The Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation is exploring the possibility of remaking its annual golf fundraiser into a one-day, pro-am type tournament – except with celebrities instead of pros.
Foundation consultant Randy Walker, a part-time Moorings resident who owns a New York-based marketing agency that specializes in sports, said the idea first came up at Fish’s golf outing here last year and follow-up discussions continued earlier this year.
The foundation, which last year took over operations of the United States Tennis Association’s Pro Circuit men’s tournament held in Vero Beach each spring, hopes to hold its first celebrity-amateur golf event next winter.
“It’s very early in the process and we’re still trying to put the pieces together, but we’re looking to do this sooner rather than later,” said Walker, who also serves as co-director of the $15,000 Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation Tennis Championships, which is being played this week at Grand Harbor.
“We’re always seeking ways to promote the foundation,” he added. “With Mardy playing in a lot of these celebrity golf events – he won the Diamond Resorts Invitational in Orlando last year – we thought it would be great if we could do something in that realm.
“On a smaller scale, of course.”
Walker said he has had numerous conversations with former top-10 tennis player Cliff Richey, who runs a successful celebrity golf tournament in San Angelo, Texas, and Maria Meadors of former boxer Ray “Boom” Mancini’s foundation, which sponsors a celebrity golf event in Youngstown, Ohio.
Richey arrived in Vero Beach last weekend, having accepted Walker’s invitation to observe the minor-league tennis tournament and meet with Fish’s father, Tom, the foundation’s chairman and tennis director at Windsor.
Walker also arranged a February lunch meeting between Tom Fish and Meadors in Port St. Lucie, where Meadors was vacationing last winter. They were supposed to meet again this week, but Meadors was unable to fit a trip to Vero Beach into her schedule.
“To be honest, I really didn’t give it much of a chance, but Maria was very knowledgeable and very impressive,” Tom Fish said of holding a celebrity-amateur golf event here. “She explained how they got started and what they did. The more we talked about it, the more it seemed possible.”
To make such an event a reality, Walker said, the foundation would need to attract at least 18 celebrity golfers, such as former major league pitcher Rick Rhoden, who, along with former French Open tennis finalist Mikael Pernfors, joined Mardy Fish at his golf fundraiser last winter at Windsor.
It would also need a venue – though there is no shortage of quality golf courses in Vero Beach, the host club must agree to allow paying spectators – and a more convenient date.
Rhoden, winner of 53 celebrity tournaments at which he has earned more than $3 million, said he believes a one-day event would lure enough celebrity golfers to make the event successful.
“If you do it this time of year in Florida, guys will show up,” said Rhoden, who won 151 games in 16 major league seasons and pitched for the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 1977 World Series. “There are a lot of us who like to play golf, and there aren’t enough of those events.”
As for possible sites, Tom Fish said he would approach Grand Harbor, because of its connection to the foundation-sponsored pro tennis tournament.
“I think it would be awesome if we could make it happen,” said Mardy Fish, who grew up in Vero Beach and went on to become a top-10 player on the men’s tennis tour before retiring at the 2015 U.S. Open after battling a debilitating anxiety disorder.
