It’s something Mark and Lynn Cramer, longtime owners and operators of the Denver Golf Expo, wrestle with every year:

How to draw big crowds for their three-day consumer golf show, which takes place in mid-winter but helps whet the appetite for the golf season in Colorado.

From 2008 through 2012, the Expo attracted more than 10,000 people four times in five years, including an all-time best 11,202 in 2008.

But since 2013, the Expo has never again reached the five-figure mark. Last year, the total attendance was 8,781.

To be sure, the weather has a huge influence on attendance. If it’s too warm, many golfers go out to play rather than come to the show. But a lot of snow or extreme cold can also keep numbers down.

“The weather has not been cooperating with us,” Mark Cramer said this week.”It’s kind of like the game of golf — it’s weather-dependent. Four of the last five years, we have not had good Golf Expo weather. It’s either been too nice or it’s been too nasty for the Golf Expo.”

Obviously, there’s nothing Expo organizers can do to control the weather in Colorado in February. So it’s up to the Cramers to find things that are in their control that may move the needle upward.

With that in mind, the Cramers are doing a little tweaking with this year’s Denver Golf Expo, which runs Feb. 8-10 at the Denver Mart (I-25 and 58th Ave.).

In particular, they’re focused on trying to attract more young and middle-aged adults to the show.

“We did a lot of research and talking to people after last year’s show,” Cramer said. “There’s a lot of these street fairs popping up, and they’re really popular. There’s music, beer and food and there are food trucks. They’re neighborhood happenings. The Millennials like that sort of thing. We want to incorporate some of that into the show — and we’re starting this year. Music and stuff like that.”

While it may be a multi-year, evolving plan, this year there will a new area at the Expo, called “The Turn”, that will replace the beer garden in the center of the Pavilion, and two additional food options on the Pavilion floor besides the one returning in the Plaza area. Also, for the first time, the closest to the pin contest on a simulated par-3 will feature two TrackMan launch monitors.

“This is in an effort to get more of the Gen X and the Millennials,” Cramer said. “I think we’ve got enough different events going on down there. We’ve got to give Millennials, Gen Xers and Gen Zs a reason to come. What they’ve got to see is other Millennials and Zs (there). They’ve got to be drawn into the game and made to feel welcome. That’s kind of the direction we’re going to try to take it.”

Still, Cramer isn’t sure 10,000 attendance for the three-day show is a readily-attainable goal. Baby Boomers, largely responsible for driving the growth in the game that took place in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, are getting up in years a bit, which could be taking a toll.

“Is 10,000 still realistic? I don’t know,” Cramer said. “That used to be the gold standard — to get 10,000. Last year we had a pretty good advertising plan, and we ended up with 8,781. If we lost 600 (due to bitterly cold Saturday weather), we would have been in the neighborhood of 9,300 or 9,400. So maybe 9,500 is the new normal. We got used to the over-10,000 number. But things have changed in the industry.”

However, other numbers in the Denver Golf Expo have been on a positive trend. For instance, exhibitors at the show went from 112 in 2017 to 131 last year, and are expected to hit a similar number in 2019. As usual, there will be plenty of those exhibitors offering deals on green fees, equipment, golf travel etc. Also up are the number of sponsors at the show.

In something that won’t change from years past, many of Colorado’s top golf organizations will be on hand to promote the game and offer services. ColoradoGolf.org will have more on that front early next week. Among those at the Expo will be the CGA, Colorado PGA, Junior Golf Alliance of Colorado and the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame.

As usual, Colorado PGA and LPGA professionals will be providing free 10-minute lessons to attendees, The First Tee of Denver will handle a pitching area, and the JGAC will be overseeing a large Junior Golf Experience area (left) which will include Birdie Ball full swing and chipping — complete with large inflatable targets — and miniature golf.

Another mainstay that’s back is the large club demo area run by Lenny’s Golf.

Other Expo highlights:

— Free seminars will be held each day of the Expo, with former Broncos receiver Brandon Stokley taking a “celebrity lesson” from a Colorado PGA pro on Feb. 8 at 3 p.m. That will be after Stokley wraps up his live broadcast from the Expo from noon-3 that day on The Fan radio (104.3 FM). Jerry Walters’ “In the Fairway” program, also on The Fan, will broacast from the Expo on Feb. 9.

Among the other seminars will be the CGA’s Robert Duke conducting sessions on the modernized Rules of Golf on Feb. 8 (11 a.m.), Feb. 9 (2 p.m.) and Feb. 10 (noon).

For a lineup of all the seminars — which also include a variety of instruction and fitness tips — CLICK HERE.

— The grand prize for the winner of the closest to the pin contest on Sunday will be a trip to Maui, Hawaii, with golf at Royal Kaanapali and lodging at the Hyatt Regency. And the winner of the long-putt challenge putt-off receives a stay-and-play package at the Tubac Resort & Spa south of Tucson, Ariz.

— Forty tickets to the July Web.com Tour event at TPC Colorado will be given out over the P.A. system throughout the show, with another 40 awarded to qualifiers who return for Sunday’s long-putt challenge putt-off. The TPC Colorado Championship at Heron Lakes also will have a physical presence at the show in booth 531.

“We’re getting a lot of feedback that the Denver show is one of the best consumer golf shows out there,” Cramer said. “We’re holding attendance (relatively steady, albeit under 10,000). There’s a lot of shows across the country that are not holding their attendance. That’s a credit to the Colorado Golf Association (and) the Colorado PGA Section that comes in so magnificently every year and supports us so we can do things like the Junior Golf Central, golf instruction, golf seminars, the First Tee of Denver doing the pitching lessons, Lenny’s getting all the manufacturers down for the club demo. A lot of people have embraced the show and gotten behind it.”

By the way, the Cramers, who have owned and operated the Denver Golf Expo since 2000, will be receiving a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame on June 2 at Denver Country Club.

“I can’t believe that happened,” Mark Cramer said. “Lynn and I are floored. But it’s the industry (in Colorado) that deserves it.”

Tickets for the Expo are available at DenverGolfExpo.com, at the Denver Mart during the show, and at participating Kings Soopers stores.

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

(NOTE: This story was updated on Oct. 25 with reaction and additional details from Howe.)

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If the person who was voted into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame on Wednesday can be judged by the people who submitted letters of recommendation on her behalf, Lauren Howe will be a stellar addition to the Hall.

World Golf Hall of Famer and former USGA president Judy Bell, 12-time PGA Tour winner Dow Finsterwald and Colorado Golf Hall of Famer Tom Connell all sung the praises of Howe, a longtime Coloradan who was one of the best female players in the country at various times during mid- and late 1970s and through much of the ’80s.

“Lauren was an amazing athlete with a passion to succeed,” wrote Connell, who saw Howe develop as a teenage golfer and now is a fellow instructor of hers at CommonGround Golf Course in Aurora. “… For a 10-year period beginning in 1974, I was a witness to a remarkable series of accomplishments by a young prodigy from Colorado and later a seasoned professional on a national stage, coached by a brilliant teacher who happened to be her father, and supported by a large, loving family.”

Added Finsterwald, who’s also a member of the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame: “Since moving to Colorado Springs at age 14, Lauren took the golf scene by storm.”

For her many accomplishments as a player, and for her continuing devotion to the game through her work as a golf instructor, Howe on Wednesday was voted into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame. The Aurora resident will be inducted on June 2 at Denver Country Club.

Asked her reaction to the impending induction, Howe said on Thursday morning, “In the back of my mind, I knew it could be coming. And yet it still hit me … I’m tearing up now. It’s just so precious to me, especially having not played in a while and everything. It really hit me like a big wave.”

Also being honored on June 2 by the Hall of Fame will be Jennifer Kupcho of Westminster (as Golf Person of the Year); Mark and Lynn Cramer, who own and operate the Denver Golf Expo (Lifetime Achievement Award); golf course superintendents Fred Dickman from The Broadmoor and Barry Kendall from Green Valley Ranch (Distinguished Service Awards); and Dillon Stewart of Fort Collins and Lauren Lehigh of Loveland (Future Famer Awards). Coincidentally, Howe has been Lehigh’s swing instructor for over a decade. See below for the accomplishments of all these honorees.

As for Howe herself, she was quick to recognize the many people who helped her along the way, including the big-name women’s players of the era who took her under their wings during her early years.

“When my dad (Winston Howe Jr.) was the pro at Country Club of Colorado, one of the biggest influences in my life was to be able to go up and play golf with Judy Bell, Barbara McIntire, Tish Preuss, Nancy Syms, Cindy Hill, Bonnie Lauer — all of those gals. They were always so kind to me and walked me through a lot of things. I am so grateful to them for that.”

And of course, Howe pays tribute to her dad, who doubled as her instructor.

“My father was my teacher,” Lauren Howe said. “He always made sure that as he was working with me, he never got a jaundiced eye. He would take me back in the day to Bob Toski, Jim Flick and to Paul Runyan for my short game. To this day I think (my dad) was the best diagnostician in all the land.”

Lauren Howe’s top golf accomplishment was winning on the LPGA Tour, in 1983 at the Mayflower Classic. But she had been making an impact on the regional and national golf scene since the first half of the 1970s.

The first big breakthrough came in 1973 when she won the San Francisco Women’s City Championship shortly before turning 14.

After turning 15 in 1974, she advanced to the finals of the U.S. Girls’ Junior, losing in the title match 7 and 5 to Nancy Lopez, who was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1987. In 1975, Howe was the co-medalist in the stroke-play portion of the same national championship. And in 1976, she was the solo stroke-play medalist.

Howe certainly made her mark in Colorado at an early age as well. In 1975, at age 16, she not only won the CWGA Junior Match Play, but the open-age CWGA Stroke Play. 

Girls high school golf in Colorado wasn’t an officially sanctioned sport until 1990, but Howe was the No. 1 player on the boys team at St. Mary’s in Colorado Springs for the three years she spent in high school.

In 1976 as a 17-year-old, the Utah native qualified for the U.S. Women’s Open, which was held in a Philadelphia suburb the week following the U.S. bicentennial. An assistant to Winston Howe who was friends with JoAnne Carner set up a practice round pairing that included the 1971 national champion and the Colorado teenager. “That was so cool,” said Howe, who went on to make the cut and finish 39th in the top tournament in women’s golf. (Coincidentally, Carner won that U.S. Women’s Open — her second — in a playoff.) That same year, Howe won the Mexican Women’s Amateur.

“The year when I was 16 was my best playing year — ever,” Howe said. “It was like I was on fire that whole year. Sixteeen was a good year. I played without any doubt. If there was ever a qualifying, it wasn’t, ‘Am I going to qualify?’ It was more like, ‘Am I going to win the qualifier?’ I wish I could get that back.”

After one year of college golf at the University of Tulsa — as a teammate of Lopez — Howe won the prestigious Women’s Western Amateur in 1977. Then she turned pro at age 18. That same year she was named the Woman Athlete of the Year by the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame. 

In 1978, Howe joined the LPGA Tour after winning the Q-school tournament — becoming the youngest medalist at that time and setting a scoring record that stood for more than two decades.

“All this stuff is really so touching to me,” Howe said in recalling some career highlights. “One of the coolest memories came after winning the school. My dad went with me to the qualifying school and we drove out of the parking lot singing, ‘We are the champions.'”

In 1983 after recording her victory in the LPGA Tour’s Mayflower Classic in Indianapolis, Howe was named Golf Person of the Year by the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame. That season she finished 19th on the LPGA money list.

Also during her 13-year LPGA Tour career, which was interrupted at times by injuries, Howe finished second in the 1986 Mazda LPGA Hall of Fame Championship, where she lost in a playoff to Amy Alcott. That season, Howe notched five top-10 finishes on the LPGA circuit.

Howe (left) has been a golf instructor since 1991 and spent 2003-08 teaching at the World Golf Village in St. Augustine, Fla., before returning to Colorado, where she’s been based for the last decade. She now teaches at CommonGround GC, which is owned and operated by the CGA.

Despite her extensive playing career, Howe isn’t playing golf these days, but hopes to in the future. Two years ago while competing in a Legends Tour event near Plymouth, Mass., Howe was involved in a major automobile accident in which she sustained injuries to her brain, knee and wrist. Surgeries ensued.

“I can’t stand on a practice tee like I used. I’ve changed the way I’ve got to teach,” she said. “There are still ramifications, but we’ve settled the lawsuit and I have started at a brain clinic, which is the biggest thing.”

As for the possibility of playing and competing again, Howe said, “I haven’t played in two years. I really want to play in the (U.S. Senior Women’s Open. Next year) would be ideal. It might be optimistic, but I’m going to act as if” that might happen.

In the meantime, she’ll relish going into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame. Asked about the reaction she’s gotten since telling friends and families the news, Howe said, “My best friend from high school said, ‘It’s about time.’ And my parents (Winston and Dolores, who now live in Highlands Ranch) were really happy. I have six brothers and sisters who were over the moon too.”

While Howe will be the lone Colorado Golf Hall of Fame inductee on June 2 at Denver Country Club, several other people will receive awards from the Hall:

— Golf Person of the Year: Jennifer Kupcho of Westminster earns this honor from the Hall of Fame for the second time in three years. The 21-year-old has been the No. 1-ranked women’s amateur in the world almost continuously since July. In May, the Wake Forest golfer became the first Colorado resident to win the Women’s NCAA Division I individual title after finishing sixth and second at that national championship the previous two years. She represented winning U.S. teams in three prestigious international competitions this year — the Curtis Cup, Arnold Palmer Cup and the World Amateur Team Championship. In that last event, Kupcho finished second individually out of a field of 170. Kupcho competed in the LPGA Tour’s Marathon Classic in July, finishing 16th, her best showing in an LPGA event. The NCAA championship in May was one of three individual victories for Kupcho during the spring portion of the college season. In August, Kupcho became the first American woman to win the Mark H. McCormack Medal as the top women’s player in the World Amateur Golf Rankings as of the conclusion the U.S. Women’s Amateur.

— Lifetime Achievement: Mark and Lynn Cramer have owned and operated the Denver Golf Expo since purchasing it from PGA professional Stan Fenn in 2000, and every year it’s been a winter mainstay on the Colorado golf calendar. The Expo typically draws about 10,000 attendees each year at the Denver Mart. The Cramers take pride in supporting the major golf organizations in Colorado — and in the support those organizations give the Expo. The Expo over the years has made donations totaling $85,000 to the Colorado PGA charitable foundation, now known as Colorado PGA REACH.

— Distinguished Service: Course superintendents Fred Dickman from The Broadmoor Golf Club and Barry Kendall from Green Valley Ranch Golf Club overcame major weather-related obstacles so that big-time championships could be conducted with as little disruption as possible. In the case of The Broadmoor, a major hailstorm hit the area less than two weeks before the U.S. Senior Open was scheduled. But thanks to tireless work by Dickman and his staff, there was very little indication that anything had happened by the time the senior pros teed it up in late June. As for Green Valley Ranch, heavy rain, hail and winds estimated at 60 mph hit the area the evening before the scheduled first round of the CoBank Colorado Open. Thursday’s round was canceled and the tournament was reduced to 54 holes for the first time since 1981. But Kendall and his crew worked 11 straight hours pumping the water off the course and from the bunkers. By the weekend, players were raving about the course condition.

— Future Famers: Dillon Stewart of Fort Collins won the individual title in the 2018 boys Junior America’s Cup, which featured some of the top junior golfers from the western U.S., Canada and Mexico. He also led Colorado to its first team title ever in the boys Junior America’s Cup. Earlier in the year, Stewart became the first Colorado boy to win the AJGA Hale Irwin Colorado Junior. In the fall, as a senior, he captured the 5A state high school individual championship and led Fossil Ridge to its first team title in boys golf. Also late in the season, Stewart notched his second AJGA title of 2018 at the AJGA Junior at Big Sky in Montana. He shared medalist honors in qualifying for the U.S. Junior Amateur and finished second at the Colorado Junior Amateur. Stewart, the Junior Golf Alliance of Colorado’s 2018 Boys Player of the Year, has verbally committed to play college golf at Oklahoma State

Lauren Lehigh of Loveland was one of 24 players (12 girls) worldwide to be named to the Transamerica Scholastic Junior All-America Team by the AJGA. The Loveland High School senior earned that honor by placing in the top five in an AJGA open or invitational, then based on the following criteria: standardized test scores, grade-point average, school leadership and community service. She won the girls division of the Colorado Junior Match Play, one of four Junior Golf Alliance of Colorado majors. During the course of 2018 at JGAC events, Lehigh won three times, placed second seven times and third three times. One of the runner-ups was in her title defense at the 4A state high school tournament. Lehigh finished third among girls at the AJGA Hale Irwin Colorado Junior. She helped lead Colorado to a fifth-place finish at the Girls Junior Americas Cup competition at Hiwan Golf Club in Evergreen, where Lehigh tied for 14th place individually. She also placed 13th nationally in Big I National Championship. Lehigh, who’s been a member of the Hale Irwin Player Program for three years, has verbally committed to play in college at the University of New Mexico. Earlier this month, she was named the JGAC’s Girls Player of the Year for 2018.
 

Saturday has historically been the busiest day at the Denver Golf Expo. Attendance that day often goes a long way toward determining how successful the three-day winter golf gathering will be.

This past Saturday, snow and bitter cold moved through the Denver metro area, which didn’t do the Expo any favors.

The result was an average attendance total by recent standards, rather than a number surpassing 10,000, like organizers had wanted.

The three-day show that ran Friday through Sunday drew 8,781 people to the Denver Mart. That’s down 3.9 percent from last year, but slightly surpasses the show’s five-year average from 2013-17 (8,744).

“I’m OK” with the total, said Mark Cramer, who along with his wife Lynn Cramer have owned and operated the Denver Golf Expo for the last 18 years. “I wanted more for exhibitors and for the industry. That’s all that about expectations. I set goals and expectations, and I want to meet those goals and expectations. But we had a hell of a storm and 15-degree weather. I know the weather hurt us. I can’t control that. The golf industry totally understands that. They’re a weather-dependent industry. They don’t have control of the weather at their golf courses. And I don’t have control of the weather during the Expo.”

A total of 3,142 people showed up on Saturday, a day when the number has reached 4,500 in the recent past.

The 8,781 total for the show was behind that of 2017 (9,136), but ahead of 2015 (7,195) and 2016 (8,130).

The record total for the show came in 2008, at 11,202. The Expo hit five figures four times from 2008-12, but hasn’t reached that milestone since.

While overall attendance dipped somewhat this year, other numbers were up. For instance, exhibitors jumped from 112 in 2017 to 131 this year. And the number of free 10-minute lessons Colorado PGA professionals provided went up from 306 last year to 344 over the weekend.

Meanwhile, the CGA’s two-day Rules of Golf Workshop, which returned to the Expo in 2017 after being away from the show for six years, sold out in advance for the second straight winter. This time, about 150 people attended. The CGA also conducted seminars at the Expo on USGA Tournament Management and GHIN certification.

“We were away from (the Expo for the Rules Workshop) for years,” said Ed Mate, executive director of the CGA. “Using this landmark date to do education (seminars and workshops) just makes sense.”

Also at the show, there was an area overseen by the Junior Golf Alliance of Colorado where kids could hit birdie balls and play games of putt-putt, and The First Tee of Denver ran a pitching area. The Colorado PGA organized a variety of seminars over the three days. And, with the Denver Golf Expo celebrating its 25th “birthday”, organizers periodically noted over the intercom things in golf that had taken place a quarter-century ago.

Walking through the show, Mark Cramer was struck by one thing this past weekend.

“One cool thing that I noticed was the diversity in ages, sex, race … I’ve never seen it this great. It was awesome,” he said.

As for the amount of business conducted at the show, “All the exhibitors I talked to did the same as last year or better,” Cramer said. “There were very few that were down. Almost all were telling me that it was up.”

Indeed, the attendance numbers didn’t lag for lack of advertising or marketing. There were local TV ads that aired during PGA Tour events, radio spots, an advertising supplement that ran in the Denver Post, and an ongoing presence on social media. Radio outlet 104.3 The Fan broadcast periodically at the show. “We knocked it out of park with promotion and advertising,” Cramer said.

Looking forward, there are some things the Cramers are looking to tweak.

One such item is the floor plan. Mark Cramer said he might return to the plan the show had several years ago and for roughly a decade before that.

“I want to have a different sense or feel when people come in,” Cramer noted. “I want them coming in and saying, ‘This is new.’ If you have all the exhibitors in the same booth spaces, some people just go to their favorites (and skip a lot of other areas). If we mix it up, people have to go through the whole thing and they have a different experience.”

Cramer said another priority is to beef up the show’s sponsorship.

“If we can get more money in, we can spend more with the production, advertising (and) make it easier for the exhibitors to exhibit,” he said. “Lynn and I have to get this part of the show working better.”

And, depending on how things play out in the interim, Cramer is considering the viability of bringing back the Used Club Sale, a longtime fixture at the show that has been absent the last two years.

“That’s one of my goals, but I’ve got to see if there’s a market,” he said.

“I said, ‘Nothing like this is going on in Colorado,'” he remembers — and wondering why not.

With that, Fenn decided to do something about this perceived void. That something was to help found the Denver Golf Expo.

That just happened to be 25 years ago, and though Fenn sold the show to Mark Cramer and his wife Lynn in 2000, it’s still going strong a quarter-century later. The 2018 show is scheduled for Feb. 9-11 at the Denver Mart (I-25 and 58th Ave.).

Fenn, who worked for AGT Sports at the time, established the Expo with some help from fellow Colorado PGA professional Danny Harvanek, who will be inducted into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame in May, and a little funding from a former Denver Broncos player.

That first show was held at the Colorado Convention Center, but it would take rose-colored glasses to say it was a success.

“It was way too expensive” for the revenue it produced, said Fenn, now a PGA director of instruction and co-founder of the Golf Academy of Northern Colorado, as well as a radio host of the Morning Cup of Golf show that airs on Saturday mornings during the golf season. “We lost quite a bit of money the first year.”

AGT Sports left the local scene not long thereafter, but not before Fenn acquired the rights to the Denver Golf Expo.

For seven consecutive years, Fenn spent about half his work time organizing and running the Expo, with the show being held at the Denver Mart from Year 2 on, normally in February, as now.

Fenn said attendance for the inaugural year at the Convention Center was about 3,500, with the number jumping to about 5,600 the first year at the Denver Mart. He said attendance came close to 10,000 one year, but the norm was in the 6,000-8,500 range.

“I started from scratch and did everything from the bottom up,” Fenn noted. “I had to find a (host facility), decorators … It was a big job for six months every year. The other half of the year I was teaching.

“But I brought in all the organizations — the CGA and the PGA. I wanted them to be at the event, and that helped us build.

“I wanted to bring in people and expose them to golf. The show has been a big part of golf in Colorado. People look forward to go to it. But it’s changed and evolved.”

When Fenn helped found the Golf Academy of Northern Colorado in Fort Collins, he decided to focus on that and sell the Expo. So in 2000, he agreed to terms with Mark and Lynn Cramer, who had introduced themselves a few years before and were no strangers to running trade shows. In 2001, the Cramers operated the show for the first time, and it’s continued to be a fixture on the winter calendar for many golf aficionados in the state.

“Mark and Lynn have done a great job,” Fenn said. “I just had one building at the Mart” for the Expo as opposed to the two the event occupies now.

One of the first things Mark Cramer did upon acquiring the Expo was to meet with leadership from the CGA and the Colorado PGA. It took some time, but the associations soon bought in fully, to the point where now they both play very large roles at the show — in the seminars, with the Junior Golf Central section, the PGA’s free 10-minute lesson area, the 2-day Rules of Golf workshop, and tournament management training and handicap certification.

Cramer said one major reason for the success of the Expo over the years has been the support of the CGA and Colorado PGA.

“Our original tagline was a ‘winter gathering of the Colorado golf industry,'” Cramer noted. “We wanted to round up the industry behind the show. We’ve tried to do that with all shows we’ve done.” The golf associations and other supportive organizations “are some incredible people to work with. They all come up underneath the show with meaningful support so it comes off every year. I don’t have the time to manage all (the different interactive things going on at the Expo). They’re the ones that operate those things.”

And Cramer has tried to reciprocate. For instance, he said the Expo has made donations totaling $85,000 over the years to the Colorado PGA’s charitable foundation, now known as Colorado PGA REACH.

Cramer, an enthusiastic golfer besides being an experienced trade show operator, said that Fenn “did a great job promoting” the Expo when he operated it, but the Cramers made some changes that helped take it to the next level.

The Cramers added more general golf retailers — not just those operating golf shops at courses — and encouraged the PGA professionals at the Expo to bring more products/services to the show to sell.

“Courses didn’t have to promote (to do a strong business) until the 2000s, and (many of them) didn’t know how to do it,” Cramer said. “Golf courses would hand out tees and scorecards (at the Expo). It was like, ‘OK, thanks.’ It was a process of educating them and getting them to sell things out of the booth. Fox Hollow led the way with four packs of rounds for $100. Everyone else would see people line up for that each year, and they’d be sold out of 1,000 of them by Saturday afternoon.

“I’m a passionate golfer and love everything about it. And we knew how to market to exhibitors. There’s a learning curve for public shows.”

In the last 10 years, attendance at the Denver Golf Expo has fluctuated from a low of 7,195 in 2015 to an all-time high of 11,202 in 2008, just prior to the Great Recession. Last year’s total for the three-day show was 9,136, the most since 2014.

Next week, we’ll preview details of the 2018 Denver Golf Expo. The hours for the show are:

Friday, Feb. 9 — 10 a.m.-5 p.m.
Saturday, Feb. 10 — 9 a.m.-5 p.m.”¨
Sunday, Feb. 11 — 10 a.m.-4 p.m.

Tickets run $13 for adults, $11 for seniors (over 50) and military with ID, and $3 for kids 16 and under.

For more information about the Expo, CLICK HERE.

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.

Mark and Lynn Cramer have run the Denver Golf Expo for the last 15 years, and never before last weekend had the weather — and what came with it — wreaked such havoc with the show’s attendance.

After being about 350 attendees ahead of last year’s day 1 pace after a very nice February weather day on Friday, the bottom fell out on Saturday and Sunday. With a snowstorm hitting the metro area hard starting on Saturday afternoon, and several local broadcasters advising people not to go out unless they had to, it had an unmistakable effect at the Expo.

Attendance for the three-day show that ended on Sunday at the Denver Mart came in at 7,195, the lowest number for the Expo since 2002. The total was down 24 percent from last year’s 9,486, and it’s more than a third less than the Expo’s record of 11,202, set in 2008.

“I don’t know if it’s so much the weather, or the media hyperbole about the weather,” Mark Cramer said on Monday. “It was a good storm, but it wasn’t the storm of the century and the sky wasn’t falling. They were overly hyper about it. There were news teams yesterday telling people to stay home. It was very disappointing. They don’t realize how badly they hurt small businesses.

“It’s unfortunate that the media does what the media does to make themselves relevant. It’s at no cost to them at all. They’re creating a bigger story.”

The amount of snow from the storm varied widely over the metro area, with some areas receiving 6 inches and others 20.

With about 2,300 fewer people attending the show than last year, it’s no surprise that other numbers associated with the Expo took a hit also:

— The Used Club Sale (pictured at top), which raises money for junior golf development programs through the Colorado Golf Foundation, netted $11,845 over the weekend. While that was solid compared to the 13-year average for the Used Club Sale, it was down about 18 percent from last year.

“The attendance was down and the weather played a major role,” said CGA director of junior competitions Eric Wilkinson, who was overseeing the Used Club Sale. “Both Saturday and Sunday things cleared out earlier than normal.”

Taking the weather into account, the CGA was happy the Used Club Sale raised what it did. The sale has netted almost $60,000 for junior golf over the last four years combined.

“Anytime we can raise that amount for the program, it’s great,” said Wilkinson, who is leaving the CGA this week to become championship assistant for the 2016 Ryder Cup. “The golf community has been generous, as always. This year we had more quantity and not as much quality, but it was still a success for us. It’s still a large number to raise for the Foundation and junior golf. We’d like to thank all the donors.”

— Meanwhile, Colorado PGA professionals provided 483 free 10-minute lessons to Expo attendees. That total was down about 9 percent from 2014.

— Over the three days, 235 kids went through the Junior Golf Central area (left), participating in the Drive Chip & Putt Experience. That was off about 22 percent compared to the number of juniors who took part in the Expo’s Junior Golf Experience in 2014.

The bottom line for the Expo is that no matter how well show organizers and the golf industry — including the CGA, CWGA and Colorado PGA — prepare and plan for the event, the overall success is still somewhat dependent on things that are out of the control of them all.

Things like the weather and related issues.

“I was talking to Lynn this morning and she said we did everything right; we did a very good job,” Mark Cramer said. “We were very well organized and had a lot of participation from the golf industry. But a major winter storm and the media scaring the (heck) out of people doesn’t help. But this is the first time a major storm has hit us like this (during the Expo). We had always been pretty fortunate.”

But one event that makes spring golf seem not quite so far off is the Denver Golf Expo, which uses the catch phrase, “Your Season Starts Here.”

The 2014 Expo will take place a month from now, Feb. 7-9, at the Denver Mart (I-25 and 58th Ave.).

The 21st annual Expo will be familiar in many respects, but several notable changes await those who plan to attend:

— The decision by officials of the Denver Mart to require compensation for parking during the Denver Golf Expo has had some repercussions.

In response to the requirement, those running the Expo surveyed many of its customers about the parking situation. More than 1,600 responded, roughly 1,500 left comments, and 85 percent were unhappy with the prospect of paying for parking when it’s been free in the past.

Subsequently, Mark Cramer, who owns and operates the Expo along with his wife Lynn, decided to buy out the Denver Mart parking lots for $8,000. That will keep the parking free for the 2014 Expo, though it’s also led to small admission cost increases.

Adult attendees will pay $13, and seniors and military with I.D. will be charged $11 — in both cases $1 more than last year. In addition, where kids 12 and under used to be admitted for free, now attendees 16 and under will pay $3. Exhibitor pricing has also increased after the Expo’s rent went up.

“We have to recover the $8,000 (parking buyout) somewhere,” Mark Cramer said. “Some people (in the survey) don’t differentiate between us and the Mart, but we’re not the Mart. But the new owners (of the Mart) are putting a lot of money into the place, and you can’t blame them for trying to recover those costs. It is what it is.”

— The Southern Colorado Golf and Travel Expo, run by the same organizers as the Denver Golf Expo, has been discontinued, apparently for good.

The Southern Colorado show was held in Colorado Springs in 2010 and 2013, but it won’t return this year, Cramer said.

A major spring snowstorm led to attendance of just 1,600 for the two-day show last year — a little more than half of the 2010 total — but in general Cramer said the Southern Colorado Expo didn’t have the support it needed to be financially viable.

Beyond that, Cramer said that Denver Golf Expo attendance dipped both of the years there was also a show in Colorado Springs.

Cramer had signed a three-year deal — starting in 2013 — to hold the Southern Colorado Expo, but he had an escape clause in case the show wasn’t financially viable.

— Unlike recent years, the Season Tee-Off Luncheon, hosted by the Allied Golf Associations of Colorado (including the CGA, CWGA and Colorado PGA) won’t be held at the Golf Expo this year.

The establishment of a “G-4 Summit” — a day-long series of events involving the top golf associations in Colorado, along with other key individuals — led to the change. The G-4 Summit, designed to promote collaborative efforts to work on problems golf faces, will be held Feb. 11 at the Inverness Hotel & Golf Club.

— The Junior Golf Experience, one of the popular mainstays of the Denver Golf Expo in recent years, will return this year but it’s moving out of its traditional spot at the Denver Mart. Instead of being situated not far from the Expo entrance, it’ll be placed adjacent to the area where the Colorado PGA conducts its free 10-minute golf lessons for attendees.

Meanwhile, other major mainstays of the Expo — the CGA/CWGA Used Club Sale, a golf demo area, and swing and topical seminars — will remain where they’ve been in past years.

Speaking of the Used Club Sale, no consignment items will be accepted this year, unlike in previous years. All clubs and equipment that will be sold will come from donations.