PGA Expo Day 1

Arriving in Vegas was a really exciting. Our Taxi ride from the airport was quite short because we stayed the first night at the Luxor, which was a 10 minute ride from the airport, so I did not get to see much of Vegas on the ride over, except for all of the tall buildings and the Sphinx as we arrived at the Luxor. We arrived at 8am and we could not check into the hotel until 11am, so my mom and I grabbed some breakfast and explored the hotel and eventually made our way over to Mandalay Bay where the expo was taking place. We got our badges and boarded the bus and headed over to one of the golf courses where a golf tournament for the PGA Expo was being held as well as demo day. I was expecting to see all of the big club manufacturers there showing off this years equipment and I was hoping to find some new clubs for my mom, but sadly this was not the case. I was really surprised that the only big club manufacturer there was Callaway! There were probably about 30 tents total on the driving range, with the Ogio trailer in the parking lot, a few putter companies on the putting green, and some random golf companies selling spikes, golf tees, training aids, etc... We first went to the putting green because I saw a demo of a putting training aid that help you practice the arc of the putting stroke.



It was made by Momentus Golf, which I found out is created by Butch Harmon. I have been wanting to get a putting training aid for a while even though the towel between my arms works well, but sometimes you just need something else to practice with. My next stop on the putting green was at Hot Rod putters.

The rep explained to me that all of the good putters on tour have a blade putter and blah blah. I didn’t really understand the concept of the new putter design and how it would help you putt better. It didn’t work for me, but my mom liked it and was putting well with it. I don’t really believe that just because a pro uses a certain type of club that is it the best club for me. Everyone learns as well as feels/sees different things with equipment and no matter who is playing with whatever clubs they may not be the correct club for me. So when the rep told me that all the great putters use a blade putter it didn’t mean much to me. Annika used a two ball putter her entire career and only just switched to a blade putter a few months ago. We moved on to the driving range and tested out some drivers from companies I have never heard of as well as tested some cool training aids. Probably my favorite demo was more of a golf fitness training aid. It was called the Power Reactor. This awesome machine was featured on Fore Inventors Only on the Golf Channel.

I tested this machine right after I hit some ball with a new driver and my shots didn’t look so good, and when Marcus, the inventor of the Power Reactor, asked me to throw the ball at the trampoline and I kept hitting the padded area of it instead of the center. He told me the reason why that was happening was because I wasn’t keeping my head down, which I occasionally forget to do when I haven’t touched a club in a while. But overall I thought this was a great golf training aid that can be used as a fitness tool as well. It really worked my core and all in all felt really good. There are other exercises that can be done with the medicine ball and trampoline to work your core as well as help with your cardio. I hope we can get something like this when my club builds up the new gym. Here is the website for this amazing exercise tool and on this website you can view videos on youtube on how it works.

After we tested the machine my mom and I went back into the club house since it was so hot and that there wasn’t much else to see and we boarded the bus back to the Mandalay Bay Hotel. We walked back to the Luxor hotel through a walkway they have between the two hotels and in it there are all kinds of shops and restaurants.



My mom and I were walking through and we saw this awesome golf bag. There were two, one was white and a full cart bag, and the other was black and more of a cary bag. We went into the store and saw the black bag up close and it had small skulls on it in gold.

We thanked the people at the store and continued walking back to our hotel and I read that there was a dinner that night for the PGA expo at the House of Blues with a concert by Dennis DeYoung and music from the Styx. The Styx was a band from the 70’s-80’s before my time, so I wasn’t that enthusiastic about listening to them, but I wanted to see what the House of Blues was like so my mom and I went back to the room and took a nap before we prepared to go. At about 5pm we made our way back to Mandalay Bay and when we arrived at the house of blues no one was there.



It turned out that the concert was the next day. So we went to have dinner at Stripsteak and we decided to split some chicken with truffle mac and cheese and have some nice wine.


They brought us this amazing appetizer which was three different kinds of seasoned french fries each paired with its own sauce. The first one was garlic fries paired with ketchup, the second was fries seasoned with truffle oil and a truffle cream dip, the third was paprika seasoned fries with bbq sauce. They were all so good that I could not pick a favorite and I could not stop eating them. Thankfully they only gave us a little bit of each. The chicken arrived and the truffle mac and cheese was unbelievably delicious. If you ever have the chance to go there you must try the mac and cheese. It also comes as a side order so you can have it with the stake as well. But, one thing to be weary about is that for our chicken we were charged twice for the chicken even though we told the waiter that we wanted to split the chicken since we understood that it was a whole chicken. But, in fine print it said that they charged $29.99 per person,and it was only half a chicken, which I think is ridiculous, but it’s Las Vegas what can you expect. But, in the end we only ended up paying $85 or so with tip for dinner which is a great price in Las Vegas. After dinner we walked around the Mandalay Bay a bit and we played one of the poker slot machines and after a while I was so tired of it because we would never get a good hand. But again, I guess that is how the slot machines are. We went back to our room and prepared for the next day.