Whether — or should we say weather? — it’s unseasonably snowy, cold or warm can have a big effect on the bottom line for the Denver Golf Expo.

Last year, when a major snowstorm hit the metro area the weekend of the Expo, the show drew its fewest attendees since 2002. This year, a dramatically different weather issue tooks its toll, according to organizers.

The three-day Expo, which concluded on Sunday at the Denver Mart, attracted 8,130 people, said Mark Cramer, who, along with Lynn Cramer, has run the show for the last 16 years. That total is up 13 percent from last year — and marked the first time since 2011 that attendance has increased compared to the previous year — but as noted, 2015 was a low point. From 2011 through ’14, the average for the show was 10,132.

Mark Cramer believes the issue was in stark contrast to last year: weather so warm that many golfers hit the course and played rather than possibly coming to the Expo. Temperatures approached the mid-60s on Friday and Saturday, while Sunday’s high was more typical — in the high 40s.

“I have mixed feelings,” Cramer said. “I came in with expectations high. After the blizzard last year, I thought there would be a real strong bounceback. But again, weather kind of bit me. The weather was too good. Talking to golf course operators, their tee sheets were full. If you multiply that out, that’s a lot of golfers. The courses have been under snow for two or three months. If I wasn’t doing the show, I would have finagled a tee time.

“I think we would have been between 9,000 and 9,500 if the weather had not been so nice. I’m looking forward to getting back to my (more) regular dates next year, Feb. 10-12. Those have been good dates for us.”

Other numbers from this year’s Expo were a mixed bag compared to recent norms.

The CGA’s Used Club Sale, which raises money for junior golf development programs through the Colorado Golf Foundation, sold $6,150 worth of clubs and equipment at the Expo. While that number was down considerably from recent years, it brings the total raised from the event since it started in 2002 to $146,500. The total over the last five years has surpassed $66,000.

“We didn’t have the high-end donations” that we had in recent years, said Dustin Jensen, the CGA’s managing director of operations, who helped oversee the Used Club Sale. “But it was a good show. We moved a lot of lower-dollar things. We appreciate the donations and the opportunity to showcase all that we do.”

Elsewhere, about 290 kids went though Junior Golf Central, with its Drive Chip & Putt theme — up a little from 2015. And Colorado PGA professionals gave 375 free 10-minute lessons to Expo attendees (left), down somewhat from 2015.

Cramer plans to move both Junior Golf Central and the free lesson area from the back to the front of the Expo next year.

Meanwhile, Cramer said he sold out exhibitor booths this year, with the CGA, CWGA, Colorado PGA and the new Junior Golf Alliance of Colorado among those on hand.

“I’m disappointed when I don’t meet (some of my expectations),” Cramer said. “But it’s also about getting customers in front of exhibitors. I always see myself in partnership with exhibitors. I didn’t get my numbers, but talking to exhibitors, they were very happy. The people that were there came to buy. There were less ‘tire-kickers.’

“It was a good show. I was proud of it. Just about all the (exhibitors) I talked to were really happy.”
 

“Be the right club today. … Yes!!!”

For most longtime golf fans, that quote is immediately identifiable.

Hal Sutton, 72nd hole of The Players Championship, fairway of the 18th hole at TPC Sawgrass, in 2000.

Playing head-to-head with Tiger Woods in his prime, Sutton hit a stellar 6-iron approach shot under pressure on the intimidating 18th hole at TPC Sawgrass. While the ball was in the air, Sutton’s words — uttered with his southern accent — were caught on TV and forever immortalized. The ball finished 8 feet from the flag.

Seventeen years after he’d won his first Players Championship, Sutton captured his second, this time outdueling Tiger, who had won an outstanding 13 of his previous 21 tournaments.

While many other players seemed intimidated by Woods, Sutton wasn’t among them.

“I will tell you this: Praising Tiger all the time is certainly (creating) a defeatist attitude,” Sutton said that week. “There are a lot of people who don’t think they can beat him right now down the stretch on Sunday. There’s a lot of doubt in their minds.”

But, Sutton noted, “I am not going to roll over and play dead.”

And he backed up his talk by beating Tiger in one of the biggest tournaments of the year.

“The other night I was lying in bed, and I said, ‘You know what? I’m not praying to him. He’s not a god. He’s human just like I am, so we can do this!'”

With that as a backdrop, it was recently announced that Sutton, now 57 years old, will be a headliner at the 2016 Denver Golf Expo, which runs Feb. 19-21 at the Denver Mart (I-25 and 58th Ave.). Mark Cramer, who operates the event along with Lynn Cramer, said Sutton will participate in a main-stage Q&A with longtime “In the Fairway” radio host Jerry Walters on Feb. 19 from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., with the audience also being allowed to throw a few questions Sutton’s way. Mark Cramer also said that Sutton is expected to be on hand in the Stryker Orthopaedics booth at the Expo for the hour prior to his Q&A.

Sutton is a paid spokesperson for Stryker, which arranged for his appearance at the Expo, and he has had hip replacements with Styker products in 2012 and ’13.

The Denver Golf Expo has featured big-name tour players at the show on other occasions — most notably Patty Sheehan, Meg Mallon, Dottie Pepper and Hollis Stacy leading up to the 2013 Solheim Cup at Colorado Golf Club. (Pepper, by the way, is scheduled to be among the speakers at the G4 Summit that will take place Feb. 16 at The Broadmoor in Colorado Springs.)

“We’ve had some exceptional female pros (at the Expo), but I think this is the first time we’ve had a PGA Tour veteran,” Mark Cramer said. “That’s kind of neat. … Hal Sutton is a big thing.”

Indeed, he’s won 14 times overall on the PGA Tour, including the 1983 PGA Championship, two Players Championships and the 1998 Tour Championship. He’s earned more than $15.2 million on the PGA Tour and $1.8 million on the Champions circuit.

Major Junior Golf Presence: While Sutton no doubt will be popular among middle-aged-and-older attendees of the Denver Golf Expo, juniors will once again be a major focus of the show. Earlier that week, at the G4 Summit at The Broadmoor, the CGA and Colorado PGA plan to publicly unveil the name and website for the new junior golf collaboration which they’re launching this year with help from the CWGA. And the associations plan to build on the momentum at the Expo with a significant junior golf presence at the Denver Mart.

In addition, the CGA will hold its annual Used Club Sale, with all the proceeds benefiting youth golf programs and initiatives in Colorado. The Used Club Sale has netted almost $60,000 for junior golf over the last four years combined.

People interested in donating quality used clubs and equipment can drop them off — by Feb. 15 — at the CGA offices (5990 Greenwood Plaza Blvd., #102, in Greenwood Village) or the PGA Tour Superstore (9451 East Arapahoe Road, also in Greenwood Village) during normal business hours. Contact Dustin Jensen, the CGA’s managing director of operations, at 303-974-2106 or at djensen@coloradogolf.org for more information.

In addition, the Drive, Chip & Putt area for juniors — which picks up on the theme of the DC&P junior skills championship conducted by the USGA, PGA of America and the Masters — is situated adjacent to the Colorado PGA area at the Expo, where Section professionals provide free 10-minute lessons to all interested Expo attendees. Admission for kids, age 16 and under, is $3 apiece at the Expo.

The CGA, CWGA, CPGA and Colorado Golf Hall of Fame all plan on having significant presences at the Expo once again this year. The CWGA is celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2016.

Short and Sweet: At least 13 seminars are planned over the three days of the Expo, ranging from the Sutton Q&A to swing, putting, scoring and fitness tips to updates on the Rules of Golf. … Cramer said the popular Topgolf, which opened a 65,000-square-foot, multi-level golf entertainment complex in Centennial in August, will have an exhibit presence at the Expo for the first time next month. Cramer also said Denver-based GolfTEC will be an exhibitor — he believes for the first time since the Cramers started running the show in 2000. … Cramer indicated that a month prior to the show’s open, there are just 12 exhibitor spots remaining for the Expo. “Exhibit sales have gone through the roof this year,” he said. … Cramer said that the grand prize for this year’s show — available to attendees who fill out a survey upon entering the Expo — will be a trip to the Bandon Dunes Resort worth an estimated $9,000 retail. It’s for four people, 12 rounds in all, and three nights accommodations.

“With the blizzard we had last year (during the Expo), I think this year will be record-setting,” Cramer said. “I think there’s pent-up demand.”

For more information about the Denver Golf Expo, CLICK HERE.

For those concerned about the long-term health of golf, one of the most sobering statistics to come out in recent years was from the National Golf Foundation concerning the number of junior golfers in the U.S.

The NGF noted that from 2005 to 2011, the number of kids playing the game dropped a whopping 37 percent, from 3.8 million to 2.4 million. That’s after the junior numbers had increased by leaps and bounds for every five-year period since the NGF started keeping track in 1985.

Though the amount of junior golfers did rebound somewhat in 2012 — to 2.7 million — it’s a worrisome sign for the game that participation has been dwindling among the next generation of golfers.

The good news is that the powers that be in golf — both locally and nationally — haven’t just been twiddling their thumbs about the issue. In Colorado, that’s been particularly apparent in the last several years.

Among the programs and initiatives that have been rolled out or greatly expanded during that time are:

— The Colorado PGA Golf in Schools program, a collaborative effort of the Allied Golf Associations, including the CGA and CWGA. Over the last four years, more than 30,000 kids in the state have been exposed to golf through this program during their physical education classes.

— The Solich Caddie & Leadership Academy at CommonGround Golf Course, which is owned and operated by the CGA and CWGA. Now in its third year, the Academy has yielded about 1,000 caddie loops per summer, many for kids from families with major financial challenges. The Academy uses caddying and golf to teach youngsters valuable leadership skills, and promotes the use of caddies by paying all of their base fees. The program also helps kids become candidates for full tuition and housing Evans Caddie Scholarships at the University of Colorado.

— The establishment a year ago of the Colorado Golf Foundation, which provides funding and assistance to Colorado-based organizations and programs that use golf to build important life skills and character, instilling hard work and self-reliance in youngsters.

— The efforts of The First Tee chapters throughout the state in influencing youngsters through the game of golf and life-skill lessons.

And that just touches the surface of junior golf-related efforts, with many individual clubs offering kids free or reduced-fee golf, and with initiatives like the Hale Irwin Elite Player program at CommonGround, the Junior Golf Experience at the Denver Golf Expo and the CGA/CWGA’s Used Club Sale which benefits junior developmental programs. The list goes on and on.

Now, the idea is to try to cover all the bases for juniors. Between Golf in Schools and the CJGA’s variety of tournaments and championships, the Colorado PGA is hoping to fill in some gaps to help reverse that downward junior trend golf saw from 2005 through 2011.

At last weekend’s Denver Golf Expo and this week’s G-4 Summit at Inverness, the Colorado PGA started introducing programs that it plans to implement in 2014. That includes multi-day junior golf summer camps in a partnership with the YMCA, Girl Power Golf camps, “Team Golf” scramble competitions throughout the summer for beginner and developmental players, a Junior Tour Qualifier Series leading up to the Colorado PGA Junior Championship in July, and a Colorado PGA Junior Golf Membership program.

“Soup to nuts in junior golf,” Colorado PGA executive director Eddie Ainsworth summed up at the G-4 Summit. “It’s awesome what (the Section, the CGA, the CWGA and others) are doing together for junior golf.”

Information on the Colorado PGA’s new efforts are featured on a new web site, ColoradoPGAJuniorGolf.com.

“For years, we’ve been doing the Golf in Schools program, so where do these kids go (from there)?” Ainsworth said. “Where is the next step? … It’ll be interesting to see what 2014 looks like with all the stuff that’s going on.

“I think 2014 could just be a huge year in the life of Colorado golf.”

First G-4 Summit Hits the Right Note

The inaugural G-4 Summit, billed as “a coming together of the golf industry in Colorado”, proved to be a popular event as more than 125 golf leaders in the state gathered at Inverness earlier this week.

The event featured high-level meetings, roundtables where best-practices were exchanged, and sessions featuring several issues crucial to the game. It’s a joint effort of the CGA, CWGA, Colorado PGA, Rocky Mountain Golf Course Superintendents Association and the Mile High Chapter of the Club Managers Association.

“I’m thrilled with (the Summit); it’s exactly what we hoped for,” said CGA executive director Ed Mate. “The attendance was great, the speakers were fantastic. For the first try, I think we set the bar pretty high.

“The thing I feel best about is this really was an Allied Associations event. Everybody played a role. We had a great session with all the executive committee members of all the associations — which we’ve never done before. We had a joint meeting with the CGA and CWGA. The point is, it’s a time of collaboration and coming together, which is our moniker.”

The plan is to make the Summit an annual event, probably set for February.

Adding Value to CGA/CWGA Memberships

The CGA and CWGA have been making a concerted effort recently to increase what they offer through their memberships, and they used the G-4 Summit and the Denver Golf Expo last weekend as opportunities to feature those efforts.

“We need to become relevant to today’s transient golfer population who don’t want to join anybody,” Mate said. “What we’d like to do is add value to membership.”

Specifically, the CGA and CWGA recently partnered with Denver Golf and South Suburban to offer time-restricted green fee discounts to the roughly 60,000 CGA/CWGA members at the City of Denver and South Suburban District golf courses, as well discounts through other partners. For more information, CLICK HERE.

Those benefits supplement what CGA and CWGA membership has long offered, most notably an official USGA handicap, support for the many “for the good of the game” efforts the associations espouse, discounts at the CGA/CWGA-owned CommonGround Golf Course, electronic newsletters, etc.

Colorado PGA Launching New Tee-Time Alliance

Being the executive director of the Colorado PGA, Eddie Ainsworth (left) has never hidden his feelings about the practice of courses discounting green fees, especially by getting tee times filled through one of the many national tee-time services on the market, including GolfNow.com.

As he said Tuesday at the G-4 Summit, “If we keep discounting, we’re going to discount ourselves right out of business.”

Rather than seeing money for such tee-time booking services go out of state, the Colorado PGA is planning to launch a tee-time service of its own: ColoradoPGATeeTimes.com. The site is tentatively expected to go “live” in early April.

The idea is to keep the money in Colorado that has been going to out-of-state companies. Figuring that $1.95 million per year currently flows out of state through national online tee-time brokers, Ainsworth believes those dollars would be much better spent on something Colorado-based. And he thinks the initiative could save Colorado facilities $1.2 million annually over the current set-up.

With each participating course paying a set amount — and establishing its own green-fee prices — part of the set fee will go to technology; another portion to running, advertising and marketing the statewide reservation system; and some to “growth of the game” initiatives in Colorado, including junior golf and “Get Golf Ready” programs.

“The vision is unbelievable how we could change things by keeping that money here locally,” Ainsworth said.

Obviously, it’s still in question how much market share ColoradoPGATeeTimes.com can take from heavily-advertised golf-discount services such as GolfNow.com. But if the Colorado program is a success, there’s been talk that it might become a pilot program for the PGA of America on a national basis.