Chain Store Age-Executive Specs

I just spent the last 2 days in Florida at Champions Gate (A great resort golf facility that in a few weeks will host the national father/son golf tourney on ABC Sports), seeing our new sites in development and attending a seminar titled Chain Store Age: Executive Specs. I have been to my fair amount of seminars, this was the best seminar/conference I have ever attended. I am not saying this because we got to play a world class golf course and I won closest to the pin, rather the speakers were polished and I was with some well known movers and shakers in the retail/branding world. I hope to be invited back next year. A little more about Executive specs is here: "This by-invitation-only conference for VP titles and above will feature a customized executive-level seminar. Top retailers and suppliers involved in store planning,construction, real estate, marketing, facilities and operations of retail stores will come together for this 2 1/2-day VIP event."

9 holes with Lucas Glover

So, as many of you know I went to high school with Lucas Glover. Lucas and I have kept in touch (even though he went to Clemson and I went to South Carolina) over the years. Lucas had another great season on the PGA Tour, finished in the top 30 on the money list for the second time in a row thus he qualified to play in the season ending tour champanship which lucky for me is held at historic East Lake in Atlanta. Lucas emailed me Tuesday night and told me to join him for the pro-am, (not to play-I didnt want to drop 25K for 18 holes but to walk with him). I replied back and stated, "I am there, cant wait to see you!" So, when Lucas teed off around 9am on the 10th tee I was right there next to him. It was very cool, like the days when we were in high school except Lucas transformed from a chubby kid to one of the best fit prof. athletes I have seen and I transofrmed into a chubby man with very little hair. I walked the back nine (one of the best 9 finishing holes in the world) with him, his pro am partners (US Senator Lindsay Graham was in the group) caddies, etc. By the way his Caddie Coot is one cool guy. It was a great 2 hours. Lucas is such a class act one example of this was on the first par 3 on the back, a special needs girl (pictured above) was the honorary walker for that hole. Lucas's tee shot was short and to the right, buried in the trap. We we got to his ball you could barely see it. Well, Lucas hit an amazing shot to 4 feet. As he lined up his put he stopped, went over to the girl and aksed her to putt if for him. What a class act! She missed the put but Lucas started clapping this everyone started clapping it made the girls day. What a class act! Sidenote: Lucas went to the scorer and asked for a par-scorer gave it to him. I then returned to follow him over the weekend-he finished in the top 10. One of the coolest and greatest things about Lucas is that he has a ton of humility. The other great thing about him is he always does the right thing. An example of the ladder was Saturday after his round instead of ignoring all of the kids waiting for him for his signature like other pros did; I witnessed from the 18th vip tent Ernie, Vijay and other stars of the game ignore these kids and bolt straight for the clubhouse; he stayed out there for over 45 minutes signing autographs and talking to the fans. Note: The wind chill was in the 30's. Lucas has character! Ken Sisson-Thanks for the VIP badges.