The Golf Guru Show

So many of my counterparts have already finished their recap of this years PGA Merchandise show so here is my take on this years haps. In my opinion this years show was the best ever. As I have written in the past, the PGA show is what you make of it. The people you choose to be around, the seminars you attend and the products you are interested in. The PGA of America is starting to get the fact that it is a social media opportunity to connect with the members and the experience is getting better and better. As always, I had a definite plan to get around as many top coaches and to see as much of the show as I can which can be difficult in a very short stretch so I went for it. I can break this post down into 2 parts: 1)The networking and spending time with good friends and  2)the products that I thought were new and innovative and would help your game.

Part 1 (Networking)

I was very excited to hang out with and spend time with my good friends John Graham, Dennis Sales, Jason Helman,  Rob McGill, Andrew Marr, Sara Dickson, Kirk Oguri and Ricky Lee Potts which you have heard me call my mastermind crew. We have all become very close and the side bar conversations are so valuable and I always come away with new information on how to teach better. For those of you who could keep up with our twtter feeds would know that we had a Pre Tweet up on Wednesday where we got together for dinner and then John Graham’s and Richie Hunt’s Big tweet up on Thursday which was awesome. I got to meet so many new people who I had talked to on twitter like Steve Mitchell, Nick Starchuck, Megan Pudua, James Hong, Michel Mennard, Travis Lloyd, John Randle, Zach Baron. I even got to stay with Aaron Olson, one of the bright young stars in the business from Arizona. He works with Megan Pudua, Jeff Rittter and Martin Chuck at the Raven. You will be hearning great things from this young man as he was very impressive for sure. There were so many people who I met I am sure I am leaving someone out. As for the tweetup, it did not disappoint as the swing discussion and demonstration was led by good friend and one of my favorite people, John Dochety as he turned Andrew Marr into a pretzel demonstrating the multiple tilts in the golf swing. Doc, you are the best my friend and I always learn so much when we get together. Thank you to John Graham for putting it together and I know it is going to make a difference in our industry for such a group of coaches to come together from all different philosophies and theories to share and enjoy one another’s company. Trust me, the teaching summit had nothing on what went on this evening. I have included a short montage put together by Nick Chertock (who better be in attendance next year) which was awesome. Thank you my friend. One of my big goals while I was there was to take the opportunity to shoot some video of all the mastermind crew. So I put together our team and how had a round table discussion the next morning that lasted about 40 minutes. I think you can get the feeling of how much we care about one another which for me has been life changing. The only bummer was that Sara Dickson and Switzerland (JG) could not be a part of it but there will be a next time. Big thanks for my friend, Ricky Lee Potts for moderating the discussion and my friend Eric “LaFama Blanca” for the excellent camera work. We will step it up with some wireless mics next time (Nick C). I hope you enjoyed it as much I we did filming it. I could go on and on about all the side bar moments that I had discussing Aimpoint and the importance of ankle mobility with John Graham and Dennis Sales or watching one a teaching legend like Jim Hardy give a lesson in the garage with a broom or how Kirk Oguri has better hair than Robert Rock but I don’t have enough time. You will have to hit me up another time. Now to part 2

Equipment and training aids:

Best Booth : Taylor Made City. You could even get a picture with Dustin Johnson, very cool. It took up the entire end of the show.

Training Aids that I liked :

Guru training system  www.gurutrainingsystem.com 3D training with no wires or sensors. Very cool. (still looking for my royalties)

Swing byte – http://swingbyte.com/ I bought one of these as it gives you 3d motion of the club from different angles and connects to your ipad or phone so it is portable. It also gives you data from each shot. Looking forward to playing with this for sure.

ES 12 digital golf assistant – great for gap training and tells you how far each shot travels. here is a video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pF6HSrdlkD8 I bought one of these too. I will be doing wedge schools and on course training with this guy.

Shotstothehole.com – a very good stats tracker that i may use this year.

Trackman 3 –  www.trackmangolf.com This would be the final piece to my teaching academy as I would love to get one of these. The new one is more portable and now has a short game feature that will track down to 2 yards. I met with the rep and was very impresseed.

True Links Shoes – A low profile golf shoe that was very comfortable and allowed you to feel the ground. Mark Sweeney calls them AimPoint green reading shoes. JG, Dennis and I bought a pair.

I also want to thank Lorin Anderson from GBN for putting together such great education seminars. I attended Brian Manzella, Charlie King and Jeff Ritter which was a great way to start the show. I could say so much more but I will leave you with this:

It was great to spend time with my crew and meet so many top coaches and great people who have influenced my career such as Chuck Evans, Charlie King and Todd Sones which is what the PGA show is all about. As I said before, it is all what you make of it. If you didn’t get anything out of it, It no fault but your own. See you next year.

Guru