Now On The Tee

Notes from the 53rd annual PGA Merchandise Show...

Wow.

The Orange County Convention Center in Orlando is divided into two main buildings - the West Concourse and the North/South Concourse. Combined, they sport 2.1 million square feet of convention space, 74 meeting rooms, a theater, a lecture hall, three sit-down restaurants, eight food courts, 173 loading bays, and parking for over 6,000 vehicles. Step inside either concourse, and you are stepping into the largest empty space that you can possibly imagine. It's incredible what one billion dollars of tourist tax money will buy these days. Insert snarky comment about a new gym for the Magic here.

The PGA Show takes up nearly every single inch of the West Concourse, or roughly 1.1 million square feet of space. I'll give you a moment to digest that.

The PGA Merchandise Show is an annual meeting of golf vendors, representing every imaginable aspect of the industry - equipment, travel, clothing, instruction, education, you name it. Over 40,000 members of the golf industry attend the Show in Orlando each year, touring exhibits from more than 1,200 golf-related businesses. It's become such a happening that The Golf Channel does two hours of live broadcasts from the Convention Center each day during the week.

At one end of the West Concourse is perhaps the largest indoor driving range in the history of golf. Netting is hung from the rafters as local club pros and buyers hack away with the newest drivers and irons, all under the pretense of "field-testing" the product before they decide to stock it on their shelves. At the other end of the concourse - a fifteen minute walk, shorter if you take the tram - is the clothing section, where attendees can get an early glimpse at this season's latest fashions. The Greg Norman pavillion featured a salt-water fish tank with two actual sharks - one of them a baby Great White. I wish I were kidding.

In between the two, you'll find every training aid, hitting net, shoe, ball, wood, iron, wedge, putter, glove, bag, pull-cart, videotape, book, driving range mat, golf cart, silly hat, Chocolate Lab head cover, divot tool, and naked lady tee ever invented. It's all there for your perusal. Bring an empty duffle bag and an oxygen tank. If you're not back in four hours, have someone call a paramedic.

Golf freaks like myself have heard legendary tales of the PGA Show for many moons now, but since the event is closed to the public, those stories remained cloaked in mystery. This week, through the totally legitimate graces of a media credential, I stepped behind the velvet ropes for the first time.

Again I say, wow.

The largest buzz at the PGA Show, as measured by the number of golf pros and store reps hanging around the displays, was at Callaway, Srixon, and Bridgestone/Precept. Bridgestone has glommed onto the hybrid craze by creating an entire line of "irons" that are, in fact, full-bodied woods, not unlike the old Spalding Executives. Srixon (short for Sumitomo Rubber Industries) was intent on promoting all the tour pros who use their product, including Jim Furyk, Robert Allenby, and Fuzzy Zoeller. Callaway was pushing a new ball designed exclusively for women, called the "HX Pearl." It was a fascinating display of commerce, from the ball-and-club standbys to the emerging companies intent on cracking a $3 billion dollar industry.

To my surprise, however, a few of the industry leaders decided not to exhibit their wares at the Orlando show, including Titleist and Ping. I'm guessing this is somewhat akin to the annual Auto Show that also stops at the Orange County Convention Center, which, for the last couple of years, has gone without Porsche and Saab (trust me on this one - I take my son to the Auto Show every year). Perhaps there are certain manufacturers that feel they have nothing to gain by setting up camp in Orlando.

Golf being an inherently personal game, I was captivated by a display from a company called "Accu-Length," which makes expandable golf clubs for youngsters. Their secret is a tiny bolt inside the graphite shafts, which can be unscrewed to receive one-inch spacers, allowing parents to lengthen the clubs, year by year, as the child gets taller. You spend 200 bucks for a set of clubs that theoretically can last four or five years (each set comes with enough spacers to increase each club by four inches), as opposed to buying the kid a new set of sticks every 18 months. Genius.

I read every word of their PR packet, and noticed quickly that the word "kids" does not appear anywhere in their literature. That would be because the industry leader - and their chief competitor - in the children's club market is an outfit called U.S. Kids Golf, which also had an immense pavillion at the Show. See, somebody at Accu-Length had the foresight to leave out the word "kids," to make sure that no potential buyer was reminded of the other guys. Isn't business mesmerizing? As an English major, such canny marketing thoroughly impresses me.

Rule number one in all forms of journalism, even sports: follow the money. The biggest dollars, in terms of display and exchange, were in the golf clothing section of the Show, which took up at least half of the West Concourse floor space. Makes sense. Even if you play to an 18 handicap, you can easily dress to a two, provided your credit line is large enough.

I spent about five minutes at the exhibit of J. Lindeberg, the gonzo designer known for outfitting Jesper Parnevik in pants ranging from plaid to salmon to racing stripe, but decided I didn't fit the profile (literally - all their stuff seems geared towards a 28-inch waist and 36-inch leg). Several of the big names in clothing, including Antigua, Ashworth, and Tommy Bahama, displayed their new lines in full-scale store reproductions. One can only imagine how much money was spent on displays alone.

Celebrity sightings: golf teacher Jim McClean was spotted chatting with executives at the Golf Digest pavillion. Mark McCumber was pushing his Gaim Golf putter. Dave Pelz gave a lengthy talk on the short game to an audience of club professionals. Furyk and Norman were there. So too were brothers Chris and Rich Robinson, better known as the Black Crowes, who apparently have signed a sponsorship deal with Izod.

The Robinsons gamely posed for photographs and signed posters for a mildly curious crowd of onlookers, most of whom were wondering what in the world these guys were doing at the PGA Merchandise Show. Hands down, the Crowes win the award for Most Unlikely Attendees.

Sadly, I left the show without much in the way of swag - Stuff We All Get, the freebie currency of the media industry - as most exhibitors were extremely tight with their giveaways. I did pick up two new Precept golf balls, but that was about it. I'll have to marshall my forces for next year.

Expandable golf clubs for kids. Damn, why didn't I think of that?