I feel like I have been a nomad since leaving home for the desert many years ago. My first taste of the shaping lifestyle was at Rock Creek interning for Tom Doak and the Renaissance team, living on a cattle ranch with 4,5,6 other guys? After college, a potential shaping job for Gil Hanse fell through, then I turned down a job working at Clear Creek Tahoe with Coore & Crenshaw (Thanks James Duncan for talking me out of it?) Instead, I was off to China with Schmidt-Curley for 5 years, probably 90% of that time overseas, it was a mix of office work and trying to tell shapers what to do onsite, they didn't want to listen to a 22 year old (most of them, ok, almost all of them). I met my wife over there, then brought her back to the states at the same time China stopped almost all golf construction.
Somehow I managed to get back in the shaping world with C&C at Sand Valley. My wife has happily traveled with me to this day. Work slowed down a bit in 2018, I waited around until Spring not knowing if I had any work for the year and got a call to help out Gil and Jim, that year, I spent about 6 weeks at Pinehurst #4, 3 months a Merion, 1 month at Southern Hills and about a month and half back home working at Oakmont with C&C. I found out my wife was pregnant while working at the Sheep Ranch, and now we are almost full circle going into my 2nd year working with James Duncan and C&C at Brambles.
I started shaping life on the road in 2020 with a baby when she was about 2 months old, Oakland Hills was our first stop during the peak of the first Covid wave and lockdown. We had to drive 5 hours back home to Pittsburgh for a 3 month checkup and vaccinations (out of state health insurance is not really an option). I did my best during the pandemic to keep myself and the family away from people so we all avoided the bug, including a 4 day drive across the country in early June. I'm looking forward to getting back home during the 2021 holidays to show the baby off to the family. To me that will be the hardest part of life on the road with the little one, so much of her early years will be missed by friends and family until we decide to finally settle down somewhere, wherever and whenever that may be.