By John Egnot
Manager of Media Relations

In life, there are those things that you are fully prepared for. You know when a biology exam is coming up at school and that you have to start studying (or in some cases, procrastinating).

You know when your mom’s birthday is coming, and even though you have no idea what to get her, you’ll eventually figure out something.

In golf, you know when your next tournament is coming, and you practice and prepare for it.

However, some of the biggest things in life are the ones that you don’t see coming. These are challenges that aren’t mapped out perfectly. These are surprises that sometimes test you in more ways than you can imagine.

It’s September 3, 2004. I had just finished taking photos of about 20 junior-am teams at the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail Junior. After going inside to cool off (it gets a little muggy in southern Alabama) and work on some paperwork, my cell phone rings.

I knew what the phone call might be about. There was reason to be excited.

During a short conversation with Rob Coleman, AJGA Vice President of Communications, I was offered a position as manager of media relations at the AJGA.

It was perfect. I was working the last tournament of my second intern summer and I had a full-time job locked up. Not bad for a kid just coming out of college.

Then the fun began. Remember now, this was September 3. The golf tournament was supposed to end on September 6. I was scheduled to fly home to Pennsylvania on September 7.

My start date was to be September 20. At this point, the wheels started turning, and I realized there wasn’t much time to make the move. Less than two weeks to go home, get packed, find a place to live, visit the family and make the 12-hour drive to Atlanta.

Then, a wrench was thrown into the works. Hurricane Frances was lurking off the coast of Florida. The storm was expected to cross the peninsula into the Gulf of Mexico and take aim on the Mobile area. As a result, the final round of the tournament was canceled with the intentions of getting everyone home safely.

My flight home was scheduled for the seventh, and we left Mobile on the sixth. With the hurricane coming, there was a good chance that that flight would be canceled, and I would be stuck waiting in the Atlanta airport for an extended period of time.

Luckily, I was able to get the flight changed to the sixth. After leaving Mobile that morning, we arrived in Atlanta around 1 p.m. For the next seven hours, I sat in the airport waiting for my flight and anxiously watching the radar as the storm steadily progressed toward Atlanta.

Just as night fell and the rain started, I boarded the plane and was on my way home. Looking back, that is probably as close as I will ever get to being one of those hurricane hunters you always hear about.

After a few days of packing, visiting, saying my goodbye’s and getting ready to go, I maneuvered my way into my fully stuffed 2001 Dodge Stratus, complete with clothes, a television, those plastic drawers you buy at Wal-Mart (an awesome deal, by the way) and countless other random items and headed south.

Twelve hours and one speeding ticket later, I was back in Atlanta and ready to go, ready to report for my first day of work.

Turns out that that first day of work was a whitewater rafting trip with the rest of the AJGA staff. Not a bad first day “in the office."

In the following weeks, I slowly but surely settled in, finding my own place, opening bank accounts, and, most importantly, locating all of the fast-food restaurants within a five-mile radius.

So what did I learn from all of this? First off, there is no shame in buying cheap, build-it-yourself furniture. Secondly, always travel the speed limit because no matter how sneaky you think you can be, you will undoubtedly get caught. Trust me, it will happen.

Finally, and most importantly, don’t stress about the small stuff. Unexpected situations always seem to work themselves out. You come out of the experience knowing just how much you can handle, and usually it’s more of a surprise than that “surprising” situation that you started with.