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Teeing off information By Tim Trower It isn�t surprising that Reena Eklund�s first job out of college involves dispensing valuable information to a captive audience. She majored in elementary education. But who could have guessed the information would be about golf, such as how many career wins Annika Sorenstam has or where Karrie Webb placed in a given tournament last year or what swing thoughts Juli Inkster is wrestling with at the moment. Who would have thought her audience would number in the millions, or that its age range would be from, say, 7 to 70, and beyond. Roughly a half-year ago, it would have been easier to read an Augusta National green than to predict what lay ahead for Eklund, the 1999 Southern Oregon Golf Tournament champion and a former North Medford High standout. Then a chance meeting at a college golf tournament dictated dramatically the 23-year-old Oregon State graduate�s career path. She�s now an assistant producer for The Golf Channel on LPGA and BUY.COM tournament coverage. When announcers Mark Lye, Kraig Kann or Donna Caponi give tidbits about a player, it�s often because Eklund, sitting next to them just off camera, provided it. For someone who grew up with the game, idolized its best players and herself has toyed with the idea of turning professional, there could not be a much better gig. "It has been kind of overwhelming, kind of weird," says Eklund, who keeps Medford as her home base, living with her parents, Mary and Jerry, when not on the road working. She�s in the middle of a two-week stay at home. "I told my mom and dad that you see these people, like Meg Mallon or Beth Daniel, in a completely different light when you go to dinner with them or ride in carts with them and just talk to them. For so long when I was growing up, I saw them differently. But they have normal lives just like everyone else. "I can�t necessarily look at them like they�re some sort of golf gods, like I thought when I was younger. Now, they�re just people I work with." Well, almost. Eklund admits that a recent cart ride with Mallon to bring her to the booth for an interview was a surreal experience. Autograph seekers turned the otherwise short jaunt into a 15-minute ride, and Eklund and the star carried on a pleasantly down-to-earth conversation through it all. Were it not for a fateful meeting last spring, Eklund might be toiling on a minitour or chasing her teaching certificate. As a member of the OSU golf team, she played a tournament at Arizona State. Angie Cates, a former Washington State golfer now working for The Golf Channel, was watching her sister play and saw Eklund, a friend from junior and collegiate golf. They talked, and upon learning Eklund was undecided on her post-college plans, Cates encouraged her to interview for a position at the network. "I was in the right place at the right time," says Eklund. She graduated the second week of June, had a week off, then flew to Oklahoma, where The Golf Channel was covering the Club Pro Championship. She went in for a trial and came out with a whirlwind job. Eklund spends anywhere from three to six weeks straight on the road, going from tournament to tournament, then gets a week or two off to return home and regroup before going at it again. "We all kind of live everywhere," she says. When it�s back to work, Eklund has Tuesday and Wednesday to pull together all manner of statistical and biographical information and sort it into packages and cards on various players. She also goes to the driving range or the course to chat informally with the players to find out about their swings and mind-sets. "When we�re on the air," says Eklund, "I listen to the producer, and when we go to a certain player on a certain hole, I feed information through the computer to the announcers." One time, the camera shot on the announcers was a bit wide at about the same time Eklund was shuffling information to announcer Grant Boone. Her hand got in the picture. "I heard in my ear pretty fast from my producer," she says of Keith Hirshland, who didn�t mince words telling her to get out of the picture. A part of her would like some day to be on air, but this isn�t what she had in mind. Another function of her job is to coach guest announcers � players who have finished playing that day or who missed the cut. "I guide them through it," she says. "If they need anything, they come to me and I try to get them that information." One of the perks for the crew is they get to play a couple of rounds each week, usually on nearby courses and sometimes on the tournament course the day after the event. While covering the New Albany Golf Classic last week near Columbus, Ohio, she and her golf mates played Muirfield Village and couldn�t help but ogle � from over a fence � Jack Nicklaus� palatial residence. Eklund will work through the PGA qualifying school tournament in early December in Palm Springs, Calif., then be off until the third week in January. The golf season gets into full swing in February and will take her to early stops in Hawaii and Florida. "This is a good place for me to be right now," she says. Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2000 Mail Tribune, Inc.