Get ready to take off with Dynamic Golf.
Welcome back Dynamic Golf listeners.
I'm your cohost, Tim McElvanagh and with me today is my fellow cohost, Sean Klotz.
Today we're going to talk about an exciting conversation, the 2025 PGA show.
Hey, Dynamic Golf listeners.
Really good to hear your voice, Tim Mc, and just got back from the cold state of Florida.
I don't know what happened last week.
That was crazy.
Yeah.
Right?
Like we're, I mean, 49 of a high on Wednesday and, you know, my daughters have, they're
up in Tallahassee and it's, there's snow.
There's what, what's happening.
Yeah, I heard about that.
There was some snow up there and a good amount too, like a couple inches or something like
that I heard.
Four to five, four to five inches.
It's unbelievable.
Just so weird, you know, living in Tampa for 35 years and you're from your native and you
know, it's just such a weird thing that doesn't happen in our world.
No, no.
Yeah.
I mean, you know, the old saying is around here and I'm sure you've heard this around
old Silverado.
If it gets any colder, we're going to move to Florida.
And that was definitely the theory that last week for sure.
Yeah, no, no questions.
So it was, it was a very, it was probably the weirdest, you know, weather wise demo
day and PGA show that I literally ever attended.
I was trying to talk to some of my members when I got back and they're like, how long
you been going?
I'm like, you know, I don't really know if I know that answer.
I'm going to say at least 1998 would probably have been my first one.
Wow.
And I don't think I've missed a year since because it's, it's, and you've been to
Mac and they had some family and some weather issues that you had to kind of deal with this
week instead of being able to go.
But you know, it is, it's a, it's a meeting place for just fellow PGA professionals.
That's the, that's the kind of first thing.
It is a way for the vendors to be able to show their new lines and show their new product.
So that gets, you know, the public.
And that's why I think we should talk quite a bit about today is really kind of like,
you know, the guy who's sitting on the couch, the girl who's trying to get out and play
this summer or the spring or whatever, like what, what do we kind of see?
What's the, what are the new products?
What are the new things that are, you know, for the public to kind of get excited about?
Cause it is kind of an insider show.
Yeah.
It's, it's like a little, it's like a toy story for, for, you know, grown golfers, right?
A lot, a lot of new hot topics, new technology.
It's just, and you're right.
It's a really cool place to kind of recharge your batteries for the PGA.
You're meeting new people and just having that social interaction just gets you, you
know, mentally, you know, you're just mentally charged up, you know, you're like, I'm ready
to go be a PGA professional.
And it's just, it's a, it's a great way to get together.
You're right.
It's so true.
And it's, it's also my first year I've ever done it from being up north and not working.
Like it's our kind of downtime up here, obviously, whereas, you know, we and you have been doing
PGA shows and the state of Florida, like, you know, in the middle of our season in January
for 15, 20 years.
So it's just such a different kind of take on it.
So it was different.
We were able to kind of get a lot more accomplished than we normally can being in Florida.
Cause again, and I talked to a couple of my fellow pros in the, from the Tampa area that
I saw over there, saw Eric over at the river Hills and Duke Bowen, Duke Bowen is an old
school guy that I used to know from the heritage Isles days.
And you know, they can only spend a day over there because we've got to get back to your
club.
Your, your, your club is busy.
Correct.
You know, you know, and I think it's a great dynamic.
What you're talking about is that from the Northern side, you know, being up there, you've
got plenty of time.
You've got the whole week to basically be there, kind of peruse around and cruise, you
know, being, you know, for me, I didn't, I wasn't able to attend the show this year.
I had a kind of a busy schedule, busy schedule, which is good.
You know, it's always great to hear.
I'd love to have gotten on over there, but, you know, just, it's a different time.
You know, it's our season.
A lot of people are expecting lessons, golf, stuff like that.
And when the weather gets kind of bad, like it was and being an indoor simulator, I get
a little bit busier because people are like, well, I can't go out and hit.
So you know, for us it's, if you can get over for a half day or a day, that's a big accomplishment
for pros and assistants here in this area for sure.
That's it.
Absolutely.
So we started off with a demo day on Tuesday and that's usually a super fun time, you know,
really kind of a good way to kind of, and it's changed throughout the years too, because
of multiple reasons, but the clubs, the golf companies, they don't, they don't have such
a presence as they used to.
Were there any companies there that you, you didn't see was Taylor made, were all the big
guys Taylor made Callaway, or was there anybody that you kind of saw missing out of the unit?
Yeah, I don't think Taylor made was there.
Now granted, let me, let me preface this with the fact that it was a morning, especially
was a 51 degree pouring rain.
Most of that morning, you know, kind of intermittent.
Yeah.
It was disgusting.
It was awful.
It was.
So, I mean, we got, we got there, whatever, right around nine, you know, parked super
close, super easy to get in, which again, you know, from, again, some are listening,
it was just kind of a good inside out to the kind of how these trade shows work.
That doesn't happen.
That's normally like an hour kind of process of parking, right?
Trying to get in.
So anyway, so we got in and we were there right around nine and you know, it's, it's
raining, it's, it's not super fun.
It's cold.
The vendors aren't thrilled.
They're not into it, but we did see kind of, we stopped off at the Cleveland.
One of my guys with me wanted to try some new wedges and it's just a great place to
be able to try all the different wedges and grinds and different things.
So we stopped off and saw some Cleveland product.
They've got a new wedge.
I hit a couple of 62 degrees and 64 degree clubs that you don't normally get to hit.
Which you know, same thing, like we told the high school kids, you may not want to have
that in your bag unless you kind of know how to do it.
Correct.
Yep.
But the other thing is, is when you're with those guys, Sean, you learn a lot about the
product and you learn, you know, you, you learn something new, not just about the product,
but how the product is used, right?
You know, like you kind of go, Oh, I didn't know you're, you're supposed to kind of do
that with a wedge or a driver or something.
You just get a little bit more knowledge and it's not, you know, you know, groundbreaking,
but for professionals like us, it just gives us a little bit more of a crack into the window
behind the scenes.
You know what I mean?
Oh yeah, absolutely.
And I'm, I'm glad you said that.
And part of the cool thing of our podcast team that cause we don't talk a lot before
we don't have notes, we don't have a script.
We just kind of go and that's where you want it to be.
You know, and you just, you're leading right into something that we're going to talk about
here in the next couple of minutes.
But the Cleveland stuff, just real quick, cause to your point of like, you know, we
think we are the, we are the industry experts.
We are the professionals.
We get it, but I'd never knew, didn't know whatever you want to call it.
That the black finish on a club on a wedge, right?
So you typically with wedges, some of the companies you have like the standard and like
satin chrome will call it.
Then you've got like this rusty raw tour grind finish.
Yep.
And then you've got the, yep.
And then you got the kind of the black dollar finish.
Yeah.
So I was always in the impression that the raw tour grind, the rusty one would spin more
and the Cleveland reps said, Nope, that doesn't happen anymore.
It it's the same amount of spin rate as a chrome or as a raw tour grind or a black.
Really?
I thought that was interesting, right?
Like that's, that's not something I knew before walking in the door.
Well that's what I mean.
You remember the old saying, old trusty rusty, right?
You get that old rusty thing and you thought it just spun like crazy, but that's amazing
that they're, they're, they're getting down to the science of that now.
Yep.
And then the other thing is like the black, you know, again, some people like the black
dollar finish on their wedges.
They're like Cleveland's making a concerted effort and they said like the black won't
go away now.
Like it won't become kind of that, you know, whiter brown.
So then you get kind of two colors in your wedge.
They really made a concerted effort to make sure that that finish is staying there throughout
your life of your wedge.
Okay.
That's great.
Yeah.
Now did he kind of explain why I know why I like the black finish, but did he kind
of explain why some of the people are, are gravitating towards that color?
Yeah, you know, it's same, probably the same reason as you just, it's, it's just a aesthetic
looking type of feel.
Um, do you, do you like to, you know, not to maybe reflect the sun a little bit or not
to look back at it?
Is that kind of your reasoning?
Yeah, I've always had a problem with, uh, when I get into the bunker looking at that
high shiny finish, it distracts me.
Um, so when I get that dull finish, I don't, you know, it's just, it, the contrast against
the sand, it just makes it easier for me.
Um, but I've always been one of those people, the bright, shiny thing, you know, shiny things
attract me and I get distracted very easily.
Yup.
You're like Dory.
Yup.
You're like Dory in Little Nemo.
Exactly.
About the same memory pattern too.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Uh, it's great.
So, uh, yeah.
So, you know, just, just that one interaction right there was kind of worth the price of
admission, but, uh, from there we kind of started walking over to a couple, a couple
of other vendors and again, the size of it was smaller.
The number of vendors was smaller.
Uh, the number of attendees was smaller, all weather related.
It has to be weather related because it was just such a dreary day in the, in Florida.
But, uh, we were able to kind of, again, my buddy's looking for wedges.
We can like, Hey, let's go look at the Vokey's.
Um, and we just kind of wanted to see what their product was.
They usually have a nice kind of a bigger chipping area than some of the other companies
are have access to.
Yeah.
Um, and it's actually, you know, a little more playable because some of the, even at
Cleveland you're chipping off of tight grass, go into a downhill green and you're like,
well, it's really not spinning or checking.
Well, if you go to the other side of the green, it might check better.
Did they have you guys over?
Did they have the little demo thing over there in that little tiny putting green behind the
the pavilion or whatever it is that we're, yeah.
So we didn't, we didn't make it to that corner.
We kind of got, came in from the other side and, um, it was, again, we didn't really,
we probably saw a third of this, uh, demo day cause we just, it was, we selfishly, we
did go play golf at one o'clock and you guys did.
So God bless you.
Yeah.
We did get some golf and, um, that's another story, but basically the golf was perfect.
It was the only time it did not rain on Tuesday was between one, one PM and five PM.
So literally perfect.
Great.
Uh, couldn't have worked out any better, but, um, so we'd make our way over to the, to the
title of stereo and you kind of see a little crowd over there and you're kind of like,
what's going on?
And you kind of know maybe there's somebody over there.
So it's, it's Brad Fox and who is, you know, I don't know.
I didn't know how many times he's won on PGA tour, but just known as a short game, you
know, not guru, but just such a great short game player.
One of the best putters that probably has ever played on the PGA tour.
That's not overstating that.
And Rory McRoy is putting coach, right?
Oh yeah.
Didn't even put that together.
Yeah.
I mean, that's, I mean, I watch all his videos when he's working with Rory all the time.
So, so yeah, that's not that.
I mean, Brad Faxon is a great coach for that.
So you're right on that.
Yeah.
So that's, that's again, the kind of thing that you get to at the PGA show at the demo
days, you get this access that you don't get on a normal basis.
And Faxon is a Rhode Island guy.
So that's a big thing.
It's my head pro who's, you know, Massachusetts guy and you know, being from, from PVD in
Boston originally, you know, so I knew Faxon kind of growing up, he always kind of followed
his career.
But the thing about, it's such a, you know, high level type of conversation, like the
thing about tour players or people that are at that level, they just have such a great
understanding of all the intricacies of all the game part of it.
They're just on such a different level.
And you kind of wonder, you know, as a 15 handicap player listening to this top podcast,
like, well, that's great.
How does it help me?
Yeah.
They did such a great job of like, I'm going to use the word like dumbing it down, even
to, you know, all of us who are kind of PGA professionals watching this thing of the difference
of there's 27 different wedges that titles makes 27 different wedges that titles makes
not know that.
Holy cow.
Right.
Yeah.
And the guy with them was the tour fitting wedge guy out on tour.
So he's working with Adam Scott.
He's working with, uh, yeah, just, I mean, all the tour players hang out in that van
for a day.
I bet you see some amazing people.
Wow.
So, you know, again, it's, it's a little bit like my boss has a great saying, um, that
he's like, look, I don't need to know how, how the car works.
I just need to be able to drive the car.
Like that's such a good saying in golf in general.
Like, and fax and he's got the, um, he understands the mechanics of how to drive the car, but
he also just knows how to drive the car.
Meaning like he was still kind of questioning the tour representative of like, okay, so what
I've got four different grinds in a 54 degree.
I've got an F a D at X and a Y or S and a Y.
Why is the F grind kind of served me better than the D grind or what, you know, like those
types of conversations.
And so there's, there's that component.
Then there's a, okay, what's the bounce?
What bounce should I always hit?
Which is a really good, I think it's just such a misunderstood and I definitely learned
a lot that day, that for that 45 minutes of what bounce you should hit.
Um, and I think the best way to simplify it for our listeners is that you essentially
on a 50, so this, this tour rep, um, I think his name was Aaron, he, he calls sand wedges
54, 55 and 56 degrees.
Those are sand wedges.
Okay.
And he calls lob wedges 58, 60, 62, 64.
So the simplification of it for the listeners, if you're hitting a 54, 55, 56, or you wedge
in general in, you know, again, there's a ton of different factors.
You should look for a club that has more bounce 10, 12, even up to 14 degrees of bounce on
your wedge.
Okay.
Does the turf have anything to do with that at all?
Is that
100% yeah, turf interaction, you know, kind of how you come into it steep or, or inside
out there talking about, they even kind of got into some trackman numbers.
Like is your path inside out?
Well, if your path is more inside out, you want to have more bounce, less bounce, whatever
the thing is, but to kind of, kind of narrow it down for the, for the listeners, sand wedges,
you want to have more bounce.
So at least look at 10 and maybe 12, but probably 10 is, and they'd said this to you like 10
is the more versatile bounce for the majority of conditions, the bunker being different,
I know, whatever.
So 54, 56 degree 10.
And then if you get to a 60 degree club, you have a lot of wedge.
That's the club you want less bounce in.
You want to have four, six, or maybe eight degrees of bounce again, sort of depending
on how you come into it.
I think that should just help our listeners in general.
Like, okay, now I've got a clue.
And then, you know, and then the grind is like, the grind is, you know, it's like, like,
see there a kind of a bigger soul or a narrower soul for lack of a better terms.
Correct.
Faxon was just saying like, look, he picked up a club.
He's like, I don't like the look of that.
And the guy Aaron said, don't pick it up then.
Like if you don't like the look of it automatically, don't try to manipulate it and make it work
for you.
You got to like the look of how it sits on the ground to benefit you.
So we could do, we could do two hours on bounce and grind and wedges and you know, let's just
make it simple for the listener.
Sand wedges, more bounce, lob wedges, less bounce.
And then our last thing I'll lead with, which I don't think you do this better than I do
in general.
And again, it's a little bit because of where I grew up, but Faxon's main leading statement
was he wants less air, more roll, period.
And we've talked about that before, as far as how we teach people.
It's so much safer to hit something on the ground than it is to try to carry it to a
target.
Yes.
Do you see that in your teaching?
Right?
You see that in the people you play with?
Absolutely.
It's, it's so much tougher to control.
Once the ball gets up in the air, it's so much tougher to control that and determine
where it's going to land and how it's going to react compared to on the ground.
You've got a much more stable reaction with the ground.
You get more interaction.
You know, what's going to happen nine times out of 10, right?
But you know, we see on tour, everybody's throwing it up high and soft and we think
we can do that.
And it's just not practical for the amateur.
So, and he addressed that too.
Like he basically said that like, you know, because they made him, they made him hit a
58 degree flop shot and he hated it.
He's like, he goes, ah, you better watch out like people on the side because I don't hit
the shot too often.
Right?
Yeah.
And of course he executed it with an, you know, eight feet of the flag and it was high
and floppy.
But the kind of takeaway from it was he was, he took that same 58 degree club and I wish
we had some, you know, this is maybe where we can do some YouTube stuff in the future.
He hit that club so low, it was coming out so low and it would, it would do the bounce,
bounce check type of stuff.
But it would, it would be probably a 30 yard golf shot in general from where he was to
where the flag was maybe 25 to 30 yards.
But his first, his first bounce was probably around seven or eight yards off the, you know,
from where he was at.
And then it rolled out the rest of the, you know, 18 feet type of thing.
Yeah, sorry.
18 yards.
It was, it was like, again, Scott and I were looking at each other and you're just like,
wow, we don't hit that shot.
Like how do you even hit that shot?
Yeah.
Cause I mean, I'd probably be hitting like with, if it's seven yards with 18 yards a
roll, I'm probably hitting like a nine or a pitching wedge.
Something that's a little bit, that's amazing.
That's just great hands.
Correct.
Yeah.
So that was, I mean, that was just one part.
I'm just that Tuesday, I'm a Tuesday morning at 10 o'clock before I even, you know, we're
talking about this thing.
So it's, it was great.
We, we did, we're going to put the, the, um, video that I made for that on, on our YouTube
account.
So I think that'd be a good way for people to kind of check it out and follow of the
facts and thing.
I think that was, uh, I think I was telling you, we've got already a thousand views on
our Instagram page and stuff.
So it's a, it's just a, it was, you know, whatever two minutes long, I could have put,
I could have taped the half an hour of it type of thing.
Yeah.
Just so much, so many good details in there.
But you know, the thing I really like about what you're saying is how much, you know,
and I think some of our amateurs could kind of learn from this, but you know, he really
asked a lot of good questions though.
I mean, he's, he's digging into it.
He's trying to figure out what's going to be best for his game.
And I like that, you know, for a guy like him, he's really thinking about what are the,
all the options I have?
What do I like?
And not just what's going to be best for him, but also what's, you know, aesthetically appeasing
for him too.
Yeah.
A hundred percent.
Definitely.
So that was, that was just the first part.
And then the next part I'll tell you to share a quick about the demo day thing was, uh,
so literally walk 10 steps over inside in a tent.
We would kind of work with there cause it was starting to rain.
Um, Stacey Lewis, who was the Solheim Cup captain.
Oh yeah.
She was, she was given a speech or a talk and being interviewed by Laura from, I remember
Laura's last name from the golf channel.
Um, but interviewed by her and I've got some video of that too, TMAC.
I think we should post that on our YouTube channel.
That'd be great.
That's a good wealth of knowledge too right there.
Yeah.
So, so good.
Just kind of some of the takeaways there were, you know, like how did you, how did you get
asked to do the Solheim Cup?
Like what was your responsibilities as a captain?
Um, who, you know, what, where'd you, where'd you put your emphasis?
How'd you get your team to stay together?
So I think that'd be really good for, you know, people that might be interested in that
to kind of go listen to that and watch that.
Yeah.
Um, and then she talked about branding.
She talked about how to brand herself as a PGA player, you know, how important it is
to, you know, great to have the, the, the abilities and stuff, but you have to kind
of make yourself different and separate yourself from other players on tour.
And how does that happen?
Uh, she's a new, well, she's a mom, I guess.
So she kind of talked about playing on tour as being a mom and how the responsibility
of that goes.
So, you know, great, just unbelievable.
And she's so well-spoken and just, you know, very easy to talk to it seemed like.
So that was a cool, you know, other half hour.
That's great.
You know, and I think that's kind of comes back to what we talked about with branding
is that, um, as PGA professionals, we're, you know, we're not just trying to sell you
a swing.
We're trying to sell ourselves, right?
We're trying to show you that we do care and that we do have a wealth of knowledge and
that we're more than just, you know, a guy that can teach you how to swing or how to
play or how to putt, but we really want to kind of improve your game.
Right.
And I think that goes back to branding is that we want to have a brand that when people
look at us, we want to get, they want to say, Hey, I want you to go to my instructor, you
know, not just, yeah, the term that I've kind of gotten, you know, I've heard a lot because
we've been doing a lot of, um, continuing education points.
So videos through the PGA and PGA coach is such a good resource for our students to try
to access us.
I think you use PGA coach pretty well, don't you?
Yeah, I use it a lot.
I love it.
Yep.
So, uh, it's the relationships, right?
That's what we're trying to build.
We're trying to build relationships.
We don't want to be a one-time instructor.
We don't want to be a, you know, let me fix you on this particular day we need.
And it's, you know, it's not all monetarily driven, but it is obviously like, Hey, um,
if I can build a relationship with you, if I can really change you from a 20 handicap
golfer to a 15 handicap golfer in a season, that's going to take a couple of sessions,
multiple sessions going on the golf course plan, evaluating your golf game.
Cause what you think is the bad part of your game and what I watch when I see you play
oftentimes two different things.
Correct.
You know, uh, like going to the doctor and saying, Hey, um, I've got, you know, I've
got, uh, uh, I've got sciatic nerve pain in my back.
Oh, you're, you're, you're a golf pro.
How would you know?
Like, why wouldn't you let the doctor evaluate you and tell you what you have as a, as a,
but we do it the opposite, right?
In our world, we're like, so what's going on with your game?
What do you want to work on?
I want to get more consistent.
Well, does that really improve your golf?
Like, does that really make your golf game?
You're telling us what's wrong rather than us, you know, let us evaluate it and let me
tell you what I think you should work on.
Yeah.
Every student I think I get, uh, has already given themselves a site, a self diagnosis
of what's wrong and they're going to give you, you know, here's what I need to fix.
And you look at it and you're like, you know, I think you bring a great point.
You know, they'll be like, well, I want to get more consistent and strike the ball better.
And I'm like, well, how many balls did you lose in a round?
I didn't lose any.
And I'm like, well, how many putts did we have?
Well, we had like 35 putts and I'm thinking, why are we here on the track, man, trying
to pound balls?
We need to be on the putty green working on our stroke.
But you know, people, you know, as, as people do, we self diagnose and we kind of look at
things the way we want to look at them and not the way that a professional would look
at them.
Right.
No.
So it was just, you know, a little side note.
We always go down that side note, but we just get kind of shows you how important it is.
Cause we seem to all of our conversations do end up leading to that.
Like, you know, let, uh, be open minded.
You know, and I'll say this about the fax and thing, um, that was really good and kind
of in a club fitting world.
Cause he, they kind of mentioned some club fitting.
They the guy, Aaron, the tour representative was like the best way for me to get you fit
for golf clubs is for me to put stuff in your hand.
You not know what it is on the bottom of it.
And let me just have you see, and you hit shots and you're going to know heat.
Faxon is going to know within two or three shots might take us four or five, but they
definitely mentioned that like go to a, go to a wedge fitting, go to a store.
You'll see the numbers.
You'll feel it.
You'll, you know, ideally probably wedges are probably best fit outside.
Um, but you, you're going to get fit and who cares what's on the bottom of the club.
Yeah.
Nobody's paying you.
Correct.
Get it.
Correct.
Get it.
I don't care if it's Sean and Tim's wedge game.
Who cares?
Like get the thing, get the thing in your hands, the feel of the field, the weight,
the shaft, the head, the grind, the bounce, all of it, see how it comes out.
And you may not like the lower ball flight.
You might be a little higher ball flight guy.
Great.
Then go to a 56 degree wedge instead of a 54 degree wedge.
It doesn't matter.
The ball doesn't care.
The score doesn't matter.
Yeah.
Do what he's going to get that ball in the hole as quick as possible.
So yeah.
Yeah.
And that brings me back to, to an old podcast that we did with Sean van Patten.
So if any of our listeners are listening about the club fitting, he did a great job about
that.
You bring up a great point about, you know, uh, the weight of the club.
You know, I remember Sean talking about that.
A lot of our students don't pay attention to what the overall weight of the club is.
They just kind of grab it off the thing and you know, all my buddy swings a, you know,
a 95 gram or 120 gram shaft.
So it's good for me.
You know, I think that's great about a wedge fitting is that you not only learned about
the bounce, the head and all that, but you also start learning about what your shaft
weight should be, the flex.
It's just so in depth, right?
And it's just a part of the game that you got to be so good at.
Right?
I mean, you know, when you look at guys that win the U S open like Bryce and DeChambeau,
what was the shot that he hit that great wedge shot?
Bunker shot.
Absolutely bunker shot.
You know, it's a, it's a wedge shot, you know, that wins tournaments.
So yeah, no question.
Yeah.
So that was, that was an amazing two hours, let alone, you know, so we'll just kind of
move on so we don't make this a four hour podcast, but uh, so, you know, yeah, we can
talk about that for a while, but uh, Wednesday, Thursday was going to the PGA show itself.
It's at the orange County convention center.
It's a mile long, you know, mile long building.
You've been there multiple times.
You've seen the, uh, the festivities, the kind of energy that's created on Wednesday,
the opening bell we'll call it.
And there's, there's so many people there on Wednesday, Thursday was more, was less,
but it's just the energy on Wednesday is, is really outstanding.
Um, and again, kind of a TMAC, this is a weird thing to say to you, cause this is because
you mean you've known each other a long time.
I went to, to the PGA golf show on Wednesday and Thursday and I hit, I hit one putter and
I did not see another golf club the entire time.
Really?
They, they are, they're there.
They were there.
It's just this, this, this version of the show for myself and my head professional,
we were looking for specific certain items, uh, that are going to come back into the shop.
We're going to sell better.
We're looking for tournament gifts.
We're looking for, uh, different things that we can bring into the shop.
That might be something different that the, yeah, unique little gifts for customers.
Right.
Yeah.
So we had, we had a couple of meetings set up.
We had, I think we saw about 55 vendors on Wednesday and we made a list and you start
from, you know, the left side of the building and you go to the right.
And the next day we started on the right side of the building and went to the left and,
um, uh, six different head cover companies, TMAC, six different head cover companies.
Wow.
But there, there's like different price points that you can go and head covers are normal
retail head covers around $49 for one club, for the driver or whatever.
And then we saw, we could actually have three price points for head covers.
You could have a $49 one, you could have a $75 one and you could have a $110 one, which
sounds super expensive and it is, but the customization, well, the customization, think
about what people are doing with their drivers, making them different colors.
You know, think about how your car is built now.
Like there's so much customization in the world that to get a hundred dollar head cover
that says Ross on it on the front and it's got a portrait of Donald Ross and you could
put, you know, 1898 in a leather green smells like feels like inside is beautiful.
Like I know it's, I know it's a head cover and I'm getting excited about a head cover,
but it's just, there's, there's cool products out there that you would never be able to
see on amazon.com or whatever.
You know,
I'd like to touch on that just a little bit because I would like to say that I'm a little
bit of a head cover freak.
Okay.
So yeah, I like buying, you know, uh, unique and exotic head covers.
I've got some pretty colorful, uh, head covers in my bag and I, you know, I love, I love
the uniqueness of it.
You know, when my bags in a row, I know what bags mine and I, and I, and I kind of like
it when people go, Hey man, that's a cool head cover.
You know, there's something about it.
You're like, Hey, I've got something that's kind of cool.
I've got something that's unique or somebody's like, Hey, I've never seen that before.
You like that.
You want to stand out.
You know, we're individuals and golf has been such a, you know, everything's the same for
so long.
Everybody's boring.
It's plaid colors.
It's all this.
So now to have this customization, like you're talking about with your club or your company
or your logo, uh, I think it's just great.
And to be honest with you, I love all the, the unique colors are coming out in the head
covers and, and yeah, I'm a little bit of a head cover freak.
That's good.
Yeah.
Learn more about you today.
Yeah, there you go.
But I mean, people with Scotty Cameron putters, they will go by those putter, those head covers
or whatever multiple, you know, two, three hours.
Sometimes it costs as much as the putter.
Yep.
Yeah.
Cause it's unique and different and one of a kind or whatever.
So, um, so yeah, you multiply the head cover conversation.
We just had the courses with, uh, just so many different things, bag tags for your golf
bag.
Um, clothes, junior clothing.
We went to like three different junior clothing cause we have a lot of juniors and a lot of
kids are starting to get into it.
That's a big industry too.
That's blown up in the last decade.
Hasn't it?
Most of the time it was just like, Hey, little junior is going to wear whatever he wants,
you know, collared shirt that's hotter than heck and some, you know, so it, yeah, it's
and the toy, the, the, the, the training aids they have for kids now too is amazing too.
Yep.
No, it's a, I did actually walk by snag golf.
You know what snag golf is?
Yes.
Yep.
It's pretty good.
So snag golf is essentially their target audiences between three years old up to 12 years old,
I think is what the number was.
Um, just kind of a fun, you know, colorful big club.
The club that's huge.
Yeah.
The ball is kind of like a, almost like a tennis ball feel kind of a nerf ball thing
that you can chip and you know, I mean, colorful, first of all, face awareness.
It sounds silly, but it's not, I think I should get a couple of those clubs for the adult
people that we teach.
Absolutely.
And then what the rotation of the club face is doing.
Um, just, you know, but again, just like you wouldn't just normally see that in a normal
store.
So, um, that was good.
I did see probably one of my favorite items I saw was, uh, so, you know, little tech gadget
guy with the simulator and all they call that.
Um, I think we might've seen something like this about a year ago, but basically it was
a, uh, insole that you put into your shoes and then it connects through Bluetooth to
your phone.
And as you take the video of your swing, it's going to show you the pressure mapping of
your, how your footwork is happening throughout the swing.
That's big.
I mean, amazing team act so much fun to kind of watch.
And they, and they have like a tour player on there.
So the, the, how the pressure shifts from front to left, left to right, um, on the backswing
as the, as you start your downswing, as you get to impact after impact and it's, it's
measuring it in the percentages of your weight on your left or right foot at these different
positions.
Um, so kind of one of the more glaring things that I'm like, I kind of knew, and I thought
we've talked about it before too, but you didn't really see it.
So I think it was, um, I think it was Matt Fitzpatrick.
I could be wrong with that.
Who was the pro that was, they were using as the kind of model for this, uh, insole.
And the bottom line is again, kind of big picture thing for our listeners at impact
with his driver, he had 0% of his body weight on his front leg.
Zero.
Wow.
His left foot, right handed golfer, his left foot was essentially not connected to the
ground or there was no pressure on his left foot at impact with a driver.
I want to say that a couple more times to make sure people get that.
Right.
Like, you know, traditionally you're taught to, okay, shift your weight from your front
or back leg to your front leg and make sure you get it, get to a good finish.
But you know, at impact 0% now as he gets the club past impact, it starts to shift back
a little bit to his left side.
And then at the top of his follow through, he's back to probably kind of like that 96%
of his weight on his left side and 4% of his weight on his right side.
Wow.
So I think I'm excited to kind of put that into action.
I was at the, I was literally at the gym this morning, working on that a little bit in my
head and I'm like, okay, well, that, you know, what I saw there in the, on that 3d image
was like, oh my gosh, he's got 0% of his weight on his front leg.
So yeah.
Yeah.
That's pretty mind blowing to be honest, as an instructor, we're definitely taught, hey,
we need to get that weight onto that left side to start us going.
But that's that, you know, but there again, we're getting into new technology.
That's just unraveling a lot of mysteries that we've had as instructors for decades.
Right?
I mean, track has definitely helped us and helped our students significantly.
Yeah, that's correct.
And yeah, I mean, they, they had it on there for putting like showing you your pressure
mapping and putting, which you wouldn't think would be that big of a thing.
But you know, my God, I watched the LPGA girl who was doing that.
I'm like, oh, that's an interesting take on it.
Yeah.
So what was the name of this product?
Did you remember what the name of it was?
Well, so I think I have that.
It was, I don't know if I have it top of my head.
I can, maybe we can share that with our listeners.
I, I scrolled through, again, we, when you go there, you do the QR codes of these companies.
So I probably have about 90 in my phone.
We'll put a link in the descriptions below for our, for our listeners when we're done.
Yeah.
And I do know that the, I'm going to say the retail price on the one, if you got an insole
for yourself would be $600.
Okay.
So pretty expensive, pretty, pretty healthy.
It's 600 bucks now.
Is there an annual subscription that came with that?
You know?
No, no, no, it's, it's square.
But the, the, you know, the caveat for us as PGA professionals is you could buy four
of them, so different sizes, cause they have to, they do have some different size issues.
Oh, that's 600 bucks a pop, yeah.
$1,300.
Oh.
And now you come back to the business side of it.
Okay.
Now how do I monetize that?
How do I actually make that?
Now I give you a lesson, right?
And then you leave and I got five minutes before my next lesson.
Now we've got a, to me, I kind of picture like the bowling alley.
Like I've got to clean that, sanitize it, get it ready for the next gentleman or next
lady coming in.
So there was a little bit of some stuff in there like, uh, you may not have figured this
all out just yet, but, uh, again, just from the technological side, very cool product,
very excited, you know?
Well, I think, I think you also bring up a really good point when you have clients and
they go, well, can I get that lesson for a little cheaper?
Do you do a better deal?
And I'm thinking, you know, as much as we put out for equipment and do all this stuff,
there is some back, back cost for it.
So you know, that it justifies why we charge.
It's just not cause we, we want to over price or anything like that.
We've got a lot of equipment that we've invested in.
Yeah.
Track man's 20 grand period.
Yeah.
I think it's 30 grand, isn't it now?
No, it's, it's, well, it could be, but I think it's, you know, it's somewhere between 20
and 30 and, you know, yeah, we don't, we could go into that little world, but you know, we
did, it took us, cost us $8,000 to become a PGA member.
You know, there's some time and effort into what we do.
So we absolutely easily.
Yeah.
I just don't want to go down that road.
Let's stick to this.
So let's, let's move on to apparel because I know apparel is a big part of what you like
to do.
You're a big, big person for apparel with merchandise.
Did you see anything as far as, you know, like winter gear or summer gear or rain gear
that might be coming out that might be really cool for listeners or anything like that?
Yeah.
I mean, first thing is different shopping for Massachusetts than shopping for Florida.
Right.
That's a different thing.
So we're, we're kind of looking for what you just said, kind of that outerwear.
You're looking for pieces that are, you know, somewhat reasonable and not probably a hundred
to $150 range, which at Silverado was not even an option to, you know, really have a
purchase.
So you look for, so I guess what you look for kind of the same thing I said about head
coverage, right?
You're looking for maybe your three different price points.
Okay.
We're going to have a shirt in there for 69.99.
You're going to have a shirt in there for 89.99.
You're going to have a shirt in there for 109.99, that type of thing.
Yeah.
And then you multiply that too.
So, so to me, the answer to maybe your question is, uh, Johnny O is one of our favorite brands
up here.
Nice company.
Yep.
When coach York sent you a, sent you a shirt, was that a Johnny O?
Do you remember?
Yes, sir.
It was a Johnny O.
It was a nice shirt.
Beautiful shirt.
Yeah.
So the texture, the materials, the kind of feels of these things is just so much elevated
compared to what, you know, what we used to, um, kind of hit or, you know, play with, uh,
I think there's, uh, sun mountain or sun ice, actually.
Sun ice was a nice brand.
That's kind of like a more of a outerwear piece.
Um, cause you still want it breathable.
You still want it kind of like lighter weight so you can play and swing and not have to
move so much.
Um, I think in the Florida world, we definitely went by the company.
I can't remember the exact name of it, but they, they are supposed to be the providers
to the LPGA for the shirt sleeves.
Didn't we do moderate day?
No, no.
Uh, well, moderate day is one, but this is the, uh, this is the one where you put the
shirt sleeves on to kind of protect your, your screen.
Oh yeah.
The sunscreen, um, shirts or something like that.
Yes.
Yeah.
Yep.
So yeah, so we, you know, Byron Nelson and some of these companies have like four or
five different under the same umbrella, which was like the Byron Nelson, Divots, uh, Munsing
wear.
They're all under the same umbrella, but, um, we, we probably, we've got a new buyer
coming into honor of staff.
Her name is Alyssa.
She's going to be kind of doing more of that world.
Um, so we didn't specifically, you know, kind of set up, um, apparel meetings.
Um, but there's just a lot of different product and you, and again, you've done there, like
you walk down some of these aisles and you're like, how is this little company in this little
10 by 10 space going to make it worth versus, you know, a head or a puka or branded bills
or Imperial?
Like those are four hat companies that are bigger companies and how is this little one
that's in the back by the bathroom is going to make it with some, but you know, we've
also found some of those deals, even back in Silverado where they were, honestly, the
cost was like two 50, three 50 or some for $15 and they're for some of our clientele
are equally as good.
So it doesn't, you know, yeah, they've got their own unique little clientele that they
serve to, um, and they serve to them very well.
You know, I think, uh, you don't need the whole world to buy your product, but you just
need a small minority to really be dedicated to your company or, or to your product and
you can survive, you know, maybe not thrive, but you can survive.
Right.
Exactly.
Yeah.
So that was, uh, I'm trying to think of anything else that I saw that was really, well, could
you touch a little bit on, um, the camaraderie, right?
I mean, the big thing about it is when we go there, you know, who are some of the people
that we meet, you know, some of the things that we kind of do, I mean, at least for me,
every time I go there, I just, I get super charged up to be a PGA member.
You know what I mean?
You're just like, I'm ready to go face the world.
I'm excited.
I, you know, I'm, you know, I've gone to meetings or seen Brad Faxon or, you know, tested out
the new toys or seen the new apparel.
And you know, you just, it's just like a renewal for the year, right?
You're like, this will get me through the year.
I'm charged up.
I'm ready to go.
And you just get, you know, for me, you get all these great mental conversations with
people and it just, for me, you just, you walk away smarter.
You walk away more intelligent and you know that you've got something more to give to
your clients and to your, and to your community.
Yeah.
No question.
It's, I mean, the PGA is sometimes we downplay it on this podcast, but sometimes it's because
of our frustration with some of the things they do.
They're trying, I'm going to use that word.
They're trying.
The PGA in America is trying.
They've set up a lot of different programs for us as PGA professionals.
They also want to set up their, their goal is to make, you know, to, to improve the game,
to make the game better.
That's part of our goal is to grow the game really as, as the PGA professional.
So I think having this conversation here, I'm glad we're doing this today.
I think this is a great idea to kind of get the fresh, you know, vibes of that show running
into your, like I said, running into people that I hadn't seen in a year and just, and
we're all in the same boat.
Like we all understand the same hardships, difficulties, but also great things and relationships
that we have with our membership and the lifelong, you know, relationships we have with people.
Side note, Mr. Etheridge at Silverado Golf and Country Club, Ray Etheridge, one of our
great, great members.
I've known Ray since I was like 1990, 70.
He was 90 years old.
His wife called me and fortunately passed away from some complications this week.
But like, I think that's an important thing to talk about, T-Mac, because that's the,
the relationship building, the lifelong friends that we end up creating in our business.
Absolutely.
You know, whether it's a member or a fellow PGA professional or a part kid that might
come back to you 10 years later and say, Hey, you know, Hey, T-Mac, thanks for being there
for me.
You know, you're a really good role model.
You know, I really appreciate you guiding me through my little difficult adult or, you
know, teenage years.
So yeah, we, we, we're humble too, right?
I think that's another commonality typically of PGA professionals.
We're humble, but you know, the other thing is that what golf provides for us is a home
or a family away from a family, right?
I mean, people like Ray Etheridge that I've known for a number of years and his wife,
Pat, great people.
You know, I can remember that, you know, he wouldn't just want to talk to me about golf
or, Hey, can I get a tip or anything like this?
It was more about how's your daughter doing?
How's your wife doing?
You know?
Yeah, absolutely.
It could be a random conversation that had nothing to do with golf, but you know, you
enjoyed and you appreciated those conversations, especially coming from somebody who was well
into their nineties, um, getting a fresh perspective of what time was like then their perspective.
It might not be the same as yours, but you got to respect it and you got to enjoy it.
Yep.
No, it's, it's so true.
So it's just a great meeting place for, um, for us as, you know, PGA professionals to
get to.
There's an online education available during his, during that week.
Um, and even if you don't make it to the actual week or to the, uh, show there's online education.
Um, I, you know, I've said this for many years.
I really still, as I go to it every year, I don't know why, I mean, you've talked about
this a little bit.
I don't know why they don't open up Friday or Saturday to the public.
Yeah.
Charge 10 bucks a pit pop.
Let the public be able to get to that, have that money that's generated on that day goes
specifically to junior golf.
Or whatever, whatever you want to kind of do.
Yeah.
You know, make up a prize pool.
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, I mean, if, if I was the PGA commissioner or whatever for a day, that'd be one of those
things that would absolutely, it doesn't make any sense to keep it insular.
Like why wouldn't we share this with everybody and get the people.
I know the golf channels there and they kind of do their deal and stuff and they do.
And it's just, it would just be so different to add that excitement and let everybody hear
and talk about what I'm talking about.
Cause it's, it's great.
The game is great.
We play it for a reason.
We quit so much time into it.
You're a hundred percent right.
We, you know, fortunately, unfortunately we spend more time at our job than we do with
our family a lot of times.
And you know, so we're going to, yeah.
So it was, it was a great experience.
I, I can't, you know, like I thought I'd like to say, I like to encourage everybody to go,
but you can't.
The best we can do is kind of share our experiences with it and you know, keep, keep bringing
the information to the public and let them know what's going on.
Yeah.
I mean, I, I agree with you.
I wish they would open that up to the public.
I think, you know, I think if the public kind of saw what's, what's all behind the scenes
a little bit, one, they get a little bit more appreciation, two, they would get a little
bit more knowledge too.
I mean, you know, it just seems like the PGA show, it just seems to me, if I was a public
guy, it's like they're trying to hide something from me.
They're just trying to hold me back from, from something.
So I think you just open up the doors.
You just be a little bit more transparent on a Friday or, or, you know, maybe started
at noon on Thursday or something like that.
Yeah.
And let the public come on in.
And I think the big thing is for the vendors is answer the questions from them too, you
know, not just from the professionals that, you know, but, but you know, they have concerns,
they have questions.
And I think that would be, you know, apropos for them to come on and say, Hey, I'd like
to see this in my club or I'd like to see this color or something like that.
And I think that just opens it up for everybody.
So true.
It is.
Yeah.
So no, great, great experience.
Uh, fun, you know, I think we got to start kind of working our way towards having some
interaction with our, with our people that are listening to, you know, people that ask
us questions about what they want to, what they want to know.
But, uh, you know, get in contact with yourself at Silverado at, uh, I guess not Silverado
unfortunately currently.
Yeah.
But, uh, swing theory golf and getting in touch with myself at Oakley country club or,
you know, through my Instagram account, uh, one-stop golf shop, um, is still my Instagram
account.
So whatever that is, you know, if you guys have questions or conversations or just let
us know, cause we, if we're not covering the right thing, if we're, if you guys want to
have a topic of a different, you know, something else that you'd like to know about, let us
know because we can cover a lot.
Yeah.
From course management to wedges, putters, drivers, um, you know, anything it may be,
you know, maybe even the, the how to, how to hit a bunker shot, whatever it may be.
So let us know we're, we're here to provide good content for you.
Uh, and, and, uh, I thought today's, uh, session about the PGA show was great.
We got to learn quite a bit.
I think the idea of Brad Faxon, uh, you see in Brad Faxon is just great.
I can't wait to see the video and upload it to our YouTube channel, but, uh, that's good
stuff right there.
Stacey, I want to leave it with one.
Yeah, it was amazing.
I want to leave it with one thing, team, because I was going to mention it when I was talking
about facts and I thought we were talking a little too much, but it's, it's again, kind
of like an insider's view into watching a tour player hit a golf shot.
So that's kind of simplest way to explain this for the listener.
When he's hitting a 58 degree club and he's got that log wedge and he hit, took like four
or five practice and before he even did it.
My, my best advice to the player who is trying to 58 degree club or 60 degree, it is amazing
how open the club face is and on the tight takeaway and on the top of his backswing,
how open that club faces at the throughout this one.
Um, so whatever you, you know, if you, I'm not trying to talk down, if you understand
that, if you know what that means, it's, it's something that you should try to do more often
and don't be scared of it.
His other thing with the log wedges was he said this, he said, you know, he goes tour
players that I work with tour players that I played with, they like to have their club
head moving really fast.
He said the word send it.
He like, I like, he's like, they like to feel like the club head is, is being sent from
the top of the backswing and there's some speed in that 58 degree wedge shot.
And I think that's to us, you know, if we kind of maybe simplify it to bunker shots,
people stop in bunkers, they just stop the club.
They don't keep it going.
And it does kind of get stuck in the ground or the, you know, the weights going to the
back leg and they kind of bottom out early.
The again, the overall point for the listener is like open the club face, keep it open on
the backswing, figure out how to do that and then get some speed in that delivery position
to get some spin on the golf ball and don't be afraid of blading it.
Cause as long as you make good contact, you're going to be fine.
I know it's a little simple, but, but just really something he touched on.
I'm like, you know, I, I just, when you watch him, you're like, Oh my gosh, that blade's
so open.
That's played is so open.
That's a great mental perspective for, for our listeners, right?
I mean, I'm sure a lot of them are trying to keep the face square.
You know, I'm sure a lot of them are trying, you know, and they get that shovel, you know,
they just shovel it into the ground with that leading edge.
So that's definitely the tip of the day.
If you're struggling with those wedges, don't be afraid to really open that thing up, open
it up to the point where it's kind of uncomfortable.
Once you agree.
Yeah.
And then just make shots, just try to hit the ground and, and, and you'll, I guarantee
you they're going to walk away after a couple of things going, what, how does this work?
Right?
They're going to be like, this is amazing.
I, I, you know, this shouldn't work, but it does.
Right?
So, but yeah, that's a great tip.
Do it out of long grass too, right?
Start in long grass.
Don't just start on the, on the side of the fringe, you know, starting long grass, starting
something you feel a little more comfortable doing, but you'll kind of start seeing.
That's why I didn't mention that, but in the Cleveland world and other companies have,
but they get these full face wedges.
And that's part of the reason they've got full face where the grooves are all the way
in the total part of the club.
Because when you're hitting in different conditions, you want to be able to make sure you can literally
line it up off the toe, like you would a putter.
And if you want to put extra spin on it, that's what the Cleveland guys are saying.
And you do it and you're like, oh my gosh, it is more spin.
Really cool.
So you're utilizing the whole face, right?
I mean, at that point you're utilizing the whole face and not just that little corner
edge, just not doing anything for you.
So I think it's great.
That's it.
Yeah.
Good stuff.
So, well, thank you, a dynamic golf listeners.
We certainly appreciate it.
If you found this, you know, a podcast interesting or liked it, please think about liking or subscribing
to the channel.
I am your host Tim McElvanagh and with me is Sean Klotz.
Sean, anything before we break?
No, I think that was good.
It's a good session for some people to listen to and yeah, just keep at it, have a good
time with it and, you know, keep looking, keep getting yourself educated.
Keep going.
Sounds good.
So once again, thank you, dynamic golf listeners, and we will see you on the next video.
See you.