Home to major media entities such as the Golf Channel and Golfweek Magazine, as well as iconic golfers like Arnold Palmer and Annika Sorenstam, Orlando is an ideal site for the golf industry’s largest annual trade show.
The 2015 PGA Merchandise Show at the Orange County Convention Center in January featured more than 1,000 companies displaying equipment, apparel, training aids and numerous other golf-related products. The show attracted more than 41,000 attendees from 50 states and 78 countries, including PGA professionals, retailers and industry leaders.
During a four-day FAM trip, our group was given a backstage look at the show and an introduction to some of Orlando’s high-profile golf-oriented properties and top restaurants.
“Attending the PGA Merchandise Show is invaluable for our clients,” says Dan Shepherd, vice president of Buffalo Brand Invigoration group, a Washington, D.C.-based full-service sports marketing firm with a lengthy golf company client list that includes Premier Golf Travel, Jack Nicklaus Companies and Birdie Box. “They sell, network, demo for buyers, tell their story to the media and conduct face-to-face meetings with people important to their business.”
Our headquarters hotel was the Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress, which recently upgraded its guest rooms and added the new Marilyn Monroe Spa, a pool bar, expanded its fitness center and enhanced its pool complex.
“We have spent more than $75 million overhauling every inch of the property,” says Chris Regan, sales manager/leisure travel for the hotel. “These improvements have left us with a property that has the feel of a brand new resort.”
We toured the property’s 65,000 square feet of function space, 45 meeting rooms and various poolside, lakeside and outdoor event locations, and also explored the resort’s seemingly endless recreation menu, which includes 45 holes of Jack Nicklaus signature design golf, the Grand Cypress Academy of Golf, a 9-hole pitch-and-putt course, a half-acre outdoor pool with 12 waterfalls, a 12-court tennis club, a 21-acre lake, jogging paths and bicycle trails.
We experienced the ultimate in fresh seafood at our welcome dinner at the Hyatt’s restaurant, Hemingway’s, including the memorable Caribbean barbecue scallops, crab cakes and shrimp scampi.
The next morning we were up early to attend the PGA Show Outdoor Demo Day at Orange County National Golf Center and Lodge. Set on a 42-acre circular driving range with tented displays by big names like Callaway, Nike and Wilson, among others, as well as 300 hitting bays, the event has the atmosphere of a carnival.
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Demo Day put our group in the mood to play, and we headed to Four Seasons Orlando at Walt Disney World for nine holes at the resort’s Tom Fazio-designed Tranquilo Golf Club. Prior to teeing up, we dined at Plancha, a clubhouse restaurant where we enjoyed dishes like Mojo marinated chicken.
Opened in August 2014, the resort offers 37,750 square feet of meeting space and easy access to all of Disney’s theme parks, entertainment and restaurants.
For our evening dinner we headed to Dragonfly Robata Grill & Sushi, located along “Restaurant Row” near the Orange County Convention Center, an area with more than 30 eateries. Highlights included garlic crab fried rice and braised short ribs.
The next morning we started off on a full day of walking the miles of aisles at the PGA Merchandise Show to examine the golf industry’s latest products and innovations.
Amid the sea of golf clubs, clothing and equipment, I discovered two intriguing products for golf-oriented groups. VPAR is a golf app offering live leaderboards and scorecards, so players can track their performance in a tournament. Birdie Box is a box customized with a corporate logo that is filled with golf-related and lifestyle goods.
Fully engaging in a tradeshow creates a big appetite, and our evening meal at Dewey’s Indoor Golf and Sports Grill was what we needed. The restaurant serves hearty pub grub while guests view sports on its 70 screens or try their 10 indoor golf simulators.
After a fairly dismal performance on the golf simulators, we spent the next morning at the Grand Cypress Academy of Golf. A world-class teaching facility, it has a private driving range ideal for groups, a three-hole practice course with regulation holes designed by Jack Nicklaus, and top-notch instructors who use the science of biomechanics along with video and computer swing analysis and techniques.
Later, we played nine holes at the Grand Cypress Resort’s New Course, a Jack Nicklaus 18-hole tribute to the Old Course in St. Andrews, Scotland.
We ended with a relaxing massage at the Marilyn Monroe Spa and a farewell dinner at trendy Soco Thornton Park in downtown Orlando. The ultimate in fusion cuisine, chef Greg Richie executes new takes on Southern-inspired dishes, such as Korean-style fried chicken and pecan-crusted Carolina fluke.
During our goodbyes we all vowed to become better golfers and more adventurous diners.
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