By any chance, was your friend Italian? I distinctly remember some Italian speakers I've met pronouncing it exactly like that, "goiŋ-guh". Probably because they're used to most words ending in a vowel.
It was slight, like a pop. The irony is, she tried so hard to say the g without making too much of it, that she often removed its voice. The unvoiced g is k. So, most of the time she ended up saying goink.
Southern where? So far I've able to deduct not Italy, probably native English speaking, somewhere south. So South Africa? But then why be cryptic about it?