted with the high level of professionalism that the NYSGA is known for and we couldn’t have done it without them.

Related: NYSGA internships / Past Interns

Thanks to funding and support from the USGA P.J. Boatwright Program, the NYSGA started having interns on staff in 1996.  Since the beginning, we have always thrown our interns right into everything we do - event registration, golf course setup, starting, scoring, communications, etc.  I’m not even going to address the physical labor - those tents aren’t as easy to set up and take down as they look!  

I think this first hand experience is why our former interns have gone on to successful careers at other golf associations around the country.  Nate Schroeder (2013) is now the Director of Rules & Competitions for the Washington Golf Association.  Nicolette (Darois) Scalf (2016) is Senior Coordinator, Events at The First Tee.  In fact, two of last year’s interns moved to other associations - Jack Margaros (2021) is the Coordinator, Communications with the Southern California Golf Association and Dan Mort (2020/2021) is now working with the Francis Ouimet Scholarship Fund.  

We have also been fortunate to keep some of our interns with us here at the home office.  In fact, 4 of our full time staff members were NYSGA interns.  I did two stints in 1997 & 1998 working with Executive Director Pat Keenan.  Andrew Hickey was my right hand man in 2009.  Dan Thompson was an intern in 2015, and Jack Travers interned for us in 2018 & 2019.  We have been so fortunate to have 43 interns over the past 26 seasons, and we look forward to the energy, ideas, and youth they bring to our association every season.  If you have any interest working with the NYSGA next summer - please don’t hesitate to reach out!