Nearly a half-century before commanding enough square footage to rival an airport, the PGA Merchandise Show was held in a parking lot at Dunedin Golf Club, in a city named after the Scottish Gaelic, “Dùn Èideann,” for Edinburgh.
In those days, PGA professionals from the Northeast and Midwest made a habit of spending their winter months in different parts of Florida, organizing their own games and tournaments as they worked on their swings and enjoyed some friendly competition with their friends.
Sales representatives from equipment companies in those same parts of the United States – Wilson, Spalding, MacGregor and Acushnet among them – also headed south for the off-season. And they not only teed it up on occasion with the professionals they knew from back home but also sold them gloves, balls and any other golf gear they might need. In time, the more industrious reps began soliciting actual orders from the professionals they came across in Florida – and setting up shop in the parking lots of the clubs and courses at which they were playing.
One of those spots was the Donald Ross-designed track at Dunedin on the west coast of the Sunshine State. Sales representatives started appearing there during a series of PGA winter tournaments in 1954, and three years later, with the event growing so large, merchandise had been brought out of their trunks to be displayed under a tent. With those developments, the PGA Merchandise Show officially came to be.
Those Dunedin “pioneers” planted more than their wares as the Show migrated across Florida. They challenged PGA professionals to explore uncharted business opportunities by exploiting golf’s inherent social tool – networking.
The PGA eventually outgrew its Dunedin confines and began searching for a new headquarters on Florida’s east coast. The Show moved to Port St. Lucie in 1963, settling under a circus-sized tent in Palm Beach Gardens (1964-73) at the former PGA National Golf Club (now BallenIsles Country Club).
“When it really rained or got hot, you could tell an elephant had been close by,” said Jim Vincent Jr., 77, who makes his 53rd Show appearance this month. “The rain would cause the wooden floors to float.”
These days, any reference to an elephant with regard to the PGA Merchandise Show has only to do with its size, and how big it has become. In fact, the 69th edition of the gathering, which starts on January 25 and runs for four days, will feature 600 exhibitors and occupy some 350,000 square feet of space on the floor of the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando. And while those numbers are understandably down from pre-pandemic times, the Show nonetheless remains the greatest one in golf.
It’s come a long, long way. Yet, challenges big and small have been part of the Show from the beginning.
The Show’s forefathers rightly forecast that each year warranted a review, which was generations before marketing analysts broke down data on a computer screen.
Ernie Sabayrac, a Houston-born PGA professional, was one of the original Dunedin “car park” vendors and the undisputed father of golf merchandising. The man who converted PGA professionals to selling golf shoes and soft goods in their golf shops had another mission in mind.
Sabayrac teamed with Dick Tarlow, whose family purchased Field & Flint Company in 1957, and changed its name to FootJoy in 1970. Together, they huddled with exhibitors post-event to discuss improving the Show experience. The new business group – the Golf Manufacturers and Distributors Association – “became the voice of the exhibitors,” said Vincent.
The inaugural Show sparked a series of events in Dunedin, as the PGA moved its headquarters from Chicago in 1956 and the newly titled PGA National Golf Club became the first home course for the association. One year later, with some 50 manufacturers on site, the PGA decided it was time to lease a tent.
When the PGA and PGA National Golf Club proprietor John D. MacArthur parted ways at Palm Beach Gardens in 1973, the association moved into office space in Lake Park, while the Show returned one year to Port St. Lucie Country Club, still under a tent.
With PGA winter tournaments shifting to Orlando in 1975, the Show found refuge under a roof at the Disney Contemporary Resort Hotel, with bigger companies grabbing space in suites or the ballroom.
From 1982-84, the Miami Beach Convention Center was host, and the demand increased for added exhibit space.
“It wasn’t just about selling for business, it was also about communication, and talking to people and to old friends, making new friends and explaining something new that was going on in California, or something that had been created in Indiana and being able to share that.” – Tom Stine
In 1985, the Show found its new and current home at the spacious Orange County Convention Center in Orlando. A year later, the PGA Board of Directors made the milestone decision to shift from a PGA Member-only show to open it to all golf-trade buyers.
“That really launched the Show as we know it now,” said former PGA chief executive officer Jim Awtrey, who became a key figure in the PGA’s 1998 sale of an equity stake in the event to Reed Exhibitions of Norwalk, Connecticut, one of the world’s largest trade show companies.
“The Show was always an exciting time for everyone, big and small, because it got everyone together,” said Tom Stine, a founding partner of Golf Datatech, established in 1995, and one of the industry’s most prolific specialized market research companies.
Stine’s late father, Charley, was founder, editor and publisher of Golfweek.
“My father always felt it was such a good idea, very positive about it, that it was such a wonderful thing to be able to get the golf business industry together under one roof,” Stine said.
“It wasn’t just about selling for business, it was also about communication, and talking to people and to old friends, making new friends and explaining something new that was going on in California, or something that had been created in Indiana and being able to share that.”
The 1999 Merchandise Show attracted more than 1,400 exhibitors and more than 50,000 attendees, including over 4,500 visitors from 78 countries. The Orange County Convention Center main hall transformed into golf’s answer to Las Vegas glitz.
“In the late 1990s, the Show floor was electric,” said Casey Alexander, managing director of Compass Point Research & Trading, who made his Show debut in 1996 as he covered publicly traded golf equipment companies.
“I used to be able to schedule meetings with the CEOs. They used to be out front in their booths and would be as much interested in what I had to say about their competitors as I had in asking them questions,” Alexander said. “Wally Uihlein used to stand out front at the Titleist booth. Barney Adams stood in front of the Adams Golf booth. Ely Callaway [Callaway Golf founder] was right there. You could schedule a 30-minute meeting with each of them.
“I remember Barney Adams was literally handing every club professional a Tight Lies club to try and take home. There was loud, loud music from every booth and very aggressive marketing.”
Adams first attended the Show in the 1970s across town at Disney’s Contemporary Resort.
“When we first went, the Show was kind of a ‘must-go.’ If you were serious, you went to the Show,” said Adams, who started Adams Golf in 1988, catapulting to industry fame with the success of the Tight Lies fairway woods.
He served as chairman of Adams Golf until 2012, when TaylorMade purchased the company. Adams made a resurgence in 2015 as founder of Breakthrough Golf Technology of Richardson, Texas, the manufacturer of high-end putter shafts.
“I’m 82 years old, and there comes a time when you don’t do this anymore,” Adams said. “I can’t help it, I have an affliction for golf products, and I just won’t quit.”
Adams said that one of his most vivid memories of the Show came during closing time during one session in the 1990s.
“I was walking down the aisle between booths five times the size of ours,” Adams said. “I remember saying, ‘You are here, and don’t let the size of these booths bother you.’”
“It was an opportune time for me to interact with those who were trying out the equipment, hear about who had something new and novel that could be considered game-changing.” – Casey Alexander
Cindy Herrington, who spent 12 years marketing for Adams Golf and is now back with Barney at Breakthrough Golf Technology, said that networking at the Show was a key factor in Adams Golf’s success.
“In the early years, it was extremely valuable. Nobody knew who Barney was,” Herrington said. “It put Adams Golf at the forefront of the industry. It was important to see many of those retail accounts.”
In 2003, Demo Day became a special prelude to the Show, with more than 100 companies greeting as many as 7,000 visitors to Orange County National Golf Center and Lodge in nearby Winter Garden. It was a bonus opportunity to sample new equipment in a condensed space and have the distributors and manufacturers get instant feedback.
“It was an opportune time for me to interact with those who were trying out the equipment, hear about who had something new and novel that could be considered game-changing,” Alexander said.
As the Show grew to peak levels in the 1990s, the PGA of America reached a tipping point, with manufacturers being asked to pay for exhibit space and also to support PGA members, programs and competitions.
“We thought there was a point in time when the Show would get too large and complicated related to those issues,” Awtrey said, “and it would be best for us to exit the Show.”
The late Thomas King of Chicago, a former PGA Independent Director, had several companies, including one that monitored the growth of trade shows. King advised the PGA after the 1997 Show that it was time to sell.
According to Awtrey, the PGA received $120 million for the sale of the Show and the International Golf Show (today’s PGA Fashion & Demo Experience in Las Vegas). The PGA created an endowment fund with that money and kept a licensing fee as part of the agreement.
“We were generating an annual revenue in excess of $5 million in profits,” Awtrey said. “We made the decision early on that we would set up an endowment that would provide a reserve for the PGA and allow the annual income to stay the same.”
The branding of the Show remained unchanged, but the PGA of America was no longer managing it.
“We sold the Show at the absolute peak and perfect time,” Awtrey said. “We first guaranteed a revenue stream, then we invested in an endowment and took away the risk of owning and operating the Show. I don’t think anyone at the time knew the difference. It was almost seamless.”
The Show continues today with Reed Exhibitions (recently rebranded as RX) at the helm. RX is a global entity that is currently involved in more than 400 events in 22 countries across 43 industry sectors.
Despite its massive growth over the years, the PGA Show marches on, but it still has ties to its earliest days.
Vincent’s late father, Jim Sr., an independent sales representative for the Southeast, began carving his family’s Show niche in 1954. When Jim Sr. passed away in 1963, his wife, Elsie, took over his apparel lines that included Etonic and DiFini, becoming golf’s first female manufacturing representative. Jim Jr. partnered with Elsie, his stepmother, at Pickering from 1980-83.
“There’s never been a Show without a Vincent,” said Jim Jr., who received the 2000 Ernie Sabayrac Award for lifetime contributions to the golf industry. “The focus of the Show has moved considerably in the direction of educational opportunities for the golf professional.”
And, how fitting is that? From car trunks to carpeted aisles and gleaming exhibits, the Show has been from the beginning a learning experience.
(Bob Denney is the historian emeritus for the PGA of America.)