Dishwater blond?

 Golden would flatter your golden skintone, and dishwater would just be dark blonde, that is probably the basis for this statement.  They are probably right in that those may look better on golden skin than an ash shade would.  Dark blonde can be tricky to get to, since you are going from darker hair, you're going to have to bleach it past the orange stage to get yellow.  At this point you would already be lighter than dark blonde and more a yellow medium blonde.  So if you want to go darker, then you'd have to dye over that with a darker blonde shade (picking one with a violet base would help you counter the yellow, but since you want to stay golden, test strand a few times to see exactly how much of the yellow you want countered (adjust the timing).  Or you could just tone your yellow hair down with a violet toner to keep it the lighter medium blonde.  Again, time it to make sure you don't go too gray.

Or let a pro do it, which would be easier if you don't want to mess with all of that.