Former Spider Women's Golfer Lambert Scores PGA Tour Job
09/10/2007 | Women's Golf
Sept. 10, 2007
By Melissa Thompson
Bradenton Herald
When she was 9 years old, Ashley Lambert picked up a golf club and made her first swing toward a future junior masters title, a full college scholarship to the University of Richmond, Va. and the crown jewel: a job with the PGA Tour.
Lambert, now 22, a Cardinal Mooney High School graduate and former Edgewater Village resident, was hired as a corporate marketing assistant for PGA Tour Headquarters in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., after a chance meeting with Tim Finchem, PGA Tour commissioner and University of Richmond alumnus.
In April, Lambert said the University of Richmond's athletic department asked her to take Finchem's daughter on a tour of the campus. Impressed with her credentials, Finchem encouraged Lambert to send her resume to Tour headquarters.
And the whirlwind began.
While enjoying a vacation in Italy - a graduation gift, Lambert said - she was notified that the Tour was interested in interviewing her for a position.
On June 6, she went in for the interview. The next day she got the job.
Within three weeks, Lambert said, she had to find a place to live, move out of her home in Lakewood Ranch to the Jacksonville area, and adjust to her new life, in order to begin work on June 27.
"It was definitely a kind of fly-by-the-wind situation," she said. "But it's definitely worth it."
Lambert said it's still difficult to wrap her brain around the concept. A little more than a month after graduating from college with a degree in rhetoric and communication studies - on a full golf scholarship - she is in a position that many golf aficionados would kill for.
But her parents can't say they're entirely surprised.
Ashley's dad, Brian Lambert, 52, of Edgewater, speaks with modest pride yet obvious excitement when he recalls all his daughter has accomplished.
"She learned self-reliance at a young age," Lambert said. "She's the kind of young lady who invested in herself first. When her friends were going out to parties after school, she was improving her golf game."
Along with homework, daily training at the David Leadbetter Gold Academy and tournaments, Ashley said in high school she was on the go for about 10 to 11 hours a day, six days a week.
"In the afternoons, when my friends would go to the 7-Eleven for a Slurpee, right after the bell, I would jump in my car and go to Leadbetter," she said.
A natural athlete, Ashley said golf was the first sport that challenged her. She realized golf was her passion when she stopped playing all other sports to concentrate on the one she struggled with and that challenged her the most.
Her decorated golf resume includes wins at the 2003 Florida State Women's Amateur Stroke Play Championship and the 2002 Nolan Henke/Patty Berg Junior Masters, among other state and national events.
When she finds time in her hectic schedule, Lambert said she will continue to play the game and train with her coach, Shane Gillespie, in order to stay sharp and satisfy her competitive edge.
Brian Lambert said the countless hours of lessons, money and time spent nurturing his daughter's passion for golf was well worth it. For the Lamberts, it was an innate desire to see their daughter succeed.
"When you're a parent, you do things necessary to see your child achieve," Brian said. "For me, it wasn't a sacrifice. It was second nature."
Looking back, Ashley said she never would have imagined that the night she asked her dad to show her how to drive a ball from one of the fairways at the Serenoa Golf Club in Sarasota would be the catalyst toward her future success. But she said without the guidance of her parents, she would not have been given such a wonderful opportunity.
"Both my mom and my dad have been the two most important and influential people in my life," she said. "I can honestly say without their unconditional love and support, I would not be where I am today."