At the PGA Show, the weird, wonderful and unbelievable all come together

ORLANDO, Fla. — A man is standing on a stage wearing what would best be described as a weight belt, but we’re just getting started.

Tension cords are attached to this belt, and he’s explaining that if you clip them up to the golfer’s glove on your left hand and simply follow his company’s training regimen, you’ll fix your swing’s flight path. No matter what’s broken in it. Guaranteed.

I told myself upon entering the PGA Show that I would not be that guy. I would leave my inherent skepticism and need to poke fun at the double doors and be open to whatever came at me during my two days at the annual convention of the golf industry.

But it’s only been 20 minutes since I sat down, and this guy is already testing me. Oh, no.

However many golf simulator companies you think there are in America, double it. Same goes for apps that’ll monitor your swing and spit out data about your ball speed, carry and spin.

There’s a guy with a robot that’ll pick up range balls and put them on a tee for you, solving a problem that has vexed golfers for years — I’d practice more, but there’s all that damn bending over!

Titleist, Callaway, Mizuno and all the rest of the original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) you have heard of were in the Orlando Convention Center, with slick setups to show off their new clubs and balls. The length of a pitching wedge away, three lonely people are sitting at a booth, with sleeves of golf balls from their Chinese manufacturing facility sitting on a folding table. The difference is striking.

Yes, it’s all here at the PGA Show, an annual rite of passage/trip for PGA of America teaching professionals and their staffs, curious media onlookers and the hundreds of companies who’d like to tap into the burgeoning golf market.

There’s a functional business reason for this to exist — the average club pro maintains at least some if not all responsibility for stocking the pro shop, and they can come here and make their orders for the spring and fall seasons. Those types of transactions — “Eight of the charcoal, nine in the navy” — were going on everywhere. It’s why a company would pay a significant amount of money to rent a spot on the floor, build out a space and staff it for the week.

So then you just have to allow that for every product you could imagine yourself whipping out your card to purchase, there’s also going to be a golf wedge with shot glasses welded into the shaft. Not all ideas are good ones.

But they all come from the same place, and as someone who has watched a lot of “Shark Tank” over the years with my family, I get it. This is what entrepreneurship looks like. These people are taking a shot, hoping they can make it big and live out their dreams.

GenTeal helped hammer this point home to me and made me (mostly) forget about the aforementioned weight belt swing trainer guy….