The CGA has been very well-served by North Dakotans who have moved to Colorado and worked on the association’s staff in the new millennium, so why stop going to that well now?
Following in the footsteps of Briena Goldsmith (who has since returned to North Dakota) and Dustin Jensen (who has had two stints with the CGA sandwiched around more than three years back in North Dakota), Ashley Barnhart is the latest addition to the CGA staff from N.D.
After two straight summers serving as an intern for the association — and plenty of part-time work over this past fall, winter and spring — Barnhart went full-time on May 9, two days after graduating from the University of Jamestown (N.D.). And, as was the case last summer during her internship, she’ll be devoted to junior tournaments, now as the manager of junior competitions.
That’s right up Barnhart’s alley in several respects as she was a former high school and college golfer in North Dakota, she just received her B.A. degree in Education, and she loves working with kids.
“I always thought that I wanted to teach in a classroom, but with my internship I learned that I don’t have to be in a conventional classroom to be an educator,” Barnhart said recently. “Being down here, I was like, ‘Oh there are other ways I can connect with kids and connect with juniors that don’t require me to teach in a conventional classroom.’
“I hit the point of realization where I was like, ‘Why can’t every golf course in the state be my classroom?’ and ‘Why can’t every junior program be my classroom?’ You have the same ability to influence kids. So that’s the part of this job that I’m really excited about — being able to influence kids in a way that I never knew was possible until my internship.”
In her new role, Barnhart will be working extensively alongside the Colorado PGA — and her counterpart there, Holly Champion, the junior golf director at the CPGA — in running events that fall under the umbrella of the new Junior Golf Alliance of Colorado that the CGA and the Section co-founded.
And given that JGAC is overseeing more than 80 events in 2016, Barnhart, Champion and company figure to be plenty busy this golf season.
“Starting Tuesday (May 31), we’ve got tournaments (just about) every day until August,” Barnhart noted. “It’s going to be crazy. It’s going to be a lot of being on the course, administering the tournaments, as well as doing the communication beforehand — connecting with golf courses, players, processing registrations, all of that.”
Barnhart believes the collaboration with the Colorado PGA for the JGAC will benefit junior players.
“The way I like to sum it up is you take two things that are already good and you put them together and you make something that’s great,” she said. “You essentially double your staff, you double your experience. And the experiences that they (the Colorado PGA) have are very different than the experiences we have. So when we come together and work together, it’s going to be something that’s great. I don’t think our roles are going to change very much necessarily. It’s just a matter of figuring out who is best at what and who has the expertise in what areas so we can make it the best it can be.”
Though Barnhart has played golf since she was about 5 years old, and competitive golf since the eighth grade, she said there was nothing like what the JGAC is doing in Colorado when she was growing up in North Dakota.
“Junior golf does not exist like this in North Dakota,” she said. “So coming down here that first summer, it was like, ‘This is pretty neat.’ This is what I love. I love waking up, seeing the smiling faces on the kids in the morning, helping them get around the golf course, and closing it out at the end of the day. It’s great. I love it. It’s a cool classroom.
“I love being around the kids. The energy that they have is so different than anything that you (experience).”
Though Barnhart self-deprecatingly says “I’ve got kids out here in all age divisions who could beat me on any given day,” during her time as a competive golfer, she helped her Kenmare High School team claim the 2010 “B” state title in her sophomore year. Then last year, as a junior at Jamestown and while Jensen was coaching both the women’s and men’s teams, the Jimmies qualified for the Women’s NAIA National Championships for the first time.
Though Barnhart didn’t play her final semester of college golf this spring as she was student teaching a K-1 combination class in Aurora, she was named an NAIA Women’s Golf Scholar-Athlete for the second straight year.
Notably, Barnhart got her foot in the door for a full-time position at the CGA when then-director of junior competitions Eric Wilkinson moved to the upper Midwest — Minneapolis specifically — in February 2015. Barnhart said Jensen, now the CGA’s managing director of operations, told her about the opening and she jumped at the opportunity, which turned into a full staff job straight out of college.
“I’ve kind of always felt like a full-time staff person, but knowing that I have that responsibility and knowing that I have the opportunity to give kids the same opportunity to play golf I’ve had is really cool,” she said.
