Man from New York walks into a bar in New Zealand . . .
Actually, he was at a golf course, not a bar; and he walked into the superintendent’s office. But he was from New York, he was down to his last $500, and Jeff Stein’s story isn’t a joke.
So there's no punch line.
Instead, there's an enthralling testament to the human spirit. Jeff Stein's story tells us: If you’re willing to pick up stones for four hours a day over a two-week stretch, and if you’re willing to join crews in Brazil and Italy and Uruguay and England and Australia and, yes, New Zealand, to toil in the sand and dirt to learn about this business that you love so much, well, maybe your commitment and diligence and perseverance will someday pay off.
Guess what? The letterhead is proof positive that dreams do come true. It reads, “Stein Golf Design,” and the logo that is emblazoned with his motto (“Design. Build. Finish.”) offers lovely proof that Jeff Stein’s sense of adventure and a relentless work ethic has delivered him into a world that “is beyond my wildest dream.”
How Jeff Stein has arrived at having his own golf design company and getting involved with an assortment of plum assignments – from a classic gem on Long Island like The Seawane Club to the delightful Ocean Course at The Olympic Club in San Francisco to a an unheralded nine-holer in New Hampshire, Hooper GC, that checks all the boxes when it comes to pure golf enjoyment – is a story that’s been told for years in this proud profession.
“You are put to a test,” said Stein. “They want to see if you’ll put the work in.”
So just as Jim Urbina, now renowned for his design prowess, got into the business in a fashion that didn’t sit well (he told an interviewer that he spent his first day digging ditches and quit), Jeff Stein had an inauspicious introduction to this line of work that has become his livelihood.
Hired by the folks at Bandon Dunes, Stein in December of 2008 and January of 2009 was assigned to the crew working on the Tom Doak / Jim Urbina project called Old Mac. It was the fourth course at Bandon Dunes, which by this point had become a phenomenon, so Stein understood the chance he was getting.
“I had been politely annoying with Tom,” laughed Stein, who for years had harbored a “creative curiosity” about golf courses. He loved the game, played a lot of the municipals growing up in Westchester County, and continued as a varsity golfer at Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass.
But as much as he loved golf, “the business field (in the game) was not very attractive,” he said. Ah, but the design stuff? It ignited a fire within and after putting together a portfolio for Doak to look at, Stein at least got an invite to meet Doak in Traverse City, Mich., at his first design, High Pointe.
“It was just a handshake and lunch,” said Stein, who got this advice from Doak – drive over to Crystal Downs, Dr. Alister MacKenzie’s epic design. The famous 310-yard, par-4 17th with its left-tiling fairway “blew my mind” and Stein was smitten.
“I had an epiphany,” said Stein, who from that day on was determined to work in the business and often checked back in with Doak. Through Doak, Stein met Urbina and so it was considered a stroke of good fortune that seven months after accepting his college degree he was on site building Old Mac.
Only Stein wasn’t exactly doing the same work as Doak and Urbina.
It's never too early to get you thinking about golf, right? Here's an enticing photo of the first hole at Hooper GC where Jeff Stein has been busy with a restoration plan.
“For the first two weeks I would clock in at 7 a.m. and go out to where the third and 14th holes shared a fairway,” said Stein, adding that the famed “Ghost Tree” on No. 3 was a view he looked at every day. Yards of gravel had been spilled and Stein’s assignment was to pick up the rocks by hand.
“I was on hands and knees for two weeks,” he said. “I thought I was going to go crazy but then I had another epiphany. I said to myself, ‘you’re on a golf course and you could be doing something worse; so if they want you to pick up rocks, you will pick up rocks.’ ”
Stein assessed his lot. Yes, it was grunt work; but he knew that Bill Coore had cut his teeth in this business working for Pete Dye. Ditto Urbina and Doak, and Gil Hanse had started working for Doak’s Renaissance Golf Design at High Pointe.
Doak had studied the great courses of England right out of college and Hanse had devoted a year of his college curriculum in Scotland, focused on all the nuances of iconic links like The Old Course, North Berwick, and Prestwick. Stein was similarly ambitious, so off he went in 2010 to Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand.
He played a lot of golf, caddied some at Cape Kidnappers, a Tom Doak masterpiece in New Zealand, and pursued job opportunities.
Which is a segue into that day at Wanaka Golf Club when Stein walked into the gentleman’s office and asked if they needed any help from an experienced greenskeeper from the U.S. The man said no; he did, however, know that a nearby golf course needed help with a renovation.
“Can you work a skid bucket-loader?” the man asked.
“I lied through my teeth,” laughed Stein. He said he was capable and so he had his first international job.
It would not be his last because in Brazil in 2015-16 he worked on Hanse’s crew building The Olympic Course in Rio and renovation work at Gávea Golf & Country Club. He was part of the RTJ crew that worked in Italy, and there was time spent in England.
But it was while working Doak at the Dismal River Red Course in Nebraska that Stein witnessed workmanship “that was inspiring.” It was followed by a visit to nearby Sand Hills, arguably Coore and Crenshaw’s best work, and there he met Dick Youngscap, the owner of Sand Hills. The inspiration was doubled.
By 2020 Stein had worked at dozens of sites with Coore & Crenshaw, Doak (Old Mac, Dismal River, Garden City), Hanse (Merion, Quaker Ridge, Ohoopee, Baltusrol), Urbina (Rockville Links, Ocean Course at The Olympic Club), Robert Trent Jones Jr., and Mike DeVries. From an intern crew member to an apprentice to an associate or shaper “it was a competitive environment” but a rousing educational experience which Stein wouldn’t trade in.
Going off on his own in 2020, Stein has earned high praise for his eye for restoration work.
At Seawane, Stein is bringing back much of the original intent of Devereux Emmet and giving golfers a links experience.
At the Great Dunes Course at Jekyll Island GC in Georgia, Stein is working with a Walter Travis design that will provide golfers the rare chance to play a municipal course with ocean views and dynamic sand dunes.
But it’s the work Stein has been doing at Hooper that is most intriguing. Though it dates back to 1927 and was designed by the distinguished duo of Wayne Stiles and John Van Kleek (Taconic GC, Pine Brook and Prouts Neck are three other acclaimed courses owed to them), Hooper was pretty much under the radar until 1988 when in his “Confidential Guide” Doak wrote:
“I racked my brain trying to think if I’d ever seen a better pair of opening holes and in the moment, anyway, I could think of none.”
That’s right, Doak felt little Hooper up in Walpole, N.H. (summer pop. 3,717) not only offered two opening holes that were the best in the country, but he judged it to be the second-best nine-holer, too.
Having been involved in restoration work since 2023, Stein is equally enamored with this course that sits at the top of Prospect Hill Road. “We had great aerial photographs and it’s become almost an archeological dig,” said Stein. “We’ve restored bunkers that has been taken away and taken away bunkers that were added.”
But there is no messing around with what sits at the heart of Hooper GC – a community spirit and endearing respect for the beautiful craftsmanship of Stiles and Van Kleek.
“The hype for Hooper is very real and I’m very humbled to be involved,” said Stein.
One could suggest that it was this humility that led him to pick up all those stones and to put in the work and pass all the tests put on him. In other words, he earned it.
