Rhonda Switzer-Nadasdi has taken an interesting path to the Tennessee Women's Amateur golf tournament, and it's not the backroads from Nashville to Chattanooga.
It started in Canada.
It involved figure skating, some youth golf and then giving that up.
It headed north to the edge of Manitoba, where there is no grass to play golf. Then she spent a year in Bermuda and she played golf again.
The path reached Nashville 20 years ago, leading to a life of family, golf, being the CEO of a charity and - as for any good Canadian - hockey.
"This tournament is my vacation," Switzer-Nadasdi said after her round Monday. "There's no husband, no kids, no employees and nobody to look after."
She's closer to the bottom of the leaderboard than the top after the first round of stroke play at Chattanooga Golf and Country Club. She's tied for 43rd after shooting an 85. Chattanooga's Blakesly Warren, who graduated from Baylor in 2014, leads by three after an opening round 2-under 70.
"I'm stuck between all the college girls and the seniors now," said Switzer-Nadasdi, 48. "It's OK if I miss the cut."
She's missed the cut before - many times in life.
The Canada native dedicated her youth to figure skating. She wanted to be the best junior in the country and dreamed of skating in the Olympics. She missed that cut.
"At 13, I was not a Canadian national champion, so I hung up my skates and decided to play golf," she said. "I played in a couple of Canadian junior events, then decided on dental school because I knew there would be no professional golf for me."
Dentistry, with a degree from the University of Manitoba, worked out better than her attempts at a double-axel in the rink and avoiding double-bogey on the course.
The location of her first job out of college, in Churchill, Manitoba, did not allow for golf. She said the tundra squished at least a little with almost every step outside.
But still, with a soft spot for golf in her heart, she and a few friends improvised.
"We made three holes with sticks and tin cans for the two weeks there was no snow on the ground," she said of the Arctic conditions.
Her next move contrasted sharply with Switzer-Nadasdi's entire life of living in snow and surrounded by people who argued during hockey regular-season games.
She moved to Bermuda in 1994. Bye-bye, snowshoes, and hello, golf shoes and sandals.
"There were ladies who took me in, and I actually made a team," said Switzer-Nadasdi, who worked for the Department of Health. "Then I started to hate tourists. They'd get off the cruise ships and just swarm the course."
Her adventures slowed after a year on the island.
"I followed the love of my life to Nashville," she said of her husband.
And another love grew.
Switzer-Nadasdi became one of a few dentists who opened a charity dental clinic in the basement of a church. They helped the uninsured and working poor and those who couldn't get proper dental care.
"At first we were just working at night, so we could help those who worked in the day," she said. "That let me play golf in the morning."
The charity sprouted and blossomed better than any garden planted in Bermuda. She is now the CEO of the Interfaith Dental Clinic, which she said has a $3 million budget based strictly on donations.
"If teeth weren't so bad in this state," she said, "it wouldn't need to be so big."
Yet she plays a sport full of heroes needing her assistance. Switzer-Nadasdi splits her recreational time between the links and the rink.
But she does a different kind of skating these days. The skimpy outfits she wore growing up have been replaced by pads and helmets to play hockey.
"I started in 2002 with some women, but now I play on a men's team," she said. "I play right wing. I'm the only one who can skate backwards really well, and that comes from my figure-skating days.
"And I have a really good slap shot because I play golf."
Contact David Uchiyama at duchiyama@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6484. Follow him at twitter.com/UchiyamaCTFP