GOLF: Summers on the green

Published 10:59 pm Wednesday, April 30, 2008

EVERETT — For upwards of eight months a year, James Stucky is almost constantly on the go.

As the equipment manager for the Everett Silvertips hockey team, he endures a grueling season with long hours in ice rinks and long bus rides to such far-flung Western Hockey League outposts as Moose Jaw, Swift Current and Medicine Hat.

As much as he loves hockey, the offseason is a time for rest and renewal. And like a lot of us, Stucky finds it on a golf course.

The difference, though, is that golf is not just Stucky’s recreation, it’s his offseason work. Because from April, or whenever Everett’s WHL season ends, until the new season opens in mid-August with training camp Stucky is a member of the greens crew at Everett Golf and Country Club.

The 16-member crew — eleven, including superintendent Mike Conklin, work year-round — is on the job at 5:30 in the morning. They mow grass, groom bunkers, set up tee boxes, tend flowers and trees, and do assorted other landscaping tasks, all with aim of keeping the EG&CC grounds attractive and playable for the members.

And for the 34-year-old Stucky, it’s the ideal offseason job.

“I really enjoy coming out here,” he said. “If you sit on a mower all day, sometimes that doesn’t even seem like work. It’s fun.

“I have no desire to do this as a living, but I really enjoy the summers and the crew. I’m an early guy, so I like being out here early, cutting grass and doing all that goes with that.”

With the Silvertips, Stucky is the team’s go-to guy for odd jobs. He works with budgets and places orders for equipment, coordinates team travel including buses and meals, and manages the locker room, which means he does laundry and folds towels.

Although he is employed year-round by the team, there is little to do in the offseason (a contrast to the 70-80 hours a week he works during the season). So instead of idling away his summers, he applied to work at EG&CC five years ago.

“I’m just one of those people that has to have something to do,” said Stucky, who grew up in Burien and graduated from Seattle Christian High School in 1994. “And I’m a real green thumb by nature. I love working in the yard and doing things like planting stuff and cutting grass. It’s a hobby of mine.”

Stucky, then, was a natural to join the greens crew at EG&CC. The only problem was his schedule. If the Silvertips make a long run in the playoffs, he might not be available until late May or early June. Also, he has to return to his hockey job in mid-August when the golf season is still at its peak.

“I’m real fortunate that they’re pretty lenient with that (at EG&CC),” he said. “They hold this spot for me pretty much every summer.”

“James has a great attitude,” Conklin said. “He has quite a sense of humor and he’s enjoyed by the staff. Everybody looks forward to his return (at the end of the hockey season). He fits in really well, he’s well-liked, and he does a good job.”

Not every day on a golf course is fantastic, of course. Rain and cold are as unpleasant for the workers as they are for golfers. But the tradeoff is the chance to work on a beautiful piece of property, and then to try and make it even more so.

“A lot of times,” Stucky said, “they’ll tell you to take your time with something because it’s more important to do a good job with cutting or edging or raking, as opposed to just hurrying to get it done. My sense is that it’s more important that things look top-shelf here all the time.”

Exactly true, said Conklin, who has been at EG&CC three years.

“When everybody is trying to do all the little things that come with every job,” he said, “it can bring a level of quality and level of detail. And when everything comes together, it’s really (great) and really appreciated.”

The job satisfaction, he added, is similar to “a guy building house. Because when you’re done you get to look back at what you did. And it’s the same way with a golf course.”

A top superintendent and a good greens crew is obviously indispensable to a golf course, whether it’s a private club or a public course. Nothing upsets golfers more than shoddy fairways and scruffy greens, which is why it helps to have workers who enjoy and understand the game themselves.

Conklin’s crew tends to include workers who “have been around golf. A lot of them have a strong interest (in the game) to begin with. So they know golf and they like working at a golf course,” he said.

And that pretty much describes Stucky.

“Sometimes,” he said, “I’ll be driving around and I’ll see a guy mowing a city park, and it just doesn’t have the same allure to it, you know? It’s just different working here.”