Like most vendors at this year’s Colorado Golf Expo, Nick Nosewicz can’t wait for the event’s debut at the Colorado Convention Center. “To me it’s not as much of an ‘expo’ as it is a ‘festival,’” the general manager of Lenny’s Golf Shop says. “It’s a celebration of golf. Whether they shoot 65 or 105, everybody is speaking the same language.”
For the last 11 years, Lenny’s has celebrated by occupying the most real estate on the floorplan—something that will continue this year. Its 23,000-square-foot space—significantly more than it had at the Denver Mart and more than five times the size of its store at 2601 S. Parker Road in Aurora—will include a retail area and a Club Demo area, where you can hit offerings from 10 major manufacturers, including Callaway, Ping and Titleist, that will have debuted only within the last month.
“I always look at it from a consumer’s standpoint,” Nosewicz explains. “If I go the Renaissance Festival, I want to throw axes. If I go to a golf festival, I want to hit the newest clubs.”
You can chat with company representatives about their clubs and buy them from Lenny’s at a discount. You’ll then pick them up at the store, where one of seven master fitters meticulously fits them for free using state-of-the-art launch monitors and other technologies. “If you only sell clubs, you’re only doing half the job,” says Nosewicz, an accomplished mid-amateur who ascribes some of his success (including the 2015 CGA Match Play title and 2017 CGA Parent-Child Championship with his father and company founder, Lenny Nosewicz) “to the fact that my clubs—from putter to driver—fit me.”
What doesn’t fit in the store are the shirts, shoes, bags and other high-margin soft goods that bigger retailers and online services have the room to stock. Nosewicz admits to “hoarding” as much inventory as he can to sell at the Expo. “We’ll even have pushcarts, electric carts, stuff we don’t ordinarily sell, but stuff that I, as a golfer, would want,” he says.
He’s also filling the added space with a chipping contest on a replica of the 17th at TPC Sawgrass made by SYNLawn (“Nick Perea, the president, built the putting green in my basement”) and an area for attendees to check out Blue Tees, “a nice, price-conscious rangefinder.”
Buoyed my memories of attendees of the Colorado Ski and Snowboard Show boarding the light rail laden with new planks and parkas, Nosewicz is motivated to move merchandise at the Convention Center, especially because Lenny’s will begin a complete store remodel right after the Expo. “I’m bringing every single thing from shop,” he says. “I don’t want it to come back.”
Whether you shoot 65 or 105, everybody speaks the same language. We talk golf. We help people play better golf.