Four recommendations for the 2024 GCSAA Conference and Trade Show

Hosting a First Green field trip class

GCSAA’s First Green program allows K-12 students to participate in hands-on educational stations and learn about the many jobs a golf course offers. (Photo Courtesy: GCSAA)

How often has the story been told of the superintendent who didn’t know that working on a golf course was an actual job until a superintendent pulled him or her aside and told them, ‘Maybe this is a career you should consider.’

The GCSAA’s First Green program is aiming to quell that narrative. And if numbers tell the story, it’s trending in the right direction. In 2023, 11,000 students learned directly from a superintendent about the work that goes into maintaining a golf course.

Presented in partnership with Par West and in association with PBI-Gordon, “Launching a First Green field trip is easier than you think” is hosted by Steve Kealy, CGCS; Jeffrey Gullikson, CGCS; David Phipps and Leann Cooper and takes place at Cottonwood CC at Sun Lakes.

“Once somebody hosts a First Green event, they’re inclined to do it again because it’s been so successful with teachers, students, the community and the golf facility,” Evans says. “It’s a great opportunity for introducing young people to the profession, seeing the various jobs that are available and seeing what superintendents do day in and day out.”

Herb Graffis Businessperson of the Year award presentation

Rees Jones (left) and Golfdom Editor-in-Chief Seth Jones (right) present Alex J. Stuedemann, CGCS, with the 2022 Herb Graffis Businessperson of the Year Award at the 2023 conference. (Photo: Golfdom staff)

Traveling from Ijamsville, Md., is the 2023 Herb Graffis Businessperson of the Year Award winner, Chris Navin, superintendent at the Club at P.B. Dye. This former middle school teacher made the leap back into golf maintenance after six years of being in education. After returning to college to earn his turf degree and then serving as an assistant, Navin was named superintendent at the Club at P.B. Dye. He turned the course around from a state of disrepair to hosting a U.S. Open qualifier in just six seasons.

And traveling from Montclair, N.J., is Rees Jones, ASGCA. The son of Robert Trent Jones Sr., Jones has designed more than 260 courses in his career, including numerous major championship venues, earning him the nickname of “The Open Doctor.”

Jones has presented every Herb Graffis Businessperson of the Year award since the award’s inception in 2013.

“I was brought up with Golfdom magazine in my house,” Jones says. “My father and Herb Graffis were very close friends. Herb Graffis was a real visionary in the golf business. He and my father did a lot of business together, and that was during the Depression, so they had to be really creative. It’s an honor every year to honor these people who are deserving in the golf industry for being visionaries themselves.”

This year’s ceremony takes place at 2 p.m., Wednesday, January 31st, at the Golfdom booth No. 3508.

Attend an interactive facility tour

A program now entering its second year, GCSAA’s interactive facility tours take Conference and Show attendees away from the Convention Center to see area courses and listen to industry experts present on subjects vital to the business of golf maintenance. A few of the classes include:

• Tournament preparation, presented by John Deere and hosted at TPC Scottsdale, home of the Waste Management Open.
• The latest in golf tournament management, hosted at Desert Highlands Club and featuring Frank Rossi, Ph.D.
• The technology of implementing BMPs, presented by Helena and presented at Camelback GC.

“They’re all unique topics and the fact that our members are presenting and showcasing their golf courses, you’re going to see them in full bloom,” Evans says. “These are events where you can touch and feel and have that interactive opportunity … it’s definitely something I’m looking forward to and hopefully our member attendees are as well.”

The Ambiente Course at Camelback GC

(Photo by: Dave Sansom)

For those attending the 2024 GCSAA Conference and Show, we hope you’re packing your sticks because the golf this year’s show offers is quite the line-up. Talking Stick, Whirlwind and Camelback are all hosting GCSAA tournaments, and these courses all display the best of desert golf.

The GCSAA Championship will be decided on the two 18s at Camelback, the Ambiente and the Padre. We reached out to Jason Straka, ASGCA, who redesigned Ambiente in 2013 on behalf of Hurdzan/Fry Environmental Golf Course Design, to get some insight on the course.

Prior to the redesign, the course struggled with flooding. The course removed 110 acres of maintained turfgrass in favor of a native mix of desert riparian plants, upland desert trees, shrubs and grasses and a palette of native winter and summer desert wildflowers

“The golf course was so flat that even though it is in the desert, it was unplayable for days after it flooded,” Straka says. “In some instances, the golf course itself might not have received a drop of rain but if it rained in the watershed above the course, it would flood, causing massive maintenance problems and lost revenue.”

The redesigned course drains better and has reduced the amount of inputs necessary to maintain it. The accolades were numerous: Golf Digest named it the best new course of 2013 and Golf Inc. named it renovation of the year in 2014. Greg Brandriet, CGCS, is the superintendent of the course.