If you follow my blog, or my facebook, or my twitter, you've noticed a lot of talk about golf and Brian Gay lately. And many people often wonder what the connection is between myself and the golf industry. So a little bit of history... I graduated college with a bachelor's degree in accounting. One day, while visiting my husband (fiance at the time) I received a call for a job opportunity. My husband happened to answer the call and they had left a message with him about an accounting position with Arnold Palmer Golf Management. He basically accepted the position for me. He was (and still is) an avid golfer and thought it would be the perfect opportunity for
him me to be in the industry. Anyways, I took the position and I slowly grew to love the game. Honestly, I never understood what the big whoop was about people spending 4 hours on a golf course hacking away at a tiny little golf ball, but when I experienced it for the first time, I actually enjoyed it. Something about being out on a course that is well manicured and quiet and peaceful struck a chord with me. While I didn't get to actually play much golf during my career with Palmer Golf, my husband was able to enjoy the perks. He would get to play at several golf courses around the country while I audited the books. And of course the discount on merchandise was also a plus!
Anyways, one of my co-workers happened to be Brian Gay's mother. I remember her telling us all about his journey to be on the PGA Tour, through qualifying school and playing on various Tours. When he began his career on the PGA Tour, I ended up leaving Palmer Golf when I got married and relocated to the Florida Panhandle to be with my husband who was a U.S. Navy Pilot at the time. When he resigned his commission, we found ourselves back in Central Florida and I was able to get my job back with Palmer Golf. After the second go-round with Palmer, I eventually got pregnant with my first child. I was able to work from home for several months but they decided to no longer offer the option of tele-commuting and that's when I made the decision to become a stay-at-home mom.
During this time, I was drawn into photography and scrapbooking. I took literally hundreds of pictures of my daughter than I could handle. When I bought my first digital SLR in 2001, the number of photos increased exponentially. I hated seeing all these photos sitting in shoeboxes or on my hard drive. I tried traditional scrapbooking, but found it extremely overwhelming to even complete a one-page layout. And since I was editing photos on the computer, it only made sense to me to create the entire layout at once. That is when I got hooked on digital scrapbooking.
With the ease of recreating digital layouts at the click of a button, I found that more of my friends and family wanted me to do similar layouts for them. They didn't think they could do it themselves either because of time or talent and started hiring me to do it for them. And that is when I started my business, Nueva Designs.
Back to the connection with Brian Gay. He had his best year ever on Tour in 2008 and won his first tournament in Mexico. I happened to email a newsletter last summer to all my contacts (old and new) about some new services I had to offer. Low and behold, Brian's mother happened to receive my email and had been thinking about personal publishing. She contacted me after several years of losing touch and had told Brian's wife about my services. Brian's wife, Kimberly came over to one of my Open House events displaying all my products and she wanted me to create an album about Brian's victory in Mexico. She was excited and pleased with my work and I have been doing projects for them ever since. He recently won his second tournament at the Verizon Heritage in Hilton Head, SC. and I am in the works for his 2nd album! They also hired me to take photos of a victory party held at the Blue Martini last week. Here's a peek...
Until next time...
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