What you need to see at the 2025 GCSAA Conference and Trade Show

The 2025 GCSAA Conference and Trade Show is here, and we’re back in San Diego!

For this issue, we wanted to create a practical guide to the San Diego show. So we pulled together the following: the next few pages are a short essay by yours truly of booths and events I’m particularly excited about and interested in; at the bottom of the article, we are providing a spread of the trade show floor.

When you see me in San Diego, stop me and tell me what you think of this new format and what I missed!

So here we go … our guide to San Diego 2025!

Must-visit booths

Syngenta
Booth No. 3937 and No. 4037

Like it always does, Syngenta has a lot going on at the show … so much, in fact, that they’re treating customers to pre-show videos they can watch before the conference. Go here and watch the videos, fill out a form and boom! They’ll mail you a set of Cuisinart magnetic grill lights (I wonder if I can get those?).

At the show, they’re using augmented reality glasses to show attendees how two of their products impact five turf pests. The first 300 attendees who watch these videos will receive a free magnetic cell phone power bank.

“We’re really leaning into innovation with some big new AIs coming to market in the next 12 months,” Mark LaFleur, Syngenta’s communications lead, turf and landscape, says. “That includes one that is a new class of chemistry.”

As usual, I’ll try my best to make sure we’re the first in the industry to break that news once it’s out there. Oh, Mark also wanted to let you all know that at the above website, you can sign up to get a calendar reminder for the Health in Action 5K run that goes along the San Diego Bay and through Embarcadero Park. Syngenta sponsors the run. There is a 5K, and new this year is a 2K. The race takes place Tuesday at 7:30 a.m. Proceeds support the GCSAA Foundation. Somebody let me know how that one goes.

Kress
Booth No. 5152

Here’s a company making its first trip to the GCSAA Conference and Trade Show: Kress, a robotic mower and handheld electric equipment manufacturer, who you’ve seen in the pages of Golfdom over the last few months. Kress invited a group of superintendents and Golfdom (exclusively) to the Santaluz Club in California a few months ago. We’ve also seen this company at the 2024 Equip Exposition in Louisville, and most recently, they were turning heads at last month’s Golfdom Summit in Orlando.

I talked to DJ Johnson, Kress’ executive vice president of sales, while we watched the KR236 quietly go back and forth on the Reunion Resort driving range. Johnson was fresh off making a hole-in-one the previous day (his second one ever). Johnson says the company has had a lot of interest from the golf market since they started their robotic golf division nine months ago.

“Labor’s an issue for everyone — consistency of labor, productivity of labor, efficiency, etc. And robotic mowers help reduce that problem by cutting 24/7, 365 days a year, if necessary,” Johnson said. “And most courses love to talk about how inefficient it is to cut rough. These units are ideally suited to cut rough, so we can move that labor to other places on the golf course that are more critical for play and mechanical support.”

Kafka Granite
Booth No. 5445

As much as we write about maintaining greens, fairways and roughs in the magazine, we also want to give equal space to the importance of other areas of the course. That includes walkways and cart paths. Our friends at Kafka Granite recently partnered with the National Alliance for Accessible Golf to celebrate their efforts to help superintendents make the course ADA-compliant.

You can see Kafka Granite either at their booth or at the Sustainability Showcase outside the front of the San Diego Convention Center — it’ll be open Monday through Thursday.

“(Kafka Granite) gives you all the benefits of a paved surface, like concrete and asphalt, with a lot of extra benefits,” says Dan Hannan, business development manager for Kafka Granite. “It ties into the natural beauty of the course, and there’s a lot of flexibility to it. It gives you a lot of freedom to work with, all while eliminating erosion, dust and mud. It just cleans everything up and looks way better than anything else (superintendents) can put out there.”

NanoOxygen Systems
Booth No. 1710

Something I’ve been learning more about over the last few months is a new technology that’s burst onto the industry … NanoOxygen Systems. This company has only been around for a few years — last year was their first GCSAA trade show, and last month, they made their inaugural appearance at the Golfdom Summit. Many of the attendees I spoke with said the presentation put on by this company was particularly exciting.

I spoke to Ron Pote, owner of the company, and he told me that any superintendent who sees them at their booth or the Sustainability Showcase will learn about why water quality is important to their turf health and how they can monitor it and control it.

“It’s so critical to improve their water quality, and we now have a way to do it,” Pote told me. “Most superintendents have to deal with whatever they have. They never had a way to make it better. This is a brand-new technology, it’s very exciting for them — and the fact that we have 15 courses that have the system now … it’s a proven technology.”

Porous Pave
Booth No. 2317

The team at Porous Pave offers superintendents a recycled product from truck tires. It’s useful for multiple applications, from the golf course to the parking lot and clubhouse. This product has applications for cart paths, bunker liners and a new application for a mulch-like product for beds and steep slopes that wash out. A. John Harvey, ASGCA, ASLA, says the most useful applications are on bunkers — either steep slopes or flat areas — but the product’s flexibility gives it multiple applications as superintendents learn about it.

“It’s very versatile because it is a pour-it-in-place material,” says Harvey. “It could be a decorative pavement around a clubhouse or even a halfway house or a bathroom facility out on the golf course that instead of using a traditional hardscape, we have a softscape. It’s earth tone color in the landscape arena, so it blends and melds more appropriately with the colors that we find on our earth.”

Must-attend events

Rhett Evans’ Mount Everest talk

Mark your schedule for the Sunrise Celebration on Wednesday, Feb. 5. Headlining the event will be GCSAA CEO Rhett Evans delivering his presentation, “Time’s Up! Lead Out!” which tells the tale of his experience summiting Mount Everest.

I’ve had the good fortune of seeing this presentation twice, once at the National Golf Foundation Annual Meeting and once at the Rocky Mountain GCSA Annual Meeting. Evans told me both were shortened presentations based on a packed speaker schedule and time limitations. I’m excited to see how Evans does when it’s his schedule, and he can deliver his entire presentation.

The photography and videos he took while on Everest are stunning. I won’t give away any of the presentation here other than to say — whoa. If you want to leave a room feeling motivated to step up your game and overcome some challenges, this is the talk for you.

Welcome Reception at the USS Midway

On Monday, Feb. 3, at 6:30 p.m., the show starts off with a patriotic bang. USA! USA!
The USS Midway, the U.S. Navy’s longest-serving aircraft carrier in the 20th century, will host the Welcome Reception. There are more than 20 aircraft you can get up close to while also seeing your colleagues from around the nation.

Start your afternoon off in the Gaslamp Quarter, then make your way to the USS Midway. By the way, the reception includes a drone show.

PBI-Gordon, take me out to the ballpark

Petco Park, home of the San Diego Padres, is traditionally one of my favorite party spots to catch up with attendees from around the country when the GCSAA show is in San Diego. This year, our friends at PBI-Gordon booked that spot for an event, which takes place Tuesday night, 6-10 p.m.

“We’ve been doing these (parties) for the last 10 years, and I have to say, each event has just gotten better and better,” says Brett Rieck, regional manager, PBI-Gordon. “Of course, we welcome all of Golfdom’s readers to the event; there’s no need for an invitation. Just wear your name badge from the show, and we’ll see you at the ballpark.”

The Field Irish Pub
There’s one more stop I have to recommend — our annual Friends of Golfdom (FOG) party at the show.
San Diego is a favorite location for us because, for the last several shows in San Diego, we have reserved the same place — The Field Irish Pub, 544 5th Ave. This year, we’ll be there on Tuesday, Feb. 4, from 8-10 p.m. The pub is legit, and I speak from experience — the couple who founded The Field shipped a pub, piece by piece, from Ireland to San Diego.

If you plan on joining us, scan the QR code here. I hope to see you there … or on the Midway … or on the pitcher’s mound at Petco Park … or wherever we bump into each other in San Diego.

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