Mardy Fish didn’t have the finish he hoped for on Sunday at the 2022 American Century Championship. His Wednesday, however, went a lot better.
The former tennis star and current U.S. Davis Cup captain announced he’ll become the latest celebrity golfer to tee it up on the PGA Tour after receiving a sponsor exemption into next week’s 3M Open in Minnesota. Fish, 40, is a native of Edina, a suburb of Minneapolis.
Fish finished sixth last week at Lake Tahoe. He won what is essentially the Super Bowl of Celebrity Golf in 2020 when he shot a 63 to break Lee Trevino’s course record. He’s also a three-time winner of the LPGA’s Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions, and he defeated Tony Romo, who won on Sunday in Tahoe, in a playoff at the ClubCorp Classic earlier this year.
Fish reached as high as No. 7 in the world ranking during an interesting tennis career that’s the subject of a 2021 Netflix documentary. Shortly after peaking, his career was derailed by cardiac arrhythmia and a severe anxiety disorder, something he spoke with Golf Digest about earlier this year.
Celebrity golfers have been popping up in PGA Tour-sanctioned events a fair amount in recent years. Romo has played in four tournaments, and former MLB pitcher and three-time American Century winner Mark Mulder played in the 2018 Safeway Open. Two-time NBA MVP Stephen Curry has played twice in the Korn Ferry Tour’s Ellie Mae Classic. None of those three have made a cut in those starts.
And another former pitcher, John Smoltz, has played in nine PGA Tour Champions events in the past four years, including qualifying for the 2018 U.S. Senior Open.
The 3M Open was established in 2019 and provided one of the best finishes that season when rookie Matt Wolff made a walk-off eagle putt to beat Bryson DeChambeau and fellow rookie Collin Morikawa by a stroke. Cameron Champ is the defending champ of the event, which will be played four a fourth time at TPC Twin Cities July 21-24.