On April 7, major champion Steve Elkington announced Secret Golf Match Play Series for COVID-19 Relief, a modern-day version of Shell’s Wonderful World of Golf, on this very site that boasted up to six matches among its roster of 30 players.
Rickie and Rory had their skins game and Tiger evened the score against Phil, but not one Secret Golf Match has been contested.
As the window closes to do an event before PGA Tour live golf is scheduled to resume on June 11, it begs the question: what happened?
Well, like the relationship status option on Facebook, it’s complicated.
Vito Palermo, a founding partner along with Elkington in Secret Golf, said the concept was well received by the PGA Tour and his company had preliminary approval to move forward. They planned for Marc Leishman to face Jason Dufner in the initial match — the Tour was only going to green light a max of one match — but at one point they were negotiating for a multiple major champion to be involved until those discussions stalled.
Palermo doesn’t want to point any fingers as to what went wrong and accepts blame for underestimating the requirements necessary to secure the rights for an event of this magnitude.
“Let’s just say I became very, very aware of the requirements,” he said. “We worked collaboratively throughout the process, however, the pace at which we work and the pace at which the Tour works are very different and the requirements imposed exceeded what I had expected. It simply took longer than we thought.”
Palermo assumed that the PGA Tour would be shut down until July, but when the Tour elected to go ahead with the Charles Schwab Challenge, beginning June 11, it shortened the window. The Tour also controls the players intellectual rights — even during a global pandemic, when there is no competing event — and so Secret Golf needed sign-off on players, marketing and production plans, as well as safety protocols. Also, service providers and networks that expressed interest in the content wanted four hours of live streaming of the match rather than a post-production show, which forced them to alter plans.
“I respect the Tour’s position and I think it’s great that it works so hard to protect the players and showcase its brand. As an entrepreneur, does it stifle innovation a little bit? I think it does,” he said. “If it was left to me and my ability to just call the players I could’ve done four (matches) by now.”
Secret Golf’s roster of professional golfers includes the likes of Stacy Lewis, Brittany Lang, Brittany Lincicome and Gerina Piller on the LPGA, and in retrospect, Palermo says he may have been better off targeting the women first.
“It would’ve been a layup,” he said. “The LPGA doesn’t have a say in the media rights, but the networks were less interested in the women. There would’ve been a balancing act. I know for a fact that there were co-ed matches proposed to the Tour. Getting the visibility for the ladies is great for golf and it’s certainly viable and a pathway we’ll continue to go down.”
While Leishman vs. Dufner will have to wait for another time, it wasn’t all for naught. Relationships were made, institutional knowledge gained and the demand exists to see top pros compete in something other than the typical 72-hole stroke-play event.
“When the time is right, we’ll be in a position to get back out there,” Palermo said. “Given the uncertainty that still exists, I’m not so sure we won’t be able to do it sometime this year.”
