Another successful Cleveland Golf and Travel Show is in the books! The 2024 edition at the I-X Center saw a crowd size similar to last year, even though a late Friday afternoon blizzard made travel to the opening evening a bit treacherous.
A large number of golf retails, a wide array of golf travel locations, and a nice mix of non-golf interests exhibited over the three days in mid-February. The Northern Ohio PGA provided free 10-minute lessons to anyone who wanted one, and a variety of lecturers took to the Golf Show stage to make presentations.
There were three featured competitions as well.
In the Long Drive Championship, winners were determined across all three days, with hundreds of players taking a crack at sending the long ball. In the Men’s Division, the winner was Josh Hodges with a blast of 364 yards. In the Senior Men’s Division, Todd Walker took the title with a 324-yard poke. And in the Women’s Division, Madolyn Kost, a senior golf star at Kent Roosevelt High School, topped the field with a solid smash of 271 yards.
In the Golf Darts competition, players had 3 shots at hitting the sections of a dart board with a velcro golf ball to score points. After three days of competition, a whopping 159 points finished atop the leaderboard, scored by John Renter.
Finally, making 3 out of 3 in the Long Putt Challenge earns any putter a big cash prize for their effort. No player accomplished the feat this year, but three players did make 2-in-a-row, which always earns loud cheers from the onlookers.
