Day 4 of the 2015 PGA Merchandise Show was a short one for me.

I had to drive 10 hours to return to Middle Tennessee so I had to get on the road by 11 AM EDT, but, the time spent in the booth and talking with Greg Powers, Dann Lemerand and Robin Rosardo was more than I expected to get accomplished during a short day.

Greg Powers is a lifetime member of the PGA Tour, on the Board of Directors for the Challenge Golf Association, Brother in Christ and my dear friend.  We had seen each other for a mere 20 minutes the day before as he and Ron Potter spoke with Mr Solheim.  I desired to spend some additional time with him on Friday, but, things didn't look like that would happen.  You know, there were some 40K people attending the show each day and what are the chances that at 8 AM on Friday morning, Greg and I would walk in the same door at exactly the same time and spend a half hour talking about ministry in golf?  What are the chances?  See the CGA Invitational video and Greg's testimony by clicking here.

We addressed each of our thoughts and desires for the propagation of the Gospel through golf and how Mulligan Magazine, the Challenge Golf Association, Kingdom.golf and others could fulfill that vision.  We talked about our forerunners in this effort and how wonderful it was that they had done so many things to introduce golfers to Jesus Christ and, especially, the difficulty they must have encountered during the nearly 40 years that we have been aware of ministry in golf.  We also expressed a desire to continue and increase efforts to reach all golfers with the Gospel.  We know the tools are available to do that.  We know we have so  many ministries engaged in this effort and how we wanted to assist and augment each of these efforts.

We talked about how to get each of us on the same "sheet of music" per se.  We decided to promote a "summit" of type during the Gwinnet Champions Tour Challenge in Atlanta in May.  What a great Brother.  I love him so much.

Dann Lemerand is the owner of Mulligan Magazine as I've related before.  He is so passionate about golf and highlighting the Lord's work in the game that he is funding the entire effort to produce Mulligan Magazine, the Magazine for the Christian Golfer.  Do we realize what that takes in time and resources?  It is huge and wonderful!!  

Dann and I met through James Kaiser of Louisville, KY during our preparation for the Open Doors for the Open. Over these past many months I have been overjoyed to partner with him in the vision to promote the fact that we who have a passion for golf can love the Lord Jesus Christ and be on mission to introduce other golfers to Him.  We met in person for the first time this past Tuesday and it has been awesome to get to know him and solidify our mission.

That is why I was so thankful to have time to visit with him one-on-one and commit our unity and direction for this ministry.  Dann was so insightful, expressing the idea that Mulligan Magazine would be a conduit for communication and coordination of golf ministry and stories/people who are on mission to edify Christ in their game and in their lives.  He renewed his commitment to surge forward to launch the first issue and continue to reach out to all ministries using the platform of golf to express their love for Christ.  We hope to gain the commitment of all of those ministries so that we can reach more and more golfers with the Gospel.

We agreed that we will continue to seek opportunities to conduct "events" which may take on the character of "Open Doors for the Open" conducted at Pinehurst last June, but, these "events" could take on many different forms at each event.  We decided to pursue an effort for outreach during the Masters as Dann was to meet with some folks who may have influence in that event and, hopefully, marry our efforts as well and to connect with the Warren Golf Association at Warren Baptist and the FCA Breakfast which will be conducted on Tuesday of this years' Masters.  Next we hope to conduct another outreach type event at The Memorial in Muirfield with the assistance of Dann's friends and our new friend, Brett Bohl.  More coordination on that soon.

We mentioned Robin Rosado a couple of posts back.  He is joining with Wally Armstrong as his "protege'" and I was so thankful to have him join Dann and I for a talk about ministry thoughts and plans moving forward.  Robin is a young graduate from UCF who is an accomplished golfer and regular competitor on the Web.com Tour.  He is just now getting into the flow of assisting Wally with his primary role of social media coordinator and distribution of Wally's book, The Mulligan.  He has a great personality and commitment to the ministry.  We discussed ways to engage other ministries, distribute the book during events and, even, the idea of conducting events in the future to help.  We raised up the idea of the Challenge Golf Association and possible connection with CBMC as well as they're attendance at the Mulligan Magazine outreaches.  We finished our time together by discussing the desire to amalgamate communications and coordination of ministry in golf through the Mulligan Magazine and we were pleased to come to agreement about how important that was going forward.

We prayed, went back toward the MM Booth, I collected my stuff and headed to the parking lot for the 10 hour drive to Kingdom.golf headquarters in Murfreesboro, TN.  Ah, I mean ..... home.

Blessings 

In Him

Bill

What a day, what a day at the 2015 PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando, FL!!

I just love this "fellowship" in the world of golf.  Everyone has the same focus; golf.  The convention center facility is incredible as you can see above and by looking at the pictures below, you can see the magnitude of the people, the exhibits and the busy-ness. 

We were thankful to have Wally Armstrong pass by the first thing in the day and I was so excited to meet Wally's protege' Robin Rosardo recent graduate for Florida Central University and local golf coach for a Christian school in Orlando area.  As usual, I was so excited that I hope I didn't overwhelm him, but, think about it; here Robin is following a behemoth in ministry in the golf area and, possibly, the Lord is preparing him to carry on the legacy of the Lord's work through Wally.  What a blessing.  We look forward to visiting with Robin in person and online.  He can be reached through Twitter @wallyarmstrong.

We had so many people stop by and express an interest in Mulligan Magazine....... I was personally impressed with the wives of the PGA professionals that came by and were excited to find that we have a golf magazine for Christian golfers.

Day 1 of the 2015 PGA Merchandise Show with Mulligan magazine was a sheer blast.

We started the day with a strategy meeting at the Howard Johnsons and it was incredible the way in which we all were on the same sheet of music relative to our calling as well as our service to God through the game of golf.

I was so pleased that we had such a synergy between us and I can see that the future will be very bright for us all.

Day one is as always is the demo day out at Orange County National Golf facility which is an incredible facility with multiple tees for practice and was surrounded by hundreds of exhibitors of golf merchandise clubs manufacturers and all types of other little devices to help all golfers with their games.

It was great to see David Ogren for the first time in 20 plus years as well as Lexi Thompson and Bubba Watson.

Here is a gallery of pictures and videos from the day.