Good morning and welcome back. Thank you for your patience between articles. I’ll break down the PGA show into two posts, starting this morning with my time at demo day.

The next post with my full thoughts on the actual show will be released either Monday or Tuesday next week.

Editor’s note: Orange County National has a massive “360 degree” range. Such a cool spot for the event.

While I’m the furthest thing from an equipment junkie (I’ve played the same clubs + wedges for 5 years now), I enjoyed my time perusing the stalls outdoors on a perfect winter day. New golf technology gives any addict unfounded hope, perhaps the most dangerous drug of them all.

There’s an element of pure capitalist Americana at these types of events. The vendors are unabashedly trying to sell product, and the buyers are more than willing to pay for the latest and greatest from the top manufacturers. There’s no backdoor slimy salesmanship, it’s just: “Here’s what we have this year, take it or leave it”.

One element of demo day which surprised me was the dearth of major players. I didn’t hit a single club from Callaway, TaylorMade, or Titleist all day. I was stunned to not see their flags flying next to Mizuno, Bridgestone, and Cobra. It’s possible that it’s simply not worth their time to show up.

I ran into an acquaintance who mentioned the shift happened during Covid. I guess some of the bigger OEMs don’t see much ROI in setting up shop. Perhaps they save that for the full event. We’ll see.

I chatted up a few mini tour guys as I walked around. They secured tickets from a club builder (shameless plug: https://clubfitting.thetuxedocollective.com/) and were there making connections with OEM reps covering their state.

The key takeaway from my conversations with both of them:

Getting anything free from OEMs is virtually impossible until you have status on KFT.

They advised me (and all players) against playing a “full bag” i.e. every club made by the same company. Each OEM has their strength in manufacturing, and it’s on the players to find the best clubs regardless of brand name.

They spend 40 + weeks on the road each year. It’s table stakes if they want to make it to the TOUR.

Tough life those guys live. I give them a lot of credit.

One of the mini tour guys looked at me and said: “You gotta go hit the new Cobra blades” I thought he was joking.

I hit a few of them and I felt the warm sensation of unfounded hope wash over me. Cobra makes a decent iron!

Here's my problem: I'm an aesthetics guy. I can’t show up to nice clubs with Cobra irons. Next.

I then meandered down to Srixon’s area, which was jam-packed, likely as a direct result of their new irons, the ZXi series. I hit a few 7 irons in my AD Palmer button-down and was sold pretty quickly. The turf interaction was unlike anything I’d ever felt, especially in the long irons. They may make the bag as the iron of choice for old BTG here shortly.

Putters - This is where I encountered some real problems.

LAB golf makes an elite putter. There, I said it. I am against everything they stand for as a company, but I cannot lie to my loyal readers and tell you the product is bad.

The product is, in fact, very good. But, I’ll never play one.

The clubs are marketed toward novice players who don’t understand how to use torque to their advantage in the putting stroke (somehow still applicable to me after 25 years of playing golf), and they finally got me. I made just about everything I looked at with the JJ Spaun putter. ( n = 4 putts)

With Scotty Cameron was nowhere to be seen, I slinked back to the car with my tail between my legs, pondering my quick love affair with a putter I’ll never use.

As I mentioned above, and would like to reiterate, aesthetics matter to me. They don’t matter to everyone, but I want to find beauty in all aspects of golf. From how I dress to how my bag looks. Pulling up to a club with equipment that looks like it belongs in MoMA is worth 3-4 shots to me.

That may sound crazy to a lot of people, and it sounded crazy to me as I typed it, but it’s true. Looks matter.

Speaking of Florida golf…

A follower reached out to me to get my thoughts on what a proper club locker should look like.

It’s a hard thing to describe, and requires more than just one sense to fully capture the experience of opening one. There’s a sound the locker door makes and a pungent primordial odor that greets you half a second later that are both inherently unique and can’t be put into words.

If you’ve been lucky enough to be in a hallowed, old school locker room, you may have an idea of what I’m saying. If not, I hope you one day get the chance to experience it.

Without further ado, key items you should have in your locker:

Rare but sometimes found:

As I traveled to and from Orlando the past few days, I did some digging to find an affordable course in the general area.

I found Highland Reserve Golf Club, where architect Mike Dasher transformed a former citrus grove atop the Green Swamp Ridge in Davenport, Florida, into an 18-hole par-72 championship layout. Opened in 1998, the course capitalized on the site's natural sand shelf, incorporating dramatic elevation drops of up to 120 feet (a rarity in the state's typically flat terrain) blending pine-lined fairways evocative of Carolina courses with open, Scottish-style expanses.

By 2023, it ranked among Golf Advisor's Top 25 Most Improved U.S. Courses, thanks to ongoing maintenance like the installation of Diamond Zoysia greens.