BIG NEWS!!!

I will start off with the most recent news first...I won my first professional event yesterday in Phoenix on the Cactus Tour. We were playing at Las Colinas, which is a golf course I knew I liked, I guess I just didn't know exactly how much I liked it. I shot 68 the first day and was in 2nd by 2. The 2nd round, I had 9 birdies and 9 pars to shoot a 62 (par 71) and broke the course record. I then had an 11 stroke lead going into the last round. I shot 69 yesterday to win the event by 9. I had 4 bogeys for the entire round...kinda fun!!!! I should say it was a good way to finish (temporarily).

Now, the other news...I have taken a job as the assistant women's golf coach at Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon. About a month ago I was informed of an opening and it caught my curiosity. I gave myself a few days to think it over and decided to go ahead and apply to see what happened, if nothing else, it was good experience to go through the process. About a week later I got a phone call saying that I had made it to the final 5 and would be doing a phone interview. After going through that process, the next week I got another phone call saying that they had decided to bring in some other people for on campus interviews and I wasn't one of those people at that time, but that didn't mean I wouldn't hear back from them if they didn't hire any of those people. It had been about 2 weeks and I was pretty sure that it wasn't meant to be and that they had hired someone. Then, on Monday of last week, I got a phone call saying that they wanted to bring me up for an interview. I finished my Cactus Tour event last week (tied for 4th) and flew up to Portland early Thursday morning. After a long day of interviews (very intense) and walking around in shoes that should be against the law....because they hurt your feet so badly!!!, I retired to my hotel room feeling pretty good about the whole day, but not entirely sure. By 8:00 Friday morning before I had left town, the head coach, Rise Lakowske, had called me and offered me the job!!! I took a day to figure things out and make sure that I wanted to do this, and Saturday night I accepted the job.

I am very excited to be closer to home (2 - 2 1/2 hours) and to be back in the college golf atmosphere again. My golf this week after this decision only confirms to myself that I made a good decision and I am very, very happy and excited about it. I am in the airport right now getting ready to fly into Redmond (home) for a couple of days and then I will drive to Corvallis on Saturday morning to start my job! We have the University of Oregon tournament this Monday and Tuesday...I'll be sure and bring my rain gear! I will be at work for about a week and a half and then we travel down to Phoenix for the Arizona State tournament. At that point, my Mom is going to fly in and drive with me to Albuquerque (my car is still in Phoenix) and I will move all of my stuff up to Oregon.

I still have plans to play in some tournaments. I will be playing in the Futures Tour tournament in El Paso in early May, US Women's Open qualifying in May, and the Washington State Open in early June. Other than that, the schedule has not been determined. Again, I can't express how excited I am about this!!! I will still posts blogs periodically, I guess they will just be a bit different!

www.thecactustour.com (click on updates, results, and pictures)
www.osubeavers.com

GO BEAVERS!! ~Kailin