The 19th Hole: Steve Loughran

By |  June 12, 2015 0 Comments

Superintendent //  Rock Ridge CC, Newtown, Conn.

Steve_Rock-Ridge-19What are you drinking?

I love the Brooklyn Summer Ale this time of year.

Tell me about Rock Ridge CC?

It’s a nice private 9-hole course in beautiful Newtown. Very family oriented. It’s a pretty special golf course — a beautiful design, and even though it’s nine holes, you go through it twice and you see many different shots.

And you recently rebuilt a green?

We rebuilt the ninth green. Prior to rebuilding, it was severely pitched from back to front, not many pin locations. Back in the ’50s, when the green was mowed at higher cuts, you could get away with it.

Favorite club in your bag?

My driver, a 913 Titleist D3, 9.5-degree. It’s a stick.

Are you getting out there to play as much as you’d like?

I get to play a lot of golf at my club with my membership — it’s my public relations night. It’s one thing to send out an email blast, another to go play golf with the members. That’s where you really get to answer questions, and it’s an easier setting.

And your family — you and Amanda became parents recently?

We have a 7-month-old baby girl named MacKenzie.

Getting any sleep?

Not anymore since she just started teething. It’s fun though, she’s starting to laugh, giggle, crawl all over the place, she’s a very happy baby.

What are your teams?

I’m a New Yorker through and through. Born and raised in Staten Island, so I’m a Yankees fan, a Rangers fan, a Giants fan.

Did you enjoy speaking to the students at Jacobsen’s Future Turf Managers event?

It brought me back to when I was there (as a student) in 2007. It was nice to see a lot of young faces, just to pass along a little of my experiences as an assistant and now a superintendent. They were eager to get the most of the situation.

As interviewed by Seth Jones, June 2nd, 2015.

Photo: Seth Jones

This is posted in People

About the Author: Seth Jones

Seth Jones, a 25-year veteran of the golf industry media, is Editor-in-Chief of Golfdom magazine and Athletic Turf. A graduate of the University of Kansas School of Journalism and Mass Communications, Jones began working for Golf Course Management in 1999 as an intern. In his professional career he has won numerous awards, including a Turf and Ornamental Communicators Association (TOCA) first place general feature writing award for his profile of World Golf Hall of Famer Greg Norman and a TOCA first place photography award for his work covering the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. In his career, Jones has accumulated an impressive list of interviews, including such names as George H.W. Bush, Samuel L. Jackson, Lance Armstrong and Charles Barkley. Jones has also done in-depth interviews with such golfing luminaries as Norman, Gary Player, Nick Price and Lorena Ochoa, to name only a few. Jones is a member of both the Golf Writers Association of America and the Turf and Ornamental Communicators Association. Jones can be reached at sjones@northcoastmedia.net.


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