REGIONAL PROFILE REGIONAL PROFILE
Over the past seven years superintendent Sean Stuchbery and his crew of two have helped improve the turf surfaces at Bundaberg Golf Club out of sight
Bundaberg Golf Club,QLD Some 385 clicks north of Brisbane is the regional city of Bundaberg. Home, of course, to a famous Aussie spirit, it is also home to Sean Stuchbery, course superintendent at Bundaberg Golf Club.
Bundaberg GC received two Toro zero-turn mowers as part of a community benefit grant last year
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Superintendent: Sean Stuchbery (35). Nickname: Stuch. Family: Wife Sophie, sons Sam (9) and Alex (6). Period as a superintendent: Seven. Association involvement: AGCSA (seven years), STA Queensland and GCSAQ. Turf management career: I did my apprenticeship at Bargara Golf Club from 1997-2001. I then worked as a qualified greenkeeper before moving overseas, working as a summer casual (April-October) at Kirkbymoorside Golf Course in Yorkshire from 20032008 while playing cricket there. I then returned to Australia to take up the superintendent role at Bundaberg Golf Club. Qualifications: Cert III Turf Management (Grovely TAFE). Give us a bit about your background and how you came to be a superintendent. I have always been into sport and it always fascinated me how turf surfaces varied, whether for golf or my first love cricket. While at high school I volunteered at Bargara Golf Club during the school holidays and loved it so much that I soon had a cylinder mower of my own and would regularly try and turn mum and dad’s backyard into a lawn bowls green. The thought of being able to do this anywhere in the world got me thinking and the interest just grew from there. I saw it as fun and not a job and today I still look at it from that perspective. When I first started at Bargara, the superintendent there was the highly regarded Mark Gahan. I was
AUSTRALIAN TURFGRASS MANAGEMENT 18.3
only a 15-year-old volunteer but I watched him and as a boss he was always the first to get his hands dirty and do the little jobs. Mark probably wouldn’t even remember me, but it’s small things like his work ethic that I remembered most about him and I thought I want to be able to do what he was doing. Everyone would ask his opinion and I thought I’d love to have that knowledge and skill that he possessed, so that inspired me to take on an apprenticeship. The superintendent when I started my apprentice was Steve Balchin. Steve and I still talk on a regular basis and bounce ideas off each other. We talk chemicals and rates as Steve was someone who I remember for his spraying and I wanted to know more about how the chemical side of turf management worked. Steve also had the great ability to get Bargara’s greens very fast and frightening come the annual Pro-Am. After I finished my apprenticeship at Bargara I really wanted to play cricket in England and through some contacts I eventually secured a contract with Pickering CC in North Yorkshire. The club captain’s nephew was a greenkeeper at the local Kirkbymoorside Golf Course and as part of my deal to play cricket I worked at the golf club through the summer – it was the perfect package. It was a great couple of years and I met some wonderful people and got to experience many things that I will never forget, like the time a badger ran out in front of me and I was so scared I took off and jumped in the back of a car!