Bill Stevens’ first job on a golf course was picking up cigarette butts. Each morning before he went to high school, he’d walk around Wahconah Country Club in Dalton, Mass., where his father had been the greens superintendent when the club first opened in 1930. The shift starting at 6 a.m. may not have been his dream job at the golf course, but merely being out on the fairways and greens was enough for the 16-year-old.
“Depending on how you fast you worked, you could relax and enjoy the beauty … quietness of the golf course,” Stevens, now 65, said.
Stevens spent three summers at the club, eventually upgrading to piloting riding mowers and tractors.
“If you drove the tractors, you were part of the crew. You were semi-important,” he said, laughing.
It turns out corralling butts was the start of a long career on the links. When it came time for college, Stevens decided to follow his father’s footsteps by enrolling at the University of Massachusetts for a two-year degree in golf course maintenance in 1966. There, Stevens learned the science of the greens, from how to cut grass less than an inch high to knowing how to cure grass diseases.
After almost 50 years of working in the golf maintenance business and 42 years on the greens at Albany’s Wolferts Roost Country Club, Stevens stepped off the grass to retire this past April.
“With the demands of the job, I kind of neglected the house for a few years,” Stevens said.
Perhaps ironically, Stevens was never much of a golfer and has not played the game at all since rupturing a disc in his back in 1989. Newly retired, he mowed his own lawn last week for the first time in more than a year. After spending 32 years as green superintendent at Wolferts Roost and working close to 80 hours a week perfecting the club’s grass, his own didn’t seem as important. The country club sits on 150 acres of land off of Van Rennselaer Boulevard, with the 18-hole golf course on 130 of them. The greens are “the most important.”
“They’ll take up maybe two to three acres on a 150-acre site … very intensively maintained. Cut grass at less than an eighth of an inch. At times we’re down to ten thousandths of an inch. We’re talking about grass cutting really low,” Stevens said.
Stevens picked up some of his grass-cutting skills while interning at Waubeeka Springs Golf Course in Williamstown, Mass., during college. There, he was promoted to the foreman’s job, earning a “whole 10-cent raise for working as the foreman over the other students.” He said he enjoyed the responsibilities.
Yet when Stevens graduated in 1968, he didn’t take his diploma and jump directly into a job on a golf course. The day he was supposed to walk at graduation, he headed off to Miami, Fla., instead.
“I became a bum,” he said. “I hopped on my motorcycle and went across the country. I knew I was going to get drafted eventually and I wanted to see the country.”
He spent the next five months traveling to 36 states on his motorcycle, including Hawaii. While in California, he got the call that his letter had come.
“Back in those days, when you went to Vietnam you didn’t expect to come home. Or if you did come home, you thought you were going to be crippled,” Stevens said.
He spent 10 months in Vietnam, getting out early and without a scratch. When he returned home at 21, his father had been commuting from Massachusetts to a golf course at Mohawk River Country Club in Rexford, and told his son the greens superintendent at Wolferts Roost had a heart attack and was looking for an assistant. Stevens moved to Colonie and worked directly under then-superintendent John Espey for eight years.
“I thought I was ready to be superintendent, but he taught me a lot of the art part of it,” Stevens said, adding that there is both an art and science to maintaining a golf course. “You learn the science in college and you learn the art by working for the people in the business.”
In 1978, Stevens officially became the greens superintendent at Wolferts Roost, which he said was “both scary and exciting.”
“We had a great relationship,” said Wolferts Roost General Manager and CFO Pat Culligan, who worked with Stevens for 22 years. “He’s one of the hardest working people I’ve met. In the middle of the summer he’d get here at 5 a.m., and still be here until 5 p.m. He’s very dedicated. He gave his whole career to Wolferts Roost.”
Over the years, Stevens said what’s changed the most are the chemicals used on the greens, especially ones used to treat diseases.
“Back in those days, people didn’t realize the damage the chemicals were doing to the environment. They took care of the diseases, but also harmed the environment,” Stevens said. “Now, there’s a lot safer chemicals for the environment and people.”
A month into his retirement, Stevens said he’ll remain a member of the Northeastern Golf Course Superintendents Association, but wants to spend time with his family and rebuild his motorcycle. Aaron Madison, of Old Westbury and whose family also has a tradition of greens management. Stevens said his best piece of advice to any greens superintendent is to focus communication, especially within the crew.
“That’s the secret of a superintendent … you have a good crew,” Stevens said.