Far left: After 12 years in the Royal Australian Navy, Josh Cuch has carved a successful career as a turf equipment technician, with stints at Royal Adelaide and now The Australian Golf Club Left: ‘Allenby’s rake’ takes pride of place in Cuch’s workshop office
in the office. I needed to do that to get to a level I was happy with. I felt like I was chasing my tail a fair bit and we had a few issues with machinery set up, stuff that I wasn’t expecting or overlooked. But it made me aware of the things I’d have to be on top of come the next tournament.” With a successful 2014 Open out of the way, Cuch wasted little time in making the necessary adjustments to his side of operations. One of the first things he did was reorganise the maintenance facility to house the club’s fleet better as well as spending a few thousand dollars on tarpaulins (when he first arrived a vast amount of machinery was stored uncovered outdoors due to space restrictions). With the support of Beal he turned over a lot of old machinery and also upgraded the workshop’s hoist and grinding equipment. The biggest change made, however, was to general record-keeping. Beal now has full and quick access to meticulously kept maintenance
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about longevity of reels and bedknives and the best techniques to keep then sharp over a period of time. I’m lucky I had that time at Royal Adelaide to develop my skills and it was great of Nathan to invest that time in me.” After two years in Adelaide and with his partner wanting to move back to Sydney, Cuch came across a similar role advertised at The Australian Golf Club. After doing some homework on the club, Beal and his maintenance operations, Cuch applied and just two months out from the 2014 Emirates Australian Open joined the crew. Not only did he have the prospect of getting all machinery in prime nick for the Open – the club’s first since the $5 million course redevelopment – Cuch had the substantial task of setting up new systems and processes. Cuch’s Navy training kicked in again and while it was another steep learning curve he managed to get through his first major tournament relatively unscathed, even if he did have to camp the week inside the workshop. “When I arrived here, the machinery condition and maintenance facility was far from where I wanted it to be,” recalls Cuch. “I have that government mentality where everything is over-maintained so coming from that background I was quick to make a lot of changes. The Navy taught me the importance of doing things right and attention to detail. “I worked some long days for the month or two leading up to that Open and then for the week of the tournament I brought in a camp bed and slept here
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