19th Hole: Joshua Stutts
Joshua Stutts
Superintendent // Lane Tree GC, Goldsboro, N.C.
Joshua, what are you having? I’ll have a lemonade and Blackberry Crown.
That sounds pretty good! Yeah, and dangerous.
Tell me about Lane Tree GC. It’s about 10 minutes outside Goldsboro, which is the home of Seymour Johnson Air Force Base. It’s a John LaFoy design on about 130 acres — it’s a big property. The same guy who built it in 1992 has owned it since day one. I’ve known his family for a long time; I went to school with his grandson. I’m only the fifth superintendent here, and the third is the general manager.
Tell me about your family. I’m married and have two daughters. Carlynne is in eighth grade, and Nora is in fourth. My wife, Ashley, is an eighth-grade teacher; she teaches language arts, she has my daughter in her class — so that’s been fun. I get to hear it from both sides. “Guess what momma did in class today?” Come Friday afternoon, most of the time, my daughter comes home and says, “I’m packing my bag and going to Grandma’s!” Grandma lives across the road from us.
We have a Halloween theme in this issue. Anything in your mind stand out as particularly spooky or horrifying, from your years working in the industry? It’s pretty typical for our industry to rely on retirees for labor. I had a guy out mowing greens, and he called me and said, “My mower stopped!” “Why so?” “Well, I’m out of hydraulic fluid … I busted a line three greens back.”
What do you and the family do for fun? My kids wanted N.C. State (football) season tickets for Christmas last year, so that was a win-win.
What is your favorite thing you own? Probably my side-by-side. I can just go and ride, turn the music on and go. Mine is a Hisun. It’s a cheapo off-brand, but it’s made in Texas. It gets the job done. I bring it out to the course some, but my best friends are big farmers, so I hunt most of their property. It stays at their farm more than it stays at the house.
What is your favorite spot for lunch? We’ve got a really good restaurant here at the club. The girls in the kitchen have kind of spoiled me. On Fridays, we get seafood, and I’ll go into the kitchen and get a wrap — fish, shrimp, whatever. I’ll come back out, and everyone’s looking at me, “Where’d you get that? That’s not on the menu …”
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