Morgan Jewell, PGAHead Professional,Floridian National Golf Club,Palm City, Florida
There are few nicer places to be in the middle of winter than the Floridian National Golf Club in Palm City, Florida. Members typically fly in from around the country (or dock at the club’s dedicated slips on the St. Lucie River) and concentrate on friends, entertaining, business and playing golf on the hidden-away Tom Fazio design 45 minutes north of Palm Beach.
Those realities presented a golf equipment sales challenge for PGA of America Head Professional Morgan Jewell, who was looking for an opportunity to reformat the traditional equipment demo days that are ubiquitous at most clubs.
“We tried the standard demo day format where you have one vendor come out during the day, and we didn’t have much success with that,” says Jewell, the 2024 PGA of America Merchandiser of the Year for private facilities. “Our members are only here for a couple of days at a time, so to pin them down on the range for a clubfitting when the golf course is available is difficult.”
Instead of fighting for attention during those peak golf hours, Jewell scheduled a multi-vendor demo day on the Friday evening before the club’s February member-guest tournament and turned it into a kind of miniature merchandise show with multiple vendors.
“We bought in Srixon, Titleist, TaylorMade, Callaway and others, and we set up a full bar on the practice tee,” Jewell says of the “twilight” demo day that now runs from 5 to 8 p.m. “It's become a social event as much as a merchandising opportunity.”
Almost 100 members attended the last twilight demo day, and the club moved more than $50,000 in equipment – most of in categories like drivers, wedges and putters, where sales numbers had historically been thin. It also directly led to more revenue from cottage rentals, food & beverage and other on-property categories.
Picking the mid-February date lined up with expectations members already had about being at the Floridian for Presidents Week. Plus, the PGA Show just happened in Orlando a few weeks prior, so the vendors had newly launched product with fresh stories to tell. Members arriving Wednesday or Thursday for the weekend tournament now had something to do on their arrival day.
“If you have more people on property, they’re going to be spending money," says Jewell. “We’re not in the West Palm area where people are going out to dinner. Here, people are eating at the club and staying at the club, so this has definitely generated a lot more for the facility.”
