Michigan Golf Journal December 2019

Michigan Golf Journal PGA Tour “I get to go to so many parts of the country I wouldn’t otherwise be able to,” Richards said. “And I’ve worked the Senior British Open the last three years and in 2018 it was at St. Andrews; the trip of a lifetime with players and staff and everyone involved. “The PGA Tour has certainly been a dream work destination. I can’t think of anywhere else in golf I’d want to work.” Richards is an MSU graduate. As a freshman at State he became an intern in the Sports Information Dept. and worked there his last seven semesters at MSU, working closely with hockey, men’s and women’s golf, and wrestling while chipping in with football and other sports as needed. “I didn’t even consider PR in the sports world as a thing; as an 18-year-old I didn’t even know that existed,” Richards said in reference to entering MSU. At Holt, he wrote for the school newspaper and played on the golf team. “In high school my favorite golf memory was at The Emerald in St. Johns,” Richards explained. “My grandfather, who introduced me to the game, lived in a very small town near St. Johns and hadn’t been able to see me play a high school tournament before. It was the only tournament he’s watched me play and I shot just 1-over par… my best score in high school.” Kirsten Freisen played varsity golf for 4 years (2005-08) at Northville High School . Her senior year, she led the team to a 3 rd place finish while she finished 17 th overall. As an MSU student – where she also took the unique Golf in Business course taught by LPGA teaching pro Jan Brintnall – Freisen had an internship at a TV station in Lansing, then moved south to do advertising on Hilton Head Island. The PGA Tour came next, where she is the Manager of Sales Development, supporting advertisers across all the PGA Tour’s digital communications platforms. Playing golf is not a requirement for landing a job at the PGA Tour, but Freisen said after basically giving up the sport after high school, the job got her to return to the game she loved as a youth. “There is the sense of golf being so innate by working here, and being able to play TPC Sawgrass, that I got back into it and realized how much I loved and missed it,” Freisen said. “I don’t play as much as some of my colleagues, but I never take it for granted when I’m up at that clubhouse.” Kirsten Freisen