KAILUA-KONA — As Laura Vescovi walked toward Stephen Ames putting on the 12th hole, his wife Kelly Ames turned around, flashed a big smile, and gestured a friendly shimmy Vescovi’s way.
Ames was in the middle of her debut as the caddie for her husband as he competes in the Mitsubishi Electric Championship at Hualalai this week, and she knows Vescovi well. As do most of the players, wives and media members that are a part of the annual tournament at the Hualalai Resort Golf Course.
Vescovi is the PGA Tour Champions’ workhorse this week. As communications manager, she coordinates interviews between the players and the media, crunches the numbers to churn out up-to-the-minute statistics, writes press releases and updates the PGA Tour’s social media pages, among many other duties.
As a younger woman behind a tournament, and sport, dominated by men, Vescovi is also a trailblazer.
“I’m one of three female media officials on the Tour, and my coworkers — Jackie Servais and Maureen Radzavicz — are also really strong women that are out here with us,” Vescovi said. “And it’s interesting to see this group of young girls who are dealing with the 50-and-over Tour. …These guys have had these long careers on the PGA Tour and they get to come out and still play in their 50s and they see us young girls and I hope they think we’re doing a good job.”
Vescovi leads the public relations team for five tournaments throughout the year. The Championship at Hualalai is her first stop, followed by the Bridgestone Senior Players Championship in Akron, Ohio; the Dominion Energy Charity Classic in Richmond, Virginia; the Invesco QQQ Championship in Los Angeles; and the Charles Schwab Cup Championship in Phoenix.
The jet set life doesn’t bother Vescovi. The 27-year-old has been working toward this job her entire career.
“It’s a long week when I’m out here, and it’s a lot of work, but it’s really great,” Vescovi said. “If it’s your dream job, which it’s mine, it’s really fun to be out here and really in the thick of my favorite sport.”
Vescovi joined the PGA Tour Champions team in 2017, after three years with the PGA Tour’s Tournament Activation and Community Outreach team, where she was a key part of the Tour’s Executive Women’s Day initiative. The initiative is a series of summits across the U.S. featuring female leaders at the Tour’s tournaments. Her success in that role is what led her to her current position.
“It was a really great transition for me. I learned a lot from the women’s program that we led,” Vescovi said. “I was able to be around a lot of strong and powerful women, which was great to learn from, and I felt like that put me in a good position to come out on this Tour with a lot of men in the room. But I was able to come out here with confidence and feel good about this new job.”
Many of the men Vescovi has been able to form a close relationship with are the players themselves. Scott McCarron, an eight-time PGA Tour Champions tournament winner, is one player that has come to know Vescovi well during her time in the golf world.
“She’s very professional and really good at what she does,” McCarron said. “When we go in and do media interviews, she is directing how everything’s going, and she does a very professional job. We love working with her. If she asks you to do something, she’s always doing it with a smile and always nice, and it’s hard to say no.
“If Laura asks you to do something, you’re going to do it,” he added.
McCarron pointed out it’s not just Vescovi’s gender that brings something different to the Tour, it’s her age as well.
“A lot of us guys on the Champions Tour don’t know a lot about social media, and Twitter and Instagram, and lot of those things that can help this Tour,” McCarron said. “And she’s been very instrumental in helping a lot of us go through all that and how to do it and how to do it successfully.”
Helping golf’s elite succeed on the Tour is just one reason Vescovi considers this to be her dream job.
“There’s a lot of really good people out here,” Vescovi said.” And they’re all down to earth. They’ve all had really impressive careers. Sometimes I have to pinch myself and remember they’re just doing their job too.”
Vescovi has become close with McCarron, Stephen Ames and many other PGA Tour Champions golfers, due to the accessibility of the older players. Vescovi said many players on the Tour represent themselves without a team of agents she would normally have to go through.
McCarron said anyone who wants to work in sports media should strive for that kind of relationship with the sport and players too.
“Laura, being in her position, she has to know every player on this Tour — bios, where they’re from, who their wives are, their kids,” McCarron said. “She needs to know all that stuff. And it doesn’t matter if you’re a man or a woman, the best thing you can do is get entrenched in whatever that sport is and get to know those players.”
McCarron’s wife, Jenny, has also become a part of Vescovi’s network of friends on the Tour, as have many of the other players’ wives. Vescovi credits the women she is surrounded by as being a part of her success, including her mentor, senior vice president of communications Laura Neal.
Vescovi said leaning on female peers is one way women can succeed in the media or communications industry, as well as being confident in themselves.
Her other piece of advice: Get on the golf course.
“There’s so many deals being done on the course and so many men who use the sport to get out of the office and talk shop,” Vescovi said. “Women, I don’t think they get involved as much as they should or they feel intimidated because they don’t play. And then they miss out on opportunities to be a part of the conversation. So I really try to get out there and not be intimidated.”
