Meet Laura Frick, the championship director making history at Hazeltine

CHASKA, Minn. — Laura Frick’s 89-year-old grandmother was the first person in the gates at 6:30 a.m. Thursday at Hazeltine National. For Frick, it couldn’t have been more fitting, as she was introduced to the game by her grandparents as an 8-year-old in Hudsonville, Michigan.

This week, at the KPMG Women’s PGA, Frick made history as the first female PGA of America Golf Professional to serve as championship director for one of the association’s spectator championships.

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The 33-year-old Ferris State grad oversees all onsite operations while managing the championship’s volunteer, ticket and corporate hospitality programs. She also coordinates closely with executives from KPMG, the LPGA and Hazeltine.

Golfweek sat down with Frick on the first day of the championship to talk about her journey to Hazeltine. What follows are excerpts from that conversation:

I’ve been thinking about this day for a year and a half and even more, right? I’ve been thinking about it for as long as I’ve been trying to chase this dream. I know it’s all going to hit Sunday night. I’m still running on a lot of adrenaline and a lot of troubleshooting, and I’m worried for the moment when I finally have some time to sit back, because it’s going to be a lot of pride, but also a lot of like, ‘Holy cow, I just did that.’

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I was in high school, senior year, playing in states, and I sort of lost focus for a little while on my game during that round. I started thinking about the behind the scenes of, like, how does the grass get so nice? How do people operate the scoring, and what goes into this big event that I was participating in? I was telling my mom that story, and she was, like, you need to watch a video on your uncle’s program, what he went through, because you could go to school for that. I wasn’t a very good golfer in high school. I was OK, but I shot anywhere from 80 to high 90s at any time.

I wasn’t trying to play professionally, but I just loved the sport so much, and so she showed me this video, and I watched it, and I was like, I need to talk to this school. So we went out for a visit [to Ferris State], and it was just interesting for me because I was the only female in a class of 85 at the time, coming in as a freshman. And everyone at that time was like, go the green grass route, become a coach, or a head golf professional or work merchandise. And I was like, I don’t know, though. I really love tournaments.

I worked for an LPGA tour event, the Volvik Championship. I LinkedIn messaged the tournament director after I saw a press release that the tournament was being started because it was brand new on the schedule. I saw this release about the tournament director being kind of from a NASCAR background. So I just reached out and said, ‘Hey, I have a golf background and a passion for championships. I’d love to meet with you. We had lunch and he hired me to do volunteer operations. It was a team of three to four of us, and one of our event managers quit, like, three months out, and I got promoted as a 24-year-old, to then manager, and it was a wild learning experience, but it was incredible.

When I was in college, I told everyone, once I made the official decision, that I didn’t want to go to the green grass route. I said that one day, my goal would be to run a major championship. I was 19 when I was saying that.

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I’m still based in Frisco. I traveled back and forth for the last year-and-a-half, basically, was here every three to four weeks, and for a week at a time. And then I’ve been out here permanently since mid-May.

I have two things that I kind of was creative and wanted to do, and the first was what we have out here is called our Club PGA venue. I wanted a general public ticket option that isn’t necessarily your all-in hospitality where you’re spending $3K-5K, but it’s more than your grounds ticket. Club PGA was designed essentially to be that middle ground general public access, where you get access to a venue, great views of golf on the par-3 17th, and then the kind of favorite part is, it’s upgraded food and beverage for purchase, and it’s, like, all local vendors. It’s local beers, local wines and spirits that you can only get within that venue. And then we have food trucks that are all local partners serving all Minnesota flavors. So, like, walleye fingers, wild rice patties, a very nice nod to the community here, because they are so supportive of us. And I’m very proud of the venue. It has officially sold out Thursday through Sunday.

We held a really, really fun event for preview day on June 1 when the build was going up. We brought out our Club PGA vendors to do samplings, and we invited about 40 local influencers and celebrities from different demographics. So instead of inviting just golf nerds out here, we got some folks from Netflix and The Bachelorette, and Minnesota Vikings players, Minnesota Frost, PWHL athletes. And we got them out here to play golf, and they all brought content teams.

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I get a lot of LinkedIn messages from young girls in college, and or even high school, and it’s kind of my personal mission to give back and answer every single message, or even anyone who requests a phone call or guidance, I try to say yes.

I have had goosebumps all day. I will drive by a full bleacher or a dad and his daughter walking on the cart path and literally, like, emotions, goosebumps, tears.

Beth Ann Nichols is a senior writer for Golfweek covering the LPGA and all things women’s golf.

This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Meet Laura Frick, the championship director making history at Hazeltine