ON THE CUTTING EDGE

Thousands of superintendents at the GCSAA Show prove the lesson plan is nearly as important as the buying plan.

TWO SHOWS in the same building, held two weeks apart. The first was so jammed with booths spilling out products it was difficult to maneuver among nearly 43,000 other attendees. By comparison the second show, with half the people, seemed spacious and almost languid.

The first was the PGA Merchandise Show, an annual adventure in foot weariness at the million-square-foot Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Fla. If the layman cannot win a U.S. Open or land a Masters badge, this would be a coveted gig to crash.

The second was the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America's 67th International Golf Course Conference and Show. Forget that the event is one of the game's legendary run-on titles. The GCSAA Show mirrors the Merchandise Show as marketplace extraordinaire, then goes one better; it's a week packed with educational seminars and roundtable discussions on myriad topics. It appears slow, but appearances are deceiving.

Four days of meetings and educational seminars were held before the GCSAA Show's debut. While the preliminaries included the GCSAA's playing championship, the week carried as much emphasis on learning about Poa annua as buying a new greensmower.

"What is the most significant thing you've learned at an educational seminar?" the GCSAA's Showtime '96 newspaper asked in a man-on-the-street feature. The answers ranged from human resource management and job satisfaction to drainage, irrigation and utilizing organic waste. And this was before the doors flew open on the merchants and their wares.

The comparisons between the two shows were made possible when the GCSAA's nomadic event chose the cavernous building that annually plays host to the PGA Show's sprawl. Last year the GCSAA Conference, which includes healthy participation from the USGA's Green Section, landed in San Francisco, and next year it goes to Las Vegas. The club pros have made Orlando their Capistrano.

The shows diverge not only on what they offer to buyers, but how they display those better mousetraps. Probably 90 percent of what is shown to the convivial club pros can be lifted with one hand: clubs, balls, sweaters, mementos. The larger booths are walled off, a hint of the carnival barker in their one-upmanship marketing.

The superintendents enjoy an air of camaraderie, with few walls blocking the panorama. At the GCSAA Show probably 70 percent of the stuff can't be hoisted with two hands, let alone 10: sprawling fairway mowers, pump platforms that weigh tons, choppers and shredders for fallen trees. It's almost as if this show says: Go ahead, kick the tires.

The tires, though, are nearly a secondary priority. It was the rare educational session with open seats; the USGA Green Section's conference on the last afternoon offered 1,300-plus seats and still was standing-room only. The mid-week environmental session, moderated by Arthur Miller, the Harvard law professor and ABC-TV legal editor, kept a buzz in the aisles for days.

"You're not going to find many people more interested in the environment than golf course superintendents," panelist William (Tim) Hiers told the audience during the environmental session. "We derive our income from it. We derive our self-esteem from it. It's important to us."

That, more than anything else, is what sets the GCSAA Show apart.

-- Brett Avery