FRISCO — The Omni Resort at PGA Frisco hosted vendors and private buyers worldwide as it held the annual PGA Buying and Education Summit this week.
The invitation-only event, previously held in Las Vegas, showcases new apparel and innovative products for the upcoming season and provides a unique, private environment for buyers and PGA professionals to meet with golf and lifestyle brands through one-on-one business meetings, networking opportunities, and PGA education sessions at the campus’ Professional Development Center.
“It’s got an element for the consumer. It’s got an element for the member. It’s really where we can best grow the game of golf,” PGA Master Professional and Senior Director of Education and Talent Development Dawes Marlatt told The Dallas Express. “That’s our mission.”
“Vegas has been great to us for these shows, but to be able to do it at the home of the PGA of America, I think that’s really important because we can showcase, we can do tours, we can help promote this new campus to PGA professionals around the country, and have them come in and check it out but also do business at the same time,” Vice President of PGA Golf Exhibitions Marc Simon added.
This was the first time the event was hosted in Frisco, but it had been planned since the new headquarters location was announced.
“We envisioned this when this was still the fields and bales, and it’s amazing to see it come to fruition,” Simon said. “If you had to custom build a venue for an event, this would be it.”
“You need to have the fun, you need to have the networking opportunities, you need the floor in the business, and you see a ton of business getting done, but you also need that floor networking,” he continued. “When you look at the home of the PGA … it’s such an ideal venue to host an event like this. We just couldn’t be more excited to see it come to fruition.”
After moving the event to Frisco this year, the PGA Buying and Education Summit said attendance doubled, and the number of vendors tripled compared to 2022. More than 675 PGA professionals, VIP buyers, and over 400 brand executives registered to attend the event, and 165 brands from the $102 billion per year industry showcased their products.
“It’s a mix of established brands and innovative newcomers,” Simon told The Dallas Express. “We want to curate that mix because people want to see established brands that they know, but they’re also looking for that new brand that might fill a slot in the pro shop or an accessory on the counter. That’s why they love coming here because they can see their established brands but also find something new.”
The other component of the Buying and Education Summitt is education. The PGA offers a variety of educational tools at the event, focused on improving the careers of PGA club professionals, including hybrid indoor/outdoor hitting bays, simulator bays, an indoor short-game area, a putting lab, classrooms, and a full-size driving range.
“Our education really looks as three very specific career tracks: teaching and coaching, golf operations, and executive management,” Marlatt explained. “We have very specific programs to support each of those professional skills through very special training and development programs that we put on.”
“We do everything right here, and we also go to them in different sections,” he added. “[There are] people at all levels of their careers, and we all come together to try to figure out how best to compress decades into days by sharing trade secrets and experiences.”
