I ran into newly minted Golf Journalists Association of Canada president Mike Johnny at the Toronto Golf & Travel Show Friday. Johnny and associates were tending to patrons at their 36 A Day booth, showing off their golf hats with their trademark tilted, dimpled maple leaf logo.

“We’re here to more formally launch the brand, to connect with golfers, courses and course operators. This is giving us an opportunity to build a market,” says Johnny, who has removed sales from his website, as 36 A Day pivots exclusively into the pro shop retail space. “Given the fact that we are new, we want to afford courses the opportunity to place our hats in their shop on a consignment basis—more a proof of principle thing—to see where the interest is, and then we’ll be quite happy to essentially buy the hats back that they don’t sell.”

I like the long-range vision for Johnny, who currently has a pair of courses under his, well, hat: Hidden Lake GC in Burlington, where he’s a member, and Centennial Park Golf Centre in Etobicoke. He is also exploring a new custom hat line, as well as apparel and “a proprietary fabric that regulates body temperature during Canada’s often extreme golf season weather.”

And what’s his marketing approach? Beyond the obvious ‘buy local’ angle (their embroidery takes place in Ancaster), 36 A Day is “really trying to hit a sweet spot between performance and value,” Johnny says. “We’re also looking to develop some charitable relationships. We want to take a portion of our sales and support the game. It’s an alignment between a clean, distinct look, a quality product and the opportunity to support junior golf.”

And when did the idea for this business venture pop into Johnny’s head? “Probably four or five years ago,” he says. “When I developed the visual brand for my 36aDay.ca golf blog, I had some people say, ‘You should really think about T-shirts or hats.’ I don’t know if I was daunted by that or just a little stubborn, but around the time of the pandemic I started to give it a little bit of thought, did some market research and decided, ‘Let’s give it a go.’ And, really, it’s been this steady progression since then of simply giving this a shot.

“The feedback we’ve received has been really positive,” Johnny notes. “Folks like the value. They really like the look, and so we’ll see where it goes.”

Where it goes from here is the pro shop and probably a $35-$40 retail cost, or you can knock $10 off the price tag with 36 A Day’s booth specials until the Toronto Golf & Travel Show wraps up today at 4 p.m.