The Bag Drop is on the way to the Super Bowl of the golf industry. The PGA Merchandise Show opens this week, running from Jan. 26-29 at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Fla. In addition to the thousands of equipment, apparel, accessory and gee-gaw manufacturers showing their wares to club professionals and golf shop buyers, us media types will also be kicking the tires of the gear you’ll be buying this year.
The show opens Thursday morning, and I’ll be there to fill you in on all the good stuff I see. In the meantime, I’m going to take a quick trip down memory lane before I get on my flight to the Sunshine State.
In the boom days of the mid- and late-90s, the PGA Merchandise Show like Christmas in January. Every company in the business gathered in Orlando for a week of new product introductions, wheeling and dealing, schmoozing and boozing. The big equipment companies went to great lengths to guard their secret new products until the Show opened, and there were always a few surprises that got the tens of thousands of attendees buzzing.
But as the golf boom cooled, the Show became a victim of its own success. Some companies were spending millions of dollars each year in Orlando. It’s not cheap to fly hundreds of sales reps, marketing and PR staffers and executives to Orlando, along with flashy displays the size of MacMansions. So, some companies – some very big ones – started staying home.
Plus, companies discovered that if everyone released their new products on the same day, then it was hard for any one product to stand out. So club companies started announcing their biggest new products a week or two in advance of the Show to get their wares out there first and better control the message.
So, the PGA Merchandise Show – know this year as the “PGA Merchandise Show & Convention” for some reason – has been diluted and weakened as a source of actual news. Some of the biggest players in the business, like Titleist, TaylorMade, Ping and Cleveland, won’t be there this week. All of the big name products have already been unveiled.
There will still be plenty of Show to see this year. I’ll be eager to see the new X460 driver from Callaway. The new MacTec Tour driver from MacGregor looks hot. Bridgestone’s new J33 forged cavity back irons sound slick. And I can’t wait to hit the Tour Edge Exotics driver.
But there’s more I wish I was seeing in Orlando this year. I wish I was seeing an army of Titleist reps in their white coats and blue shirts, showing off the new 905R driver. Or a massive TaylorMade launch party for the new R7 425 and 460 drivers. Or members of the Solheim family holidng court at the Ping exhibit.
Oh well, the Show ain’t what it used to be. So what? It’s still the only Show in town. I’ll see you there.