By Randy Walker
@TennisPublisher
Mardy Fish deserves a “wild card” into a tour event.
The U.S. Davis Cup Captain is not making a comeback to the pro tennis tour, where he achieved a career high No. 7 ranking, but is deserving of a shot on the pro golf tour.
Fish won the 2021 Diamond Resorts Tournament of Champions celebrity golf tournament for a third time Sunday with a record 158 points in the Stableford Scoring System format, beating out such players as baseball standouts Aaron Hicks and Mark Mulder.
“I haven’t played much because I messed up my back, playing tennis of all things,” admitted Fish to NBC Sports after his win, citing the back issue he suffered after a hitting session with U.S. Open women’s champion Naomi Osaka in Los Angeles.
Fish became the first player to win three celebrity titles at this event, which is one of the two “majors” in celebrity golf. The other major celebrity golf event is the American Century Celebrity Golf Championships at Lake Tahoe, which Fish also won last summer for the first time also in devastating fashion that included a course-record 63. In celebrity golf, winning the Diamond Resorts and the American Century is like winning consecutive titles at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open in tennis.
As the unofficial “world’s best celebrity golfer” status now, it’s time to give Fish a shot at a real pro event on the PGA Tour or the lower-level Korn Ferry Tour, which is golf’s equivalent to the Challenger Tour.
Can Fish compete with PGA Pros? Six-time Masters champion Jack Nicklaus thinks so. After Fish and Nicklaus played nine holes together in 2018. Nicklaus called Fish “The best non-professional golfer I’ve ever seen play” as documented here: http://www.worldtennismagazine.com/archives/16360 Fish has also competed in some mini pro tours years ago and nearly advanced out of the first round of qualifying for the U.S. Open golf championships.
Former Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo has received “wild card” entries into pro events, called “sponsors invitations” on the golf tour. Golden State Warriors star Steph Curry has been accorded the same on the Korn Ferry Tour. It’s time for Fish to get his shot.
Fish was born in Minnesota and, as you can see from his @MardyFish Twitter profile, is a die-hard Minnesota sports fans. Thus an invite into the state’s PGA Tour event, the 3M Championship would be appropriate and receive significant local attention. Since Fish is a star in tennis and is known around the world based on the global nature of pro tennis, an invite into a European, Australian or Sunshine Tour event could also be appropriate, and provide for nice news and social media buzz and attention. Since Fish will be captaining his U.S. Davis Cup team in the Davis Cup final in Madrid later this year, why not give him a shot at one of Spain’s European Tour events like October’s Open de Espagne in Madrid?
I’ve thrown out on Twitter that these two Celebrity events in Orlando and Lake Tahoe should have “wild cards” attached to the celebrity player who wins gets an invite to play with the big boys at a designated event. It makes perfect sense to give the winner of the annual American Century Celebrity Golf Championship at Lake Tahoe an invite to play in the PGA Tour event just down the road a few week later at the Reno-Tahoe Open, which like the American Century event, is also a Stapleford Scoring event, which means players get points for making eagles, birdies and pars but players avoid having embarrassing high scores which celebrity pros would have more of a tendency to have. The winner of the Diamond Resorts International could receive an invite to play in the Korn Ferry event in February down the road in Lakewood Ranch, Florida.
What giving the winners of these celebrity events into pro events provides is … a story. It helps with the promotion and buzz for these golf events and for the sport of golf overall. Certainly the winners of these events have proven to be good enough to play on the pro level and their participation certainly draws more attention to pro events and creates more news copy, media exposure, fan interest and TV viewers.
In addition to his U.S. Davis Cup duties, Fish also still plays on the Champions Series Tennis “Legends” tennis tour, organized and founded by his Davis Cup Captain predecessor Jim Courier (www.ChampionsSeriesTennis.com) He is also involved in other business interests in his Southern California home, helping his Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation in his hometown of Vero Beach, Florida (www.MardyFishChildrensFoundation.org) and being a husband and father of two young children.
It was a “tennis double” so to speak at the 2021 Diamond Resorts Tournament of Champions as on top of Fish’s win in the celebrity division was capped by the win in the LPGA version of the event won by Jessica Korda, the daughter of 1998 Australian Open champion Petr Korda and the older sister of ATP rising star Sebi Korda.
