By Jason Mylroie, Compleat Golfer’s on-site equipment specialist.
The final day of the 2016 PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando Florida had a sombre mood to it as booths began packing away their products in preparation for the long trip home.
I took the opportunity to talk a long walk through as many of the aisles as I could and found some very interesting concepts that will hopefully find their way to our country in the near future.
The new product zone was great, but certainly wasn’t as innovative as the last time I visited the show in 2013. Pictures were not allowed to be taken in this area, but some of the more interesting products included the KLVN Golf bag, a hard plastic cart bag that has a detachable small carry bag for when you need to take multiple clubs to the green, or just want to have a quick afternoon nine and don’t feel like taking your whole bag along. The female robot/model displaying how the bag works at the booth also captured much attention from the many patrons of the show.
I also managed to experience just how Jason Day, Justin Rose, Dustin Johnson and Sergio Garcia swing a golf club at a simulation machine at the TaylorMade booth, where you held a club and a robot arm replicated how those professional stars play their game.
With almost half of the showroom floor taken up by apparel and accessories it was impossible to see evreything on offer and it is amazing just how much golf clothing there is out there that we don’t see in South Africa. The Under Armour booth was the most popular and it was amazing to see just how Jordan Spieth has managed to influence the Americans into buying that brand over Tiger Woods’ Nike Golf collection, which didn’t make an appearance at the show this year.
Look out for a more comprehensive feature on the major brands at the PGA Merchandise Show in the next issue of Compleat Golfer.
