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ORLANDO, Fla. - Keith Klopcic was a dead man. Or so his doctor had told him.
At 58, he was facing a kidney cancer diagnosis leaving him with 11 weeks to live and less than a 1% survival rate.
Eight years later, the former beer distributor is still very much alive. His brand, ChillAF, its logo drawn on a bar napkin in the wake of that life-changing, seemingly life-ending diagnosis, was one of more than 1,000 companies exhibiting at the 2026 PGA Show at Orlando's Orange County Convention Center. That logo, a laid-back stick-figure golfer, became Klopcic’s alter-ego of sorts. Now, his creation, named “StickDude,” lives on polos, hats and hoodies that are selling like hotcakes.
Klopcic and his wife, Ashley, are part of the very same quarter-trillion-dollar golf industry as behemoth brands like Titleist, PING, Peter Millar and TrackMan. Ashley, a longtime sports marketer, quit her job to help Keith get his fledgling company going. While I have no doubt that the new Callaway Quantum driver's new three-material clubface is super-hot, I am far more compelled by ChillAF and its ilk. Here's a link to their online storefront.
It’s stories like that of Keith and Ashley Klopcic that make the PGA Show one of the most rewarding experiences of every year I spend covering golf. I often refer to the week as a gas station, fueling me and thousands of fellow golf industry wonks with ideas, projects and inspiration for the months to come until we reconvene the next January at the Orange County Convention Center to schmooze and peruse once again.
Here is what stood out to me from the 2026 PGA Show.
3 trends and takes from the 2026 PGA Show
Having put nearly 50,000 steps on my sneakers over parts of four days at the Show, here are three broad takeaways from what I saw.
Is the next L.A.B. Golf lurking?
The hottest putter company since Scotty Cameron is the toast of the golf industry after receiving a nine-figure private equity investment last July. L.A.B.'s success has clearly spurred other putter makers to try to appeal to golfers with intriguing tech in hopes that they'll gain a similar measure of notoriety. Even these upstarts have no problem charging early adopters well over $600 for their own flatsticks. You have to admire the willingness to dream big, but the fact is most of these companies will linger in obscurity.
Adjustability overload
Tinkerers have never had it so good. The steady rise in adjustability across the equipment range means true gear sickos can live in a constant state of being custom fit. Is this a good thing? Cobra's 33-way driver and fairway wood hosel is hugely impressive, but it's easy to imagine a restless golfer ignoring their own swing flaws and instead constantly switching club setup options. Modular putting setups allow for relatively quick on-the-fly changes during fittings, but they also can be abused post-purchase through the availability of extra weights that can make a putter feel slightly different every day.
Pushing more golfers indoors
The golf simulator market is a white-hot niche within golf's humming economy. Industry reports estimate that over the next decade, simulators could account for upwards of $5 billion, up from a current mark around $1.75 billion. Many of the biggest booths not devoted to the large OEMs promoted increasingly robust ways to "play golf" indoors, including Korean company Golfzon's CityGolf concept, where the simulator screen automatically rolls up and golfers walk forward to putt out on an artificial turf putting surface once they arrive greenside on whatever virtual hole they're playing. Indoor golf is fun in the wintertime up north, but it doesn't hold a candle to the real thing. It would be a shame to see sims pull golfers away from green-grass courses in otherwise pleasant weather.
13 outstanding 2026 PGA Show products and pitches
New PING wedges with a special guest
I enjoy going to Demo Day, but the pickings were slim this year with several major brands opting out. One company that always shows up is PING, who brought out the great Stan Utley to give a short-game clinic centered around the new S259 line of wedges. I could listen to Utley talk pitching, chipping and bunker play all day. If the S259 is any better than my current S159 gamers, PING has another winner around the greens.
Cobra's extended adventures in 3D printing
Cobra has been using 3D printing methods for parts and whole clubs for several years, and they're embracing the technology more than ever in 2026, unveiling two new models of 3D-printed irons. The advantage of printing irons, Cobra claims, is the ability to be far more specific and strategic with how they position perimeter weight within each clubhead, even more so than with fine forging. At more than $300 per club, these irons are towards the higher end of the market, but if Cobra has found a way to make blade-shaped irons truly forgiving, it's a major achievement.
Elegant Lambda Golf shoes
As golf footwear and apparel branches farther into streetwear- and athleisure-inspired aesthetics, traditional products seem to be overlooked. This family-owned brand based in Portugal's golf shoes, however, look transported from the 1960s and '70s, just with contemporary materials and construction techniques. While they do offer some Euro-sneaker options, their saddle shoes and wing tips are as classy as can be for golfers who like what they've liked for a long time.
A great way for kids to learn on-course behavior
Golf Etiquette for Little Pros is the brainchild of LPGA Professional Lizzy Marlinga. It tells a story of young golfers Lucy and Ben as they play a round of golf, with an emphasis on on-course etiquette from arriving early for their tee time to caring for the golf course and all points in between. It also doubles as an explainer for junior golf parents who are not golfers themselves. And frankly, there are a large number of adult golfers who should read Lucy and Ben's story, too.
This focus-sharpening putting game
How good is your pressure putting? 9 Putt is an elegant challenge where you putt from a fixed spot on a mat to a series of nine gradually smaller targets arrayed in an arc. I love how unfussy it is, and how obviously beneficial it could be to a part of the game most golfers neglect.
Gamified wedge practice from the StackSystem
According to StackSystem founder and leading golf biomechanist Sasho Mackenzie, there is a 99% correlation between ball speed and carry distance on all golf shots from 30 to 140 yards. This means that StackSystem can help golfers dial in their wedge and short iron distance with a sub-$300 radar device linked to a new gamified training app that leverages Strokes Gained data to help golfers develop their scoring clubs on the range or at home.
Headcovers and accessories using upcycled pin flags
Machine Golf has made putters with an industrial aesthetic for more than a decade, and unveiled something completely different at the Show: a suite of headcovers and other accessories sewn together from retired golf course pin flags. Very snazzy.
Nearly a half-century of creative headcovers
Daphne's is one of the least-heralded longest-lasting brands in modern golf. The company that helped pioneer creative driver headcovers is on the verge of its half-century mark, outfitting countless golfers with their favorite animal headcovers over the years, including a certain orange-and-black-striped all-time icon.
A sophisticated and less expensive alternative to L.A.B. Golf putters?
Kelly & Co. founder David Kelly has put in years behind the scenes of some of golf's biggest equipment manufacturers, including a stint assisting L.A.B. Golf on its recent rise. His new company puts a bit of a different spin on the zero-torque putter movement; Kelly & Co.'s Variable Torque Control concept allows golfers to tune the amount of torque that best fits their stroke style via different weights that can port into the heel and toe of his putter heads, where the centers of gravity sit a little higher than most, promoting a purer roll. Another point in their favor is the price, which comes in at less than $400 per putter.
Functional, focused new golf sunglasses
Launching a new golf sunglasses brand is an uphill battle at best, but I admire the approach of TITE, a new exhibitor whose shades use lenses that focus their amplification and clarification efforts mainly on the green part of the light spectrum. The goal is to maximize the golfer's perception of the course above all else. It remains to be seen whether TITE will challenge our strong Editors' Choice field of golf sunglasses, but I had a positive first impression of the well-priced, relatively unfussy offering. One under-the-radar feature is that the angle between the earpieces and the lenses can be subtly adjusted to better fit the wearer.
360-degree travel protection for your golf clubs
A lot of first-time golf product inventors end up as one-and-done participants at the PGA Show because their products don't end up resonating (see below). Of the upstart inventor-led booths, AyrSupport impressed me with a hardy, inflatable protective cylinder that swaddles your golf bag within its travel case. If you have had clubs abused by baggage handlers, this extra layer of protection might function as a great insurance policy. It's a solid idea - let's see if it gains traction.
An elegant warm-up weight for any club
This is an ideal gadget for golfers who often don't have time to hit balls before their tee time. While the TourClamp doesn't look like much - a small silicone barrel with an open bore-hole just large enough to squeeze around a golf club shaft - it's all that's needed to add just a little bit of resistance to warm up in the space of just a few swings, and it's less cumbersome than swinging two clubs. Available in two weights, you clamp it around whatever club you want to take some warm-up swings with, and it adds just enough weight to help you loosen up quickly. No fuss.
Return of a great outerwear brand
I love golf stuff that lasts, and one of my go-to pullovers is a nearly 30-year-old reversible one from Forrester's, an apparel brand that had been long dormant until it was revived by the current owners of the Jones Sports Co. golf bags and accessories company. Forrester's dates back to 1951, and its new stewards seem serious about reestablishing its products as reliable companions to golfers who don't mind a bit of adverse weather. I also received assurances they'll be bringing back reversible pullovers soon.
4 golf apparel brands that caught my eye at the 2026 PGA Show
7 goofiest 2026 PGA Show products and pitches
Pickleball's continued intrusion into the PGA Show
I don't have a strong objection to pickleball in general, but it has been strange to see its expansion from an out-of-the-way corner of the Convention Center to a more prominent location within the Show. Golf is a reportedly quarter-trillion-dollar industry - does it really need to share real estate with pickleball as part of its big showcase every year? It was a particular eyesore this year, as in other parts of the convention center, Show floor-adjacent seating had been eliminated, forcing hundreds of attendees to eat lunch sitting on the ground.
TAG's blinged-out putters
The gentleman who painstakingly crafts these putters out of gold-plated Bullseye collectibles adorned with tungsten-filled rifle shells and other items was really friendly and clearly way into his craft/hobby/business. I'm just not sure if $1,500 to $2,500 for a refinished and doctored version of an iconic putter is something golfers are going to flock to.
The ShotPutt
There have been a lot of golf products whose sole function is to get people drunker faster on the course. Having seen more alcohol-fueled incidents on my travels in recent years than in my entire golf life beforehand, I am going to skewer anything in this genre, especially this turkey of a product. It's a long colored metal tube shaped like a putter that you fill with booze. You're supposed to putt with it, and when you make a putt, whip off the cap and start chugging. This isn't a golf club so much as a cry for help.
The Wind Reader
Which way is the wind blowing? is an important question in golf, answered for centuries by tossing up a few blades of grass and seeing which way they fall. Apparently that's not good enough, so this product is a pile of a colored powdered chalk-like substance in a plastic squirt bottle. The Papal Conclave sends up white smoke when they've chosen a new pope. Any golfer who squirts this stuff into the air has signaled a willingness to be roasted.
The Wind Genie
That's right - there were multiple wind-gauge products at the 2026 PGA Show. This one is supposed to attach to your golf cart and act as a weather vane to give instant wind-direction updates. If I had three wishes, none of them would be for this product.
The UtiliTee
One of my favorite little products in recent years is the Skinny Golf Pocket Caddie, a metal-pronged divot repair tool with a small but sturdy brush head for cleaning your club grooves. This little doohickey gestures in that direction but falls short with a rather flimsy design. It's basically a lacquered golf tee with a hilariously tiny dab of microfiber on it that will inevitably become unusably dirty after a couple of rounds. The thing is $9.99 and I'm not sure I see a path to getting anywhere near that value out of it.
The Greenade utility putter grip
This device dares to ask, What if your putter grip was a Swiss Army knife, but with extremely limited function? It's meant to replace your putter grip, and divot repair tool at the same time, while also including a retractable pincer to pluck your ball out of the cup. The target market is senior golfers with trouble stooping over repeatedly, which is a noble mission, but the execution isn't quite there, in my opinion. And at an estimated retail price nearing $100, it's a no for me.
