Hospitality Veteran Mimi Griffin Ready for One Final Round
By Josh Carpenter
Sports Business Journal – July 10, 2024
Mimi Griffin has led USGA hospitality for more than 30 years following work in sports broadcasting.
Fans in attendance at Pinehurst No. 2 might not notice it, but this week’s U.S. Open marks the end of a significant era in golf.
As the U.S. Golf Association takes its hospitality sales in-house, it marks the final hole for Mimi Griffin, the pioneering founder of MSG Promotions who has led the hospitality effort for the USGA for more than 30 years.
Griffin has been and will continue consulting for the USGA for next year’s Open at Oakmont Country Club due to her familiarity with the area, having done hospitality for multiple Opens at the course. But this week at Pinehurst will mark the last for MSG Promotions leading the effort.
“The single biggest reason we have been as successful as we have is because we put the clients first,” Griffin said. “We listen and we pay attention and we go way beyond what is needed or what is expected to help educate them, so it empowers them to get the most out of the investment that they’ve made.”
Griffin has been a trailblazer in a male-dominated sport. But not just in golf. She’s a member of the 2014 class of the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame for her work in broadcasting. She was ESPN’s primary women’s basketball analyst from 1983-1999 and was the first woman to call a men’s NCAA Tournament game, serving as the analyst for a Notre Dame-Virginia matchup in 1990 on ESPN. She was an SBJ Game Changer in 2013.
Her background in golf dates to the 1980s during her time working in the special events division at Manufacturers Hanover in New York. The company sponsored the old Westchester Classic on the PGA Tour, and Griffin’s primary job was to recruit players so the tournament could advertise that some of the biggest names in the sport would be taking part.
“I went to the Hawaiian Open, to Doral, the Los Angeles Open, and I would talk to Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer and Lee Trevino and try to get these guys to come play,” Griffin said. “To commit early so that we could use their names. It was like Gidget does the PGA Tour.”
That background and her connections led to Griffin’s first role leading a USGA event, as the championship director for the 1992 Senior Open at Saucon Valley. Her success there led to a major opportunity.
“[Then USGA executive director] David Fay called me after that and said, ‘How did you do that in the Lehigh Valley?’ And he asked me if I wanted to be in charge of corporate hospitality. And I said, ‘OK.’”
Because Open hospitality is typically sold three years in advance, Griffin’s first was the 1995 Open at Shinnecock Hills.
“There was no marketing back in the day. You didn’t have to market the U.S. Open, it pretty much sold itself,” Griffin said. “But they didn’t want anything to do with corporate hospitality because as far as they were concerned, it was like a four-letter word. So, they were happy to farm that out.”
Griffin was a one-woman show for that first event, she said, selling around $7 million-$8 million in hospitality packages, along with doing all client fulfillment and education. “And at the time I had a 7-year-old and a 2-year-old, I worked out of my home,” Griffin said. “When I look back on it, to be honest with you, it’s kind of crazy.”
Reg Jones, the USGA’s senior director of U.S. Open Championships, said it’s been difficult for some within the organization to come to terms with Griffin’s exit, even as the program is being left in the capable hands of Bryan Miranda and Raleigh Leahy.
“Mimi’s been such an important part of our life, many of us are not wanting to admit that this is her last U.S. Open,” Jones said.
Jones has grown so close to Griffin that two of his three daughters have interned with her over the years, including one this month at Pinehurst. “I couldn’t think of a better role model for them to spend time with,” Jones said.
Eventually, Griffin plans to move totally out of golf hospitality and back into basketball. Her son, Kyle, is an associate head coach on Florida Gulf Coast’s men’s basketball staff. If he gets a head coaching job, Griffin has agreed to join his staff as a director of team chemistry and culture.
Until then, Griffin knows exactly what her successors in the golf world are thinking about.
“Raleigh’s brain is running at the speed of light right now trying to figure out how do we enhance the experience without either breaking the budget or going outside the confines of what the clubs will allow us to do,” Griffin said. “This being in the hands of Raleigh, Bryan and Jon Podany, I don’t think there’s going to be any question that the USGA is not going to stand still.” — J.C.
