A Final Bow
Griffin wraps up MVP role in promoting U.S. Open
By Pete Kowalski
Golf Global Post – June 11, 2024
Sometime during the 124th U.S. Open this week at Pinehurst, USGA point man Reg Jones will have to take a figurative timeout and insert a substitution into his starting lineup so one of his stars can take a bow before the game ends.
That “gamer” is Mimi Griffin, who was inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in 2014 and has worked as the USGA’s lead manager for all corporate hospitality sales and client services at the national championship since 1995. This year’s U.S. Open is the curtain call for her company, MSG Promotions, based in Allentown, Pennsylvania, as the USGA transitions into running this key revenue stream in-house beginning with next year’s Open at Oakmont.
“As a pioneer in the hospitality industry, Mimi set a new standard for our corporate program over her 30-plus-year career,” said Jones, the USGA’s managing director of Open Championships. “Her tireless energy and commitment to excellence always ensured the best possible experience for all of our guests. We will miss Mimi’s passion and professionalism, but we are all grateful to have had her as a teammate and to learn from such an inspiring leader.”
Griffin lauded her experience in working with the USGA and its staff.
“There is an intangible about the relationship that is so special,” she said. “It makes the work, not work, and it makes the experience even more rewarding.”
Griffin (née Senkowski), whose undefeated Lancaster Catholic High School basketball team won a Pennsylvania state title in 1974, also played collegiately at the University of Pittsburgh before a pioneering career as a TV analyst for women’s and men’s college basketball on ESPN and CBS.
After graduating from Pitt, she worked in the promotions and events sector of Manufacturers Hanover in New York and then at Converse as director of promotions for women’s sports.
With that background, she was immersed in the vital concepts of work ethic and team mentality.
From Day One at the 1995 U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills to Day Last when the final putt is holed at Pinehurst’s No. 2 course on June 16, Griffin tirelessly embodies a commitment to excellence for her clients and her “bosses” at the USGA.
Typical of her love of big and complicated projects (as a member of Saucon Valley Country Club in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania), she took on the role of championship director on behalf of the club for the 1992 U.S. Senior Open. She produced a record-setting event for the USGA in ticket sales, corporate hospitality sales and local enthusiasm. USGA executive director David Fay noticed.
Griffin said her “tight” 30-year association with the USGA “started strong because it was generated from the work we did at the ’92 Senior Open. We were so successful at Saucon Valley. That’s when David Fay called me and said: ‘How did you do that in the little Lehigh Valley, and would you be interested in selling corporate hospitality for the U.S. Open?’ At the time, marketing at the USGA was a four-letter word. They didn’t want anything to do with it. Credit David Fay. He knew they had to dip their toe in that water, but they didn’t want to do it themselves.”
Without hesitation and with some help from her first intern-turned- staffer, Jonathan Barker (now senior vice president of global event productions and operations for the NFL), Griffin jumped into the shape-shifting world of corporate sales.
“I just canvassed,” Griffin said. “I had a lot of contacts because of Manufacturers Hanover. I knew a lot of people in the New York area in the positions I needed to approach. I was lucky, and it was a grind, a real eye-opener for me.”
“I always had a proclivity for attention to detail. I love that. I love, love, love working on something that bears fruit at some point.” — Mimi Griffin
After the ’95 U.S. Open at Shinnecock, Griffin began planning for the 1998 U.S. Open at San Francisco’s Olympic Club, because the hospitality sales work for the 1996 and 1997 Opens already was contracted with the host clubs.
To meet the demands of sales, Griffin added Jeanne Taylor and Danielle Lalli (now Bonder) to her MSG staff. From that time until now, her mostly female staff followed the company mantra of “bigger is not better; better is better” to what became the industry standard of client service.
Between the U.S. Open work, MSG was the lead event management arm of the USGA for the 2000 and 2022 U.S. Senior Opens and the 2009 U.S. Women’s Open when those events were contested at Saucon Valley. Griffin also served as championship director for the 1995 U.S. Women’s Open at The Broadmoor in Colorado Springs.
“After witnessing Mimi Griffin and MSG Promotions orchestrate the most successful and the most well-attended [at the time] 1992 U.S. Senior Open Championship at Saucon Valley Country Club, it was clear that she was gifted with a unique combination of creativity, organizational skills, drive and a heart to serve, all of which the USGA needed as it assumed the responsibility of the growing U.S. Open operations from the host clubs in the mid-1990s,” said Mike Butz, the former senior managing director at the USGA who served the association for more than three decades. “For over 30 years, Mimi and her outstanding teams developed a level of trust with corporate clients and delivered first-class hospitality experiences at USGA Open Championship sites, many of which came with some unique challenges. I am forever grateful for Mimi’s friendship and for all that she has contributed to the USGA and to making the U.S. Open Championship experience the best it can be.”
In fact, in 2009, she was named one of Pennsylvania’s “Best 50 Women in Business.”
In her experience with the USGA’s administration and operations arms, Griffin navigated the long hours with energy and a genuine love for her job.
“It was relentless,” she said. “But it was never a problem because I loved it. I always had a proclivity for attention to detail. I love that. I love, love, love working on something that bears fruit at some point.”
Griffin, who has a son and a daughter and knows not to play favorites, fondly remembers the 1998 and 2012 U.S. Opens at Olympic Club, the 2007 and 2016 U.S. Opens at Oakmont and the 2005 and 2014 U.S. Opens at Pinehurst No. 2.
She chose the 124th U.S. Open at Pinehurst to wrap up her career because of her deeply rooted friendships with the band of road warriors who travel the U.S. Open circuit but call Pinehurst home.
“I chose it because of them,” Griffin said. “It’s their home turf.”
Griffin, whose innovative “Adopt a Player” program at the 2009 U.S. Women’s Open remains her favorite moment, built that initiative to stir up local enthusiasm for ticket sales and regional buzz.
More than 5,000 grade-school students and 25 Women’s Open players participated. Student curriculum was developed, and more than 100 schools from southeastern Pennsylvania signed up. The players were able to communicate with “their” players through a password-protected website. During the practice rounds, students were given color-coded T-shirts that signified their allegiance. It garnered an innovation award from the LPGA.
Paula Creamer, who contended until the final nine holes in 2009 and won at Oakmont in 2010, was a major proponent of the program. “When Paula saw a kid in pink, she knew that was one of the kids she had been communicating with,” Griffin said. “It helped us sell tickets, but it was such a feel-good legacy that has never been replicated.”
Even with that creative focus, Griffin knew innately the driving factor for success and what she’d like her business legacy to proclaim: “That the clients always come first. It’s never been about what’s been easy for us. It’s about what’s right for them.”
What’s next? She loves the beach in Avalon, New Jersey, and makes routine visits to Naples, Florida, where her son, Kyle, and his wife, Tiffany, are raising a family of what soon will be two children. Kyle is the associate men’s basketball coach at Florida Gulf Coast University in nearby Fort Myers. Griffin believes that a head coaching job is on the horizon for her son.
“He’s already asked me to be on his staff when he gets a head job,” Griffin said. “That’s going to be the next chapter in my book.”
© 2024 Global Golf Post LLC
