Visiting the PGA Show Day 1

Visiting the PGA Show Day 1

The exhibit hall at the PGA Show opened on Wednesday following Demo Day.

It is nearly impossible to meaningfully convey the size of the show. Rumor has it that there are ten miles of aisles. I put in 16,000 steps and only saw about half of the show on day one.

For those who attend the Novi or Grand Rapids golf shows, in terms of square footage, the PGA Show is just over ten times their size. Novi has 219,000 square feet; the Orange County Convention Center has some two million.

It was overwhelming.

My primary thought on day one was just how deep the golf “ecosystem” is. There were of course large booths with clubs, balls, bags, shoes, apparel and other obvious bits of equipment. Various gadgets and gifts also were on display.

What I had not though much about until that day was the supporting cast. There was a company that sold poles upon which to string nets for large driving ranges; other booths had nets for those ranges. I saw two companies speciaizing in furniture for pro shops: shelves, display tables, racks, and so forth. A couple of companies were showing their outdoor benches, range club racks, and other on-course “furniture.” Ball pickers, industrial strength ball washers, ball sorters, cups for greens, flags.

One company was just showing off their lines of packaging. The US Postal Service was there showing how to best ship products. In addition to the apparel companies, there were companies just displaying swatches of fabric for apparel companies.

There was also a lot of buying going on. Retailers large and small, pro shops and distributors were sitting at counters and tables in deep discussion with sales reps, placing orders for the upcoming season. The Dunlop/ Srixon /Cleveland / XXIO space actually had private conference rooms for such. There seemed to be very few places that would actually sell something to you on the spot. It is very clearly an “industry” rather than a “consumer” show.

I’ll have more in the coming days when I have more time. Right now, I’m back to the show.