PGA Championship – 20 Club Professionals
The PGA Championship, managed by the PGA of America, is one of 4 Major Championships that takes place on the PGA TOUR each year.
Objective – Generate awareness and press coverage on behalf of the Team of 20 - 20 PGA club Professionals who qualify for the PGA Championship each year and have the opportunity to tee it up alongside Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy, Dustin Johnson and the best professional golfers in the world.
Overview:
Competing on TOUR each week is the primary job of professional golfers; however, 20 PGA club professionals qualify each year, and they also have a day job with responsibilities are vastly different than a PGA TOUR player.
In today’s COVID-19 world those responsibilities, which consist of teaching lessons, managing a golf shop operation, overseeing member programs and executing player development programs, among other professional duties, now also includes creating and adhering to new operational procedures - following physical/social distancing policies critical to ensure a safe and responsible operation for all golfers and staff.
Mastro is tasked with leveraging storylines on both a local and national level to generate stories highlighting the distinct paths taken by each PGA club Professional to fulfill his dream, and compete at the highest level in the sport.
Strategy:
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MC initiated an aggressive media outreach campaign to promote the 20 PGA Club Professionals and educate local and regional media on the role of the PGA Club Professional within a local community.
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Once we receive the 20 PGA club Professionals, MC seeks to secure TV, radio and print/digital interviews for the respective players in the regions surrounding their hometown/club markets.
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Additionally, we explore background information of the 20 qualifiers in an effort to uncover unique storylines that may be appropriate for national/International news outlets.
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If any PGA club Professional makes the cut, we continue to promote their success post PGA Championship.
Results:
MC worked with the club professionals up to and throughout Championship week, while arranging interviews/feature stories with outlets such as NBC New York, ABC Albuquerque, CBS Northern Michigan, Mlive.com, Golfweek, The Salt Lake Tribune, Lowell Sun, Club & Resort Business, Cincinnati Enguirer, Lohud Journal News, Lincoln Journal Star, Golf Digest, Omaha World Herald, New York Post, Golf Channel, GOLF.com and many others. Highlighting that coverage was an ESPN feature telling the tale of two Zach Johnson’s (tour pro and club pro), as well as 62-year-old club pro J.R. Roth being featured by Golf Today, an international outlet. Live interviews for club pros were also coordinated on SiriusXM PGA TOUR Radio’s coverage of the Championship and CBS Sports Network’s coverage, and the Associated Press featured a story on two club pros, Rob Labritz and Jason Caron – discussing the surge in the golf industry. The syndicated article was picked up by dozens of outlets, including The Washington Post, The New York Times, Yahoo! Sports, U.S. News & World Report, ABC News and many others.
CNN WorldSport Produced a segment on the oldest PGA Club Professional to qualify, but, due to COVID-19 breaking news, the segment did NOT air.
The campaign results were very strong with a breadth of feature stories and segments on a local regional and national level (print/digital/broadcast) across the country.