PGA Merchandise Show Week

Floor of the PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando

  Someone asked me one time if golf professionals and the golf industry have an annual convention.  Well, the closest thing that comes to a convention for the golf industry happens this week as the annual PGA Merchandise Show takes place at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando. 
  This is the annual trade show where equipment manufacturers debut their newest innovations in club design and apparel makers debut their spring and fall lines that you will see in your local pro shop.  Companies will bring in the PGA/LPGA Tour professionals to help them market and sell their product to the retailers who sell it to the consumers.  You also have the latest teaching aids being peddled, along with anything else imaginable dealing with running a golf course/club.  Golf professionals and those with responsibility for buying at clubs all descend upon Orlando for this annual trade show.  You also have educational seminars throughout the week for every area of the golf business…whether it be teaching, marketing, merchandising or golf operations.
  The show encompasses the largest portion of the Orange County Convention Center.  Even if you spend the full three days of the show there, you still will probably not see everything.  Just like any other convention, you spend half of your time actually learning what the companies are selling and the other half catching up with all your fellow golf professionals on the floor of the center.
  When you go, you are already pretty much aware of what the large equipment manufacturers are going to offer for new innovations.  The most fun of the PGA Show is perhaps finding that little known product, typically a teaching aid, that is being debuted…kind of like finding the diamond in the rough.  Every year there seems to be one product that no one knows about when they walk in and when you leave, most people are talking about it.
  As the week progresses and when I return, I will try to post some of the items I find interesting and hopefully, the one ‘hot’ product to come out of the Show.

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