Vancouver Golf & Travel Show a bust

[Silver]

Maybe I went in expecting too much, but I ended up being totally disappointed. It was worth exactly what I paid to get in (nothing).

This weekend, BC Place played host to the 3 day event and we went down early on Saturday so that another friend of ours that was working a booth at the show could let us in for free because, yes, we're too cheap to spend $8 on a ticket. Man, what a good decision that was.

Basically, it consisted of about 75 booths of crappy golf courses trying to hawk overpriced memberships or local golf associations promoting their own city getaways...ie www.golfkelowna.com or www.golfkamloops.com or whatever. There was NOTHING that couldn't be found on a website for these types of booths. There were also a couple of "fun" booths, such as the one that was selling hardwood headed putters (www.mustyputters.com) and the putting challenge ($1/ball for a 35 foot putt to win a sleeve of Nike Ones and a Mike Weir hat), but then again, they jacked around with the putting challenge and had about 7 breaks on the way to the hole which made it nearly impossible....although the guy in front of me suck two in a row. Weirdo. There was a "long drive" booth for the same price...they had some crappy radar gun that was totally inaccurate and that you basically had to hit a stinger to have any chance of winning. One of the busiest booths was actually from the indoor training centre that I go to (www.urbanlinks.net) because they were giving away free 5 minute swing analyses. Everyone needs some of that sometimes.

But on to the real crappy part - the manufacturers' tents. Holy crap, how ass was this. The Cleveland booth didn't have the new Halo, only had about two of the comp drivers, no CG2s or even CG1s, it was all old clubs. The guy working the booth had on a Callaway shirt. It was totally hokey. My friend wanted to find some new irons but only like 3 of the manufacturers had ANYTHING that he could hit left-handed. Mizuno and Titleist didn't even show. That sucked particularly because I wanted to talk to a Mizuno rep about getting my MX23s fitted properly. The best booth easily belonged to Wilson Staff. They had lots of all of their new clubs and new balls and the people at the booth actually seemed interested in talking about the clubs. Although even one of those guys hadn't even hit the new irons.

Overall, it was totally second rate and I get way more out of going into my local shop on any given day. Hokey, useless, and boring.

[MAHALLEDAY]

Sounds like the one they haev in Winnipeg every year. I went two years ago and was unimpressed. Cleveland didn't even havea rep there justa tour bag full of clubs, I almost missed it. Taylor Made and Callaway had decent setups but nothign special. as for the rest of the thing sit was as you said, local courses adn resort vying for you cash.

[Rockford35]

I made my putt at our here, and never did get my free sleeve of balls and catalogue mailed to me.

Bastards.

The best thing at the show was the girl serving drinks at the bar. The worst part was that I could have just walked into the convention centre and seen her without paying my 10 bucks.

R35