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UGA adds valuable new intern in Megan Terry for 2015

Experience is not usually the calling card of an intern, but in the case of the UGA’s newly hired intern that is the best term to describe her.

Megan Terry, the 2015 USGA Boatright Intern for the Utah Golf Association, is perhaps the most experienced intern in the history of internships, and UGA Executive Director Bill Walker is pleased to have her join the staff this year.

“She brings a lot of experience to the UGA and I’m sure we will be learning as much from her as she learns from us,” he said.  “The USGA Boatright Internship program has had a tremendously positive influence at the UGA and also around the nation. Boatright interns are rapidly filling key positions throughout the country,” he said, and he could have added that he is one of them. He got his start as an intern in Texas.

Megan began working in golf at the age of 16 at Mulligans Golf Course, a job she held for two summers.  She then worked a summer in the pro shop at Wingpointe with Lynn Landgren, Pete Stone, and Kelsey Chugg. Chugg was last year’s USGA Boatright Intern at the UGA and is now a full time Director of Member Services and is ‘looking forward to working with Megan again.”

Megan then worked for two years running tournaments with the Utah PGA Junior Golf Connection under PGA Executive Director Scott Whittaker.

“It was a program designed to attract young, novice golfers to the game, and was separate from the Utah Junior Golf Association,” she said. “It offered a place for kids to learn the game and play in first level tournaments. Our purpose was to help them play well enough to enjoy the game,” she said.

After a detailed vetting, including rules and tournament management tests, she was hired by the American Junior Golf Association as a traveling intern. That job took her to California and Arizona and cross country to Ohio and Georgia. The AJGA is a national level association designed to give the best junior golfers in the country a more competitive environment.

“The AJGA was a great experience. They had four teams of six interns and we traveled by car with our equipment trailer to most of the tournaments. It was a chance to see much of the country,” she said, “and we got the experience of managing tournaments in different conditions.”

Her greatest internship has been the unofficial one as the daughter of Dave Terry, Director of Golf at Salt Lake City, and formerly Director of Golf of St. George City.

“He has been an inspiration and guide to me all my life,” she said.

Basketball was her first love when she was growing up.

“I was raised to play hoops,” she said. “Dad put up a basket outside and we even had a mini-hoop in the basement. I shot hoops every day. I was obsessed. Some friends were calling me John Stockton Jr.,” she said.

In a Macy’s free throw contest she made all ten free throws and advanced to the second stage, which was at the halftime show of a Jazz game. “It was scary and fun at the same time,” she said.

The family moved from St. George to Salt Lake when her father switched jobs from being the Director of Golf at St. George City to the Director of Golf at Salt Lake City.

She attended Bingham her sophomore and junior years, but transferred to Herriman High School her senior year and was in the first graduating class of Herriman in 2011.

She has vivid memories of when she tried out for the golf team at Bingham as a nervous freshman. She was playing the longest par three at Mulligans, 180 yards with a little creek in front of the green and hills to the right,

“Coach Liz Conry was watching and I was so nervous it seemed like a par five, but somehow I hit my best shot of the day. It got on the green and I fell in love with the game,” she said.

At Herriman she played on the basketball team and the golf team of which she and one other were the only players with any golf experience.
 

“I love basketball. It was my favorite sport,” she said, “and I loved that year at Herriman.”

Her basketball career was blooming at Herriman until she suffered a serious injury to her left shoulder while taking a charge. The injury required reconstructive surgery and never healed properly. The injury was compounded by a wrong diagnosis and subsequent therapy only made it worse.

“The surgery wasn’t done right and a year with a therapist just added to the damage,” she said. “It ruined my basketball dreams, but I’m loving being close to golf.”

With hoops out of the picture she switched her main focus to golf where she has also found much success as a player, but feels her future is in golf administration, following in her dad’s footsteps.

She is attending Utah Valley University and graduates in April with a degree in Sports Marketing.

At 5”3” she already has a resume taller than she is.