For someone who’s attended about 30 of these extravaganzas, the 2014 PGA Merchandise Show stood out. And not for any earth shattering product launches. I’m sure avid users of GolfWRX knew about—indeed, had seen photos of–most of the hard-goods introductions well before the show.
When the show “Product of the Year” is a modified, motorized skateboard–the GolfBoard—it suggests a low bar for product breakthrough. There were no great parties—not like the old days when you needed secret sites and rationed ID badges to keep things under control—or split-level booths or dancing girls or even a show floor you couldn’t walk in a single day.
But beyond reasonably healthy traffic (1,000 exhibitors and 40,000 buyers), this show mattered because it embodied an industry finally facing reality.
Preamble. The game we play, the game of golf itself, is fine. And we’ll continue to love it and play it like we always have. But the industry that must attract and keep new players in the game is not fine. It’s like a range picker that’s leaving half the balls behind. It’s behind. Which is why this year’s show was a breath of fresh air. It owned up to that in a big way.
Five ways the 2014 Show really worked
1. It confronted real participation numbers. For all of the research done on golf participation and spending, and there is tons of it, little of the hard data makes its way to the public. Leaders express “concern” over “declining play,” but rarely present unpleasant statistics in the unvarnished way that Dr. Joe Beditz, the normally cautious president of the National Golf Foundation, did the night before the show at a TaylorMade-sponsored gathering on getting golf going. “Two or 3 years do not a trend make,” said Beditz. “But 10 years does make a trend. We’re leaking golfers—5 million in 10 years.” It got darker: “One in four core golfers has left the game,” he said. Adding, “Core golfers (eight rounds or more) account for 90 percent of golf spending.” This “cancer” reported Beditz, is exacerbated by a nagging image problem. Only 25 percent of non-golfers see it as fun. I saw Beditz the next day. He said he hated playing the role of “the doom and gloom guy.” But it was critical that the room of several hundred pros and media heard it just that way. This is why we need new ideas, it said.
2. It produced an intriguing vehicle for generating unconventional new ideas: Hack Golf. At the same presentation TaylorMade President Mark King, the host, introduced Dr. Gary Hamel, a golfer and management expert who has used crowdsourcing to take companies forward. Crowdsourcing is, basically, a public suggestion box. Similar to the way that code is open-sourced, so are ideas for a business’s strategy. This solicitation of outside ideas is known as “hacking” the business. Hack Golf is the program Hamel devised to help golf get out of its own way, to listen to ideas from non-golfers and former-golfers alike. Many of these ideas, it’s thought, might suggest alternative forms of golf—FootGolf, a kind of combination soccer-golf played in Las Vegas with 21-inch holes—for example. From thousands of suggestions, King, PGA President Ted Bishop and Hamel hope, will come a few hundred solid ones, a handful of brilliant ideas, and two or three to take to market now. Hack Golf is the boldest thing golf has done to reinvent itself. It’s brave. And controversial. Will operators embrace ideas that complicate their lives? We’ll see. Let’s hope it makes a dent. Check out HackGolf.org or find it on Twitter Make a suggestion.
3. It took on the Millennials issue. The show included seminars on marketing to Millennials, teaching Millennials, understanding Millennials. Golf Digest led the way here, presenting research on this group of “non-conforming conformists” ages 18 to 34 who are a key to golf’s future, and a lot of other industries’ as well. Right now significantly fewer Millennials (11 percent vs. 14 percent) are playing than their predecessors. (So are the 35-39-year olds). The Millennials who do play represent great additions. They respect golf’s traditions—they would love to join a country club and don’t think denim should be worn on the course, for example—but they don’t necessarily feel like they are welcome, or have earned the status of “real golfer.” They love numbers and overwhelm teachers with their desire for measurement and tracking. “Sometimes you have to turn off the video and say, ‘Let’s just go chip,’ said one teacher,” and they tend to be very visual. But they also love to inject a bit of added fun into the game and aren’t above, say, playing music on the course. I played with two young Millennials at the hot new Streamsong Resort the day after the Show. Matt was a former NCAA D-3 golfer and his friend Gretchen was a Speed Golf competitor. Good players. A serious runner, she took up golf only five years ago and now shoots in the 70s. Once they got to know me, they introduced me to their music game. Out came the iPhone and on came the Stones. The player who won a hole chose the next 3 songs. I played well, but not well enough to call up Van Morrison!
4. It featured dazzling and increasingly affordable technology and tracking. By my estimate, digital devices that track balls, trace swings, depict great courses that you can play virtually and measure your progress, took up fully three and a half pages in the Show directory—a record, and about 60 percent of hard-goods pages—as well as a huge “share of voice” at the show. GoPro was there, but so was Ion Cameras, that in addition to taking video, links to PowerChalk, a swing-analysis software. There was industry leader Trackman, but also a lower-priced tracker called FlightScope, to which you can add BodiTrak, a mat that measures set-up, weight placement, weight shift, etc.
There were software programs that allowed for real or almost real-time communication with your teacher and gave him or her the ability to chalkboard your swing on a video you’d sent. Golf Coach Direct was one. Then there was Game Golf, which during your round, “in the background,” records your shots and stats. This desire to measure and track, somewhat lost on those of us with “caddy” swings built entirely on feel, is nonetheless a huge part of the game for most of the next generation of golfers. They live in a corporate world where data reigns, and they want quantitative answers to everything from spin rate to launch angles. Half the fun for some of these golfers is the charting and tracking and measuring itself. And young tour players and coaches are no exception. Sean Foley, according to someone who’s watched him, will teach one player while watching the TrackMan stats of another as that player hits balls. The Ping nFlight Motion attachment brings that kind of digital feedback to fitting. Which is why it was one of GolfWRX’s “Showstoppers.”
For weekend amateurs, playing virtual golf may be part of the deal. I ran into my old friend Doug White in Orlando. The former head professional at Barton Hills in Ann Arbor, Mich., Doug is now teaching and managing OntheDunesSports, an indoor golf training facility where during the winter Avids play rounds on virtual versions of Pebble, Pinehurst, you name it, and during the summer watch (or play) beach volleyball outside. Doug runs pro-ams on virtual tour courses opposite tour events, and walks the line making suggestions on how players can improve their ball-striking. “The screen doesn’t lie,” says this transformed “old school” pro. “The feedback is immediate.” And so, mostly, is the fun. Go to the “Dunes” web site and the first thing you see is the bar. (Reminding one of the Top Golf site). Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
5. It demonstrated, more convincingly than ever, how “hard” science is helping coaches keep golfers physically and mentally fit. In the tiny booths tucked along a lane leading to the hitting area, we found some very cool things. This is the part of the show I love. At a corner booth there I spent time with Dr. Debbie Crews, a mental-side consultant to Arizona athletes and tour players, whose new book, “The Science of Golf and Life,” makes the connection between our body’s chemistry and our emotions. She was promoting program called THINQ Golf, a kind of Lumosity for golfers. (Sign up and try a “brain game.”)
In a small booth near the hitting range David Leadbetter was promoting Juvent, a device that looks like a scale but transmits “micro impacts” to your leg and spine bones that increase blood flow and promotes bone health. That, too, evolved from hard science: NASA’s efforts to keep astronaut bones stimulated while mostly motionless in space. Fitness devices abounded. One I liked a lot was a collection of slick fitness and balance devices called SmartBodyGolf, promoted by Jeff Ritter, Nike Golf Schools director of instruction, and Randy Myers, of Sea Island, a fitness consultant to many tour players. SmartBody’s “Performance Pack” is about all you need to get and stay fit for golf. I was also curious about HHP2, by Hydro Family Fitness, a source of weight and fitness aids that use water in tubes to strengthen your motion as you swing and shake them. It’s called “Hydrokinetics.” Changing water into muscles? I guess.