Best Small Cos. 05.01.00 A salesman wearing an aqua sportcoat the color of tropical fish sits beside me on the hotel shuttle bus as we lumber through Orlando's off-Disney Tourism Ghetto en route to the quite large Orange County Convention Center. My eyebrows arch with delight. A moment passes and we stare out the window at a theme restaurant's enormous fuzzy bear.
Underdressed women demonstrate umbrellas and golf carts.
Fading stars like Nick Faldo and Tom Watson sign autographs for knots of Japanese buyers. No other sport so easily separates millions of fans from their money when it comes to equipment and gadgets. At the huge, centrally located booths it's rugby scrum time as hundreds of club pros and course owners place their orders for the coming year, so I drift off to the showroom's outer reaches, where intrepid entrepreneurs run the roost. But no one will be looking at your collar when you strap on the Crazy Q Golf Glove, which has three magnets sewn into the back of the hand. For some the Darwinian reality of the show has sunk in.