The land of forever jobs

Steve Murphy is 72 years old and he’s still rock scrambling on the job.

Murphy stops a cart between the 14th green and a Gannon Municipal Golf Course maintenance building on a brisk late-April afternoon. He walks uphill, through a thicket of scraggly pines, drops his fingers to balance on a rock and lunges toward his destination. A view of the 14th green and 15th fairway emerges.

“Punishment work,” he says.

Murphy wasn’t around when Works Progress Administration workers carved, blasted, and muscled through Lynn Woods Reservation during the Great Depression to build Gannon, an open-to-all facility in Boston’s north suburbs. He has plenty of stories and theories. Murphy believes constructing the former tee hidden in the hillside represented an arduous task for disobedient laborers.

Tough, yet steady work attracted Murphy to golf course maintenance. Murphy started caddying as a 10-year-old at Framingham Country Club in Boston’s west suburbs. When he turned 16, he asked the green chair about a maintenance position. His first job involved pushing a rotary mower. He wore ankle weights to help strengthen his lower body for the basketball season.

In 1976, the toughness helped Murphy wade through New England politics to become Gannon’s superintendent. He was just 25 and a few years removed from studying turf management and science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst’s Stockbridge School of Agriculture.

“Lynn is a very political town,” Murphy says. “I went into the interview place and there were like 50 guys there. I thought I had no chance. I saw one guy waving and asking everybody how they were doing. He knew all these guys. I went in there and said, ‘You guys have a beautiful place here and you don’t know what you’re doing.’ They bought into my BS.”

The job became Murphy’s forever job. Technically, he’s no longer Gannon’s superintendent. Kyle Levesque holds the position and performs admirable work maintaining a course that receives around 60,000 annual “starts” per year, according to Murphy, the co-owner of Golf Facilities Management Inc., the company that operates Gannon for the City of Lynn. Murphy spends multiple days per week at each of the three suburban Boston municipal courses his company oversees — Hillview Golf Course in North Reading and Beverly Golf & Tennis Club in Beverly are the other two — and regularly jumps on equipment to help his superintendents and rock scrambles to scout turf conditions.

Asked what it takes to keep the same job for decades, Murphy, who ended his official 40-year run as Gannon’s superintendent in 2016, immediately offers a witty response. “Knowing how to dance,” he says. “It’s all about playing the game.”

Many of Murphy’s New England peers are similarly adept at grasping the intricacies of obtaining and keeping a forever job. Superintendent tenures spanning decades are the norm throughout a region immersed in longevity and loyalty.

Essex County Club director of grounds Eric Richardson isn’t a native New Englander. But he’s lived in Massachusetts long enough to understand he’s raising a family and holding a desirable job in a special spot. Richardson was in his 20s when he received the head turf job at Essex County Club, a North Shore club one mile from the Atlantic Ocean. Now in his 40s, Richardson has spent 17 years leading the maintenance of a course where Donald Ross worked and resided.

“I have lived across the country and my wife is from Michigan,” he says. “We love it here. When you have a young family, the education is unbelievable. It’s second to none. Once the people embrace you, they pull you in. It takes a while for them to embrace you. They have that New England tough exterior, but they really are about family. The clubs want change, but they really don’t want that much change.”

Richardson is just the sixth turf leader in Essex County Club’s 130-year history. Two of his predecessors, the father-son tandem of Skip and Phil Wogan held the job for nearly 90 years between them. “I don’t know how they did it that long,” Richardson says, “but they did it. You have to be committed. I can’t believe I have been here for 17 years. It’s gone by in a heartbeat. Everybody tells you it goes by faster as you get older, and it’s true.”

Continuity is a major reason for the club’s success and Richardson’s longevity. The group of members making decisions stays consistent and Bruce Hepner has been the club’s architect for more than two decades. Visions are aligned and the club empowers Richardson to make course enhancement and staffing decisions.

Richardson and Hepner have methodically worked to reintroduce elements of Ross’s original design. Ross lived in a yellow house behind the 15th tee. The house remains in the same spot, a visual reminder Richardson is a preservationist elevating something bigger than his own career. The way Richardson sees it, keeping a destination job for 17 years requires unyielding discipline.

“You have to put new challenges in front of yourself to better your operation,” he says. “You have to be self-motivated. The membership, the job or whatever will motivate you, but you have to have that drive. My standards are higher than any member here.”

Performing on the course in New England can lead to a comfortable life off the course. Four New England states are in the top 20 of U.S. News & World Report’s education rankings. Massachusetts is No. 3 on the list. Four New England states also rank in the top 20 of median household income.

Favorable weather compared to other regions also prolongs superintendent tenures. The average summer temperature is below 70 degrees in all six New England states. The changing of seasons represents another allure of working and living in New England.

John Eggleston realizes he’s landed somewhere good.

Eggleston’s route to his current job at Kernwood Country Club, a Ross design along the Danvers River in Salem, Massachusetts, started when a high school classmate asked about his college plans. He told the classmate he intended to study turfgrass science and management at Stockbridge. Heidi Robertson’s reaction surprised Eggleston. “She goes, ‘Why don’t you go work for my dad?’” he recalls nearly 40 years later. Heidi’s father, Dean Robertson, was Kernwood Country Club’s superintendent. Eggleston spent two memorable summers, including one as an intern in 1986, working on Robertson’s crew.

A native of Rowley, 26 miles north of Boston, Eggleston left New England for nearly a decade, scurrying between projects as a construction superintendent for Wadsworth Golf Construction. He returned to Massachusetts in the early 2000s, spent two years as one of Tom Brodeur’s TPC Boston assistants and became Robertson’s successor at Kernwood in 2004. Eggleston is just the fourth superintendent in the club’s 109-year history. “I worked here in 1985 and 1986,” he says, “and there were members who remembered me. That’s crazy.

“When I had my kids, you should have seen the gifts I was getting,” he adds. “And it wasn’t just when they were born. That whole summer, members would come up to me and say, ‘I ordered this and it finally came in for the kids.’ I knew their faces, but I didn’t know some of their names, and they were giving the kids gifts and cards. The way they treat my wife and family is second to none.”

The familial vibe motivates Eggleston, who has collaborated with New England-based architect Robert McNeil to reintroduce Ross features throughout a course with holes along and above the Danvers River. Away from the course, Eggleston purchased his parents’ home. He’s happily entrenched in the Kernwood and greater New England community. His 20th job anniversary is next year; he’s showing no signs of slowing.

“I feel very fortunate,” he says. “You just see horror stories out there, and it’s sad because some clubs don’t treat their superintendent the way they should. I go to board meetings, and I’m always very active on the golf course. They like it when they see me out there working. I’m a working superintendent.”

Work hard. Get treated like family. It’s the New England way, which is the only way Robert Searle knows.

The superintendent at Abenakee Club, a secluded 9-hole course along the Atlantic Ocean in Biddeford Pool, Maine, Searle stops on the ninth fairway to chat with the only other person occupying the course on a sunny late-April morning. Greg Searle is Robert’s father, his Abenakee Club predecessor, and his only co-worker until students provide seasonal help later in the spring.

“Why wouldn’t you want to come to work here every day?” Greg says staring across the parallel ninth and first fairways toward Wood Island Lighthouse. “What else are you going to do?”

Robert asks himself the same question. Still in his 30s and 11 years into his first superintendent position, he works alongside his father frequently and brings his 5-year-old son to the course as he maintains 50 acres surrounded by blue water, marshes, native areas and stylish homes for a supportive membership. Mount Washington, the highest point in New England, is visible across Saco Bay on clear days. The New Hampshire peak towers just 80 miles from the course.

As Robert walks the eighth fairway later in the morning, he spots a member in his backyard and asks, “How was your trip? We’re starting our 125th season today if you want to play.” Besides the Searles, the 12½ acres of fescue fairways, which are only played via walking, remain empty.

“I wouldn’t say it’s all gravy here,” Robert says. “We certainly have issues here, too. But we don’t have a lot of issues. We come in every day, do our job, try to have fun and provide for the members. Not too many issues come with it.”

A Searle has been a golf course superintendent in Maine every year since 1976, when Greg received the job at Cape Arundel Golf Club, the Kennebunkport, Maine, course known for its connection with the Bush family. Greg spent 28 years at Cape Arundel before shifting 10 miles north to Abenakee Club. Greg and Robert, who has spent his entire career in Maine, have transformed Abenakee Club into one of America’s great 9-hole courses. Their ability to improve turf conditions while highlighting the club’s throwback charm has led to a two-decade (and counting) run at the course.

“Members have appreciated what we have done here,” Greg says. “They are so proud of it. When I got here, there were members who never played it. They didn’t want to play here. They are so proud of it now. It makes you feel good.”

Adds Robert, “When we started here, even on a good summer day, you might see six or seven groups. Now it’s all day, every day, people are out here enjoying it. People are bringing more guests out. People really appreciate this place and what we have done. It makes you feel good.”

Twenty-seven miles up the coast, Rob Knott scours the 160 acres he maintains and occasionally reflects on his career journey. A Mainer who left the state to attend NC State University before landing multiple post-college jobs in North Carolina, Knott returned to New England in 2008 for an assistant superintendent position at Shelter Harbor Golf Club in Charlestown, Rhode Island. He moved closer to home in 2014 for the superintendent job at Purpoodock Club, a private course in Cape Elizabeth with nine holes built atop farmland in the 1920s and nine holes built on swampy and rocky terrain in the 1960s.

A nine-year superintendent tenure is meager by New England standards. But Knott knows he could be on his way to stacking years atop years at Purpoodock Club. The club has experienced boosts in membership, play and revenue over the past three years. For Knott, the fifth superintendent in the club’s 101-year history, it feels like a work home close to his childhood home of Gorham, Maine, a small town 19 miles from Cape Elizabeth. Knott and his wife, Joy, have three children between the ages of 8 and 12.

“This was the opportunity where I thought I would go there for a little bit and just see how it worked out,” he says. “My wife didn’t really want to move to Maine, but she loves it here and I don’t see us moving. Our kids are getting entrenched in school and sports and friends and all that stuff. It would be tough to move.”

Knott was surrounded by loyalty and longevity as a child, although he didn’t ponder the meaning of it until returning to Maine in his 30s.

“The loyalty is more of a New England thing — and it’s probably even more a northern New England thing,” he says. “My dad worked at the local paper mill for about 30 years. They always say people are going to have five different careers — or whatever that number is now — in their lifetime. That always baffled me, because I’m like, ‘How do you have a totally different career?’ That’s part of the New England thing. You find something and you do it. I don’t really see myself having another career at this point. My parents did the same thing, and my grandparents did the same thing their whole life. I’m sure there’s good and bad to all of those things. I couldn’t imagine trying to get into the insurance business right now.”

Down on Boston’s North Shore, Murphy has only practiced one business — maintaining and managing golf courses. None of it has felt like “punishment work.”

On the same April day he scrambled rocks at Gannon, he spent a few hours on a mini excavator, clearing trees in preparation to lay 10,000 square feet of sod. Beverly and Hillview are key parts of Murphy’s business, but he’ll always be linked with Gannon, a municipal course that never had a trained superintendent until his arrival.

“It’s all a game,” he says. “I like to say life is a game, you dance with what you got. This place has been fabulous for me, because every day you would make it better just by showing up. Now it’s pretty good … I think.”