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I got into this business, first and foremost, because of my passion for the game of golf. Golf has been a part of my life as far back as I can remember. I have great memories from the summer after 5th grade, when my parents would drop me at Lions Municipal Golf Course in Austin, TX every day and I would play the course for $1.75. It would be an understatement to say that I have been hooked on the game ever since.

As a competitive golfer I have had success both at the college level, where I was a 4 -year captain of the Trinity University Golf Team, and at the amateur level, as a USGA qualifier and Austin Men’s City Champion.

Perhaps my fondest golfing memories, though, are from my travels. A father-son trip to Bandon Dunes while in high school ignited a fire inside of me to seek out the best of the world’s golfing destinations, and that fire burns to this day as my journey continues.

I left my job in the actuarial world in 2015 to chase my dreams in the golf travel industry and I hope to never look back. Those who know me best say I am finally where I am supposed to be doing what I love. I hope that the passion for what I am doing is evident in the hard work I put into treating every Cloud 9 trip as if it were my own to ensure the best possible experience for our clients.

To say that golf, and sports in general, have been a large part of my life would be an understatement. I first picked up a golf club when I was 8 years old. At that age, I really had no idea just how much a part of my life golf would become. My father is the reason I picked up the game and for the first 6 years of playing, he was the reason I played at all as he and I would always play at least 1 round of golf on our family’s summer vacations. In the summer, either my father or mother would frequently take me to a local 9-hole course with $10 in my pocket. $5 would be for a junior play all day greens fee and $5 for  lunch. They would drop me off in the morning before they went to work and pick me up after they were done.  After playing baseball from a very young age until high school, it was my freshman year in high school where I truly started to take golf seriously. My high school golf coach truly helped me realize my potential and I played on the varsity golf team for four years with multiple all-area team selections. During my senior year in high school and having worked at a local club for 2 seasons, I decided I wanted to have a career in the golf business. I attended the University of Miami where I earned a Bachelor’s of Business Administration double majoring in Business Management and Marketing. 

It was also at Miami, where I met the love of my life, Erica. Her and I have been happily married since 2009 and share a wonderful life together in northern New Jersey with our three amazing children Peyton, Charlie and Addison. During my spare time, besides for playing golf and spending time with my family, I play platform tennis and am an avid sports fan where I root for the NY Yankees, NY Giants, and NY Rangers and especially my alma mater, the Miami Hurricanes.

During my freshman year in college, I took and passed the PGA’s player ability test on my first try and turned professional when I was 18. After graduating college and working as an assistant golf professional at a few clubs I attained my goal of becoming a PGA Professional at the age of 25. While my amateur golf career was short lived, I have been a golf professional for over 23 years and a PGA Professional for 16. I have enjoyed some success as a playing professional, including playing in the National PGA Assistant Professional Championship, qualifying for the sectional stage of the US Open and have multiple victories in local PGA events. Besides for spending time with my wife and children, the golf course is truly my happy place. The combination of the smell of the fresh cut grass, the escape into nature, the ambience and scenery and just having access to play the game my father helped me fall in love with is something I have always cherished about being a PGA Professional.

Having my “office” be my happy place is something I have felt fortunate for my entire career and I truly loved going to work each and every day as I worked as a PGA club Professional. It was during my 22nd season as a club professional, 9th as a Head Professional, that I hooked up with our Managing Director at Cloud 9 Jonathan Alden. After reaching out to multiple travel providers, and going through the same quote request process that all of our clients go through, I felt Jonathan offered a personal touch that no other company matched. Jonathan worked with me every step of the way on booking a golf trip for me and a group of members from the club where I was the Head Golf Professional. The booking experience and the trip itself were so fantastic, that immediately after returning from our trip, I contacted Jonathan and booked our second trip. It was during the process of booking these trips and being a client of Cloud 9 that I realized that golf travel was something I was truly interested in getting more involved with. Having experienced the high level of service from Cloud 9 that I did as a client, I knew it was something that I would enjoy doing for other PGA professionals, their members and any client who is looking to play great golf. To be able to bring joy to other PGA members and all of our clients by booking bucket list trips that they will remember for a lifetime is truly my pleasure.

It is an honor to be a PGA Professional and I look forward to many more years as a PGA Member.  The life of a golf club professional is one that I have loved for over 22 years, but just recently, after being a client of Cloud 9, have I found a love for the travel side of this business and look forward to a long tenure with Cloud 9. As they say in Ireland, I hope all of our clients have Good Craic! Cheers!

I’m pretty sure that I was offered this job because of my background in corporate finance, but I ultimately took the job because it aligns so well with my personal experiences as a world traveler. And maybe even my…I’m hesitant to admit to those who know me well… growing interest in golf.

After spending my childhood in Austin, TX where I received my BBA from the University of Texas, I decided it was time to pack my bags and travel the world. This led to many train rides around Europe visiting some amazing cities and eventually my relocation to Germany. I spent a few years in the charming city of Würzburg, where I got my masters degree in Business Management and worked as a financial analyst, before becoming a small-town girl in the village where I currently live.

I actually grew up with two golf-loving older brothers who were in charge of our television remote, so I fell asleep to the soothing sounds of the Golf Channel on many Sundays afternoons. However, despite the surrounding passion for the game and all of the golf clubs and golf balls lying around our house, I never had much desire to play when I was young. It wasn’t until my husband and I inherited a set of clubs and enrolled in something called a “Platzreife” course (essentially a drivers ed for golfers in Germany) that I became interested in playing myself. It didn’t take long before I was hooked, and I’m so thankful for my new hobby because it has made the perks of the job much more fun!