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Tiffany Shoppe of Lamoine recently concluded her college golf career as medalist in one tournament and runner-up in the Big South Conference Championship.
Unlike players who may use experience like that as a springboard to a future in golf, Shoppe – who recently completed four years of competition at Charleston Southern University in Charleston, S.C. – has different plans.
“I don’t think I want to go pro,” she said. “I love golf, but I don’t want to practice it eight hours a day.
“You don’t really have a life, it’s hard to have a family, and it’s not what I want to do.”
What she does want to do is get into law enforcement. She plans to complete her education in the fall to earn a double major in criminal justice and accounting.
“I love criminal justice,” she said. “It keeps me interested.”
The two can go together.
“I could [handle] white-collar crime,” said Shoppe.
This summer, her job situation is far different from working for the FBI or the IRS but the same as her previous summers.
“I have four jobs,” she said. Shoppe is currently working at three of them – Pat’s Pizza in Ellsworth, Northeast Harbor Golf Club, and H.C. Austin & Co. Furniture in Ellsworth – and the fourth starts in a few weeks and sort of carries through on the enforcement theme: referee in a summer basketball league in Ellsworth.
It doesn’t leave her a lot of time to play golf, but she plans to get in some.
“I’ll play WMSGA [Women’s Maine State Golf Association] this summer,” she said, including weekly events and the WMSGA Championship.
In fact, she won Tuesday’s WMSGA event at Penobscot Valley Country Club in Orono.
“The season went really well,” she said of her senior year.
Shoppe finished fifth in the John Kirk/Lady Panther Invitational in October, but she surpassed that with her victory in The Charleston Challenge March 27-28, an event that was put together at almost the last minute.
“We were supposed at play at Pinehurst [N.C.], but there was 6 inches of snow,” she said. “We had to make up a tournament to have enough matches to qualify for the conference tournament.”
Shoppe shot 78-74 for a two-day total of 8-over-par 152, one stroke better than Brenda McLarnon of College of Charleston.
She started the final round in fourth place but had no idea where she stood as the day progressed.
“We never know. I never had a clue. Coach [Harold Vroon] wouldn’t tell us,” said Shoppe, who bogeyed the last two holes but still won.
Vroon’s approach seemed a little unorthodox – including not keeping team statistics – but it worked, said Shoppe.
“Coach has a different point of view on that stuff,” said Shoppe. “He wants everybody to have a good attitude, to try to focus on that. We aren’t allowed to talk about bad holes, negative stuff. It sounds odd, but it really works.”
He tries to make the sport fun for his teams – he also coaches the men – and believes that if the players are having fun, they’ll play better, according to Shoppe.
“That’s one of the things we were known for – playing well and having fun at the same time,” said Shoppe.
The fun continued a couple of weeks later in the Big South Women’s Championship where Shoppe was tied for the lead after the opening round with an even-par 72. She struggled a bit the next two days with 77-78 for 227 and second place, 10 strokes behind winner Becky Berzonski of team champ North Carolina Wilmington.
That finish, though, put her on the All-Big South team.
That was the culmination of a trip that began after she graduated from Ellsworth High School in 2000. When she went on a couple of recruiting visits, she found what she was looking for with the NCAA Div. I Buccaneers.
“I liked the team, I liked the coach – and I liked Charleston,” she said.
“The first couple of years were slow [progress],” she said. “My junior year was better, but not consistent.”
It all came together as a senior.
“I couldn’t have asked for better,” she said.
Frost on the greens
J.J. Frost of Brewer, runner-up to Mark Plummer of Manchester in the 2002 Maine Amateur Golf Championship at Falmouth Country Club, was putting in some putting time on the practice green at Bangor Municipal Golf Course on Monday.
“It’s only about 31/2 weeks to the Bunyan [Whited Ford Paul Bunyan Amateur Golf Tournament],” said Frost.
“This is the first time I’ve had to shake off the winter rust,” he said.
Monday was an appropriate day to practice for the Bunyan as the on-and-off showers were reminiscent of at least one of the three rounds during most years. Last year’s second round was a complete washout.
Frost, 21 and a junior at the University of Southern Maine, says he’ll be ready for the 40th Bunyan, which is June 18-20 at Bangor Municipal Golf Course, Rockland Golf Club, and Bar Harbor Golf Course in Trenton.
“I can feel the rust falling off,” he said.
Dave Barber can be reached at 990-8170, 1-800-310-8600, or by e-mail at dbarber@bangordailynews.net.
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