Colorado Golf Expo Begins This Friday

New ownership is ready to tee up golfers

By Jon Rizzi

Courtesy Colorado Golf Expo

Snow, shmo. February in Colorado means it’s time for golf—and the five-day forecast calls for a blizzard of it starting at precisely 10 a.m. this Friday, Feb. 17.

That’s when the doors at the Colorado Convention Center open for this year’s Colorado Golf Expo, the annual tee-off to the local golf season that runs through Sunday, Feb. 19.

Roughly 100 vendors will welcome thousands of golfers hungry to try out the latest clubs and get deals on gear, lessons, rounds of golf, golf travel and, yes, memberships in programs like the Colorado AvidGolfer Golf Passport. They can compete for prizes in long-drive, chipping and putting contests, get a free 10-minute lesson from a PGA professional and attend seminars led by local golf experts.

The Colorado Golf Hall of Fame will have a booth opposite the huge—and hugely popular—Lenny’s Golf Shop club demo space.

Attendees can also visit Junior Golf Central, where they can learn about junior golf programs, sign up their juniors for lessons, enroll them in leagues and competitions, or simply expose them to the game in fun ways—like hitting a BirdieBall into an inflatable dinosaur and playing nine holes on a miniature golf course.

A New Showman

 

Kevin Morton Courtesy E.J. Carr

The mini-golf course will be making its debut at the Expo, but it isn’t the only thing that’s new this year. For the first time in 22 years, Mark and Lynn Cramer will not be running the Expo. The couple—who transformed the event from a quiet industry trade show into one of the country’s top consumer golf exhibitions—last November sold the Expo to Kevin Morton, the director of business development at Direct Mail Concepts.

A 51-year-old Pueblo native who lives in Denver, Morton played high-school golf for coach Carl Casio at Pueblo East and hung with members of the golf teams at Arizona State University during Phil Mickelson’s time there.

“I want to perpetuate the legacy that Mark and Lynn created,” he says earnestly, noting he has attended the show for years and has retained the Cramers—winners of the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame’s 2019 Lifetime Achievement Award—as consultants this year.

“Attendees have an expectation,” he says. “They love Lenny’s. The Argonaut Liquors ‘turn’ area was a hit last year, and we’re expanding it with a burger grill.”

Courtesy Colorado Golf Expo

Morton has also tweaked the floorplan of the 100,000-square-foot space to create more room and improve flow, so people extend their stays and visit all the booths. “I want to create an environment where people want to be,” he says.

That includes golfers in their 20s and 30s, some of whom he gathered for a focus group late last year. “They told me that golf was too expensive, the gear was too expensive, and golf takes too long,” he explains. “I want them to know you don’t have to have top-of-the-line clubs, you don’t have to play 18 holes and you don’t have to play a regulation course to have fun.”

The other thing the group told him: “I’ve never heard of the show.” To remedy this, Morton has amped up the Expo’s social media presence. “We’re not going to be TikTok creators, but we’re going to use Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and other channels and technologies, like geo-fencing and digital coupons to get people to visit. We’d never give up on the 50-plus demographic, but we definitely want to introduce younger people to the show.”

He cites his school-age children as inspiration for the mini-golf course. “I love when my kids say, ‘we want to golf,’” he shares. “We have a little putting green at our house, and I’ll just watch. I don’t force it. I want to foster a sense of enjoyment, not make it a chore.”

With snow on the ground and weekend temperatures projected to reach the 50s, heading to the Expo this weekend certainly won’t be a chore for Colorado golfers.

Courtesy Colorado Golf Expo

DETAILS:

Colorado Golf Expo
Colorado Convention Center, Hall F
700 14th St, Denver
coloradogolfexpo.com

Hours
Fri., Feb. 17    10 a.m. – 6 p.m.
Sat., Feb. 18      9 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Sun., Feb 19    10 a.m. – 4 p.m.

Admission
Adults                         $15
Seniors (50+) &
Military with a           $13
valid I.D.
Children (6 – 16)        $5
Children (1 – 5)          $0

(Back Nine Mini-Golf is an additional $10 for adults and $5 for kids.)


Colorado AvidGolfer Magazine is the state’s leading resource for golf and the lifestyle that surrounds it, publishing eight issues annually and proudly delivering daily content via coloradoavidgolfer.com.

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