My First Experience at the PGA Show
- thebogeymenpod
- 3 hours ago
- 5 min read
I’ve been hosting The Bogey Men for nearly six years now, and every December since we launched, someone in the industry would ask:
“Are you going to the PGA Show in January?”
For the first few years, my answer was always no. Truthfully, I didn’t think we were big enough. The show felt like something reserved for the global brands, the major media outlets, and the established operators. We were building — but I wasn’t sure we belonged in that room yet.
That changed in 2025.
My Instagram feed was flooded with stories from Orlando. Creators I knew. Brands we’d worked with. Media people all in the same place — networking, collaborating, announcing deals. It was the first real FOMO moment I’ve had since starting The Bogey Men.
So this year, I booked the flights to Orlando. In January, I attended my first-ever PGA Show.
Here’s how it went.
I kept my objectives simple:
Strengthen existing partnerships with The Bogey Men
Build relationships with potential new partners
Connect with international creators and media brands for future collaborations
Having clarity helped me filter distractions. With so much happening, it would be easy to spend four days just looking at cool gear and chatting socially, but I wanted to treat this week as an investment in the business.
The first thing to organise was accommodation — and I struck gold.
A good friend of mine, Alex Etches, had organised a house with the team from National Club Golfer and kindly let me tag along.
If you’re thinking about going, my first piece of advice is this: go with someone.
Sharing the experience makes everything easier — splitting the Airbnb, organising Ubers, going to dinners and events together, and most importantly, debriefing at the end of each day. Some of the best conversations of the week happened back at the house, breaking down meetings and reflecting on what we’d learned.
With accommodation sorted, I started asking veterans how to approach the week.
The consistent response?
“It’s overwhelming.”
They weren’t wrong.
The PGA Show is massive — over a million square metres of exhibitors. They call it the biggest golf trade show in the world, and once you step inside, that description almost feels understated. The show floor stretches what feels like multiple football fields in every direction. Every corner of the industry is represented — equipment manufacturers, apparel brands, tech innovators, travel operators, media companies, course architects, you name it.
The week kicks off off-site at Demo Day, and it’s a sensory overload in the best possible way.
Imagine a 360-degree driving range with nearly every major brand hitting balls into the centre from all sides.
Drivers launching in every direction. Wedges flying in low. Launch monitors pinging. Remote-controlled trolleys gliding around. Autonomous ball pickers doing laps.
I walked two full loops of the range before deciding which brands I actually wanted to test properly. By the end of that day alone, I’d clocked over 25,000 steps.
Early on, imposter syndrome was very real.
When people ask, “Who are you with?” or “What outlet are you from?”, there’s a split second where you evaluate yourself. Are we big enough? Do we belong here?
But thankfully, that feeling didn’t last long. I bumped into Dan Hendriksen, a friend of the pod and someone who’s always been generous with advice. A few conversations later, I was chatting with Frankie, Trent and Brendan from Fore Play at Barstool Sports, who mentioned they’re coming to Ireland in May. Just like that, the nerves faded.
Day one: success.
After a couple of conversations, something shifted. I realised that no matter how big you think the golf industry is — it’s bigger. And people not knowing who The Bogey Men were wasn’t a negative.
It was an opportunity.
People were curious. They wanted to learn what we were building. They were genuinely excited about the direction we’re taking — which was incredibly reassuring.
There were one or two conversations where I walked away feeling ten feet tall. The person I’d just spoken to was so enthusiastic about what we’re doing that I left more fired up than ever.
That was a turning point. Instead of wondering whether we belonged, I started thinking about how much further we could go.
The best advice I received before going was simple:
Pre-book as many meetings as possible.
The PGA Show is one of the biggest deal-making weeks in golf. By the time the doors open, most schedules are already full.
I mentioned Alex already, but if you can, get a friend like Alex Etches. Everywhere we went, Alex went out of his way to introduce me to other media people and brand representatives, hyping me and The Bogey Men up as much as possible. He was a better salesman for me than I was!
Because I locked meetings in early, I arrived with structure and purpose. Without that, you could easily spend four days wandering.
And even with a plan, getting from one end of the convention centre to the other was a serious workout. Travel light, seriously! If you can ditch the backpack, do it. I didn’t. My back paid the price.
One of the biggest shifts from the week was this:
Before attending, as a smaller media brand, we didn’t really have relationships with the big manufacturers.
After sitting down face-to-face with many of them, that’s changed.
We’ve started conversations around:
Product content
Equipment reviews
Collaborative launches
Longer-term partnerships
That has opened an entirely new avenue of content for us — which is hopefully exciting for you, our audience, too.
Beyond new conversations, the week was invaluable for strengthening existing partnerships.
Spending time with the team at Sun Mountain Sports, who sponsored our Tee Time Donegal series, deepened that relationship significantly. Hearing what Blue Tees has coming in 2026 was genuinely exciting. Learning more about the direct-to-consumer equipment space from brands like Takomo and VICE was eye-opening.
It wasn’t just “Can we work together?”
It was understanding where the industry is heading — and how The Bogey Men can grow within it.
If you take one slightly cheeky piece of advice from me, it’s this:
Blag your way into as many evening events as possible.
My name was listed as “plus one” on more guest lists than I can count. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn’t. But you have to try, because that’s where the real stories happen. That’s where conversations are relaxed. That’s where proper relationships are formed. The show floor is for business. The evenings are for a bit of craic, and who's better at that than the Irish? So I played into that a bit and it paid off in spades!
If you're going for the first time, here's my advice
Go with someone. Sharing the experience makes everything easier — logistically and mentally.
Pre-book your meetings. Most schedules are locked before the week begins.
Travel light. You will walk more than you expect.
Push yourself socially. The best opportunities often happen outside the convention centre.
Everyone told me the PGA Show was amazing.
They were right.
It’s exhausting. It’s overwhelming. It’s inspiring.
But most of all, it’s validating.
The biggest thing I learned wasn’t about products or partnerships — it was this:
You’re probably more ready than you think you are.
I’ll absolutely be back next year.
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