MyTURN
Going Strong
There’s no slowing The Signature at West Neck’s Jim
Hughes, one of the nation’s oldest full-time golf pros
I
by JIM DUCIBELLA
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in 1988. While there, he entered the PGA
apprentice program and eventually went
to work for the late Claude King at Lake
Wright in Norfolk.
(Trivia, Part I: Hughes and Claude’s son,
Cavalier Golf and Yacht Club pro Keith
King, received their memberships on the
same day.)
Fourteen years later, Hughes was off to
The Signature, first as an assistant then to
director of golf when present head pro Rory
Wickstrom joined the staff and showed he
had the chops to be what Hughes called “a
great professional we needed to promote.”
Hughes modestly undersells his duties
as director, from the mundane like putting
on the coffee, grabbing the newspaper,
opening the shop, filling in for Wickstrom
and/or Nathan Mitchum when they have
child-care responsibilities and, sometimes,
pulling out the carts.
But he also makes sure the receipts from
the day before balance out, oversees Wickstrom’s handling of merchandise, the staff’s
tournament management and probably a
dozen other duties.
“This is the most fun I’ve ever had,” he
said, “and it’s what keeps me going. My
wife (of 53 years) passed away in 2002, and
I have nothing else to do, really. I love golf,
but there’s no way I could play three or four
times a week like a lot of the members do.
This keeps me active.
“I try to take two days off a week, but
even then I go in for a few hours, just to
make sure everything’s going along.”
There wouldn’t be enough hours in a
day for Hughes if he chose to spend all of
his so-called “golden years” with family. Hughes and his wife had six children.
They’ve provided him with 23 grandchildren, who have paved the way to 31 great
grandchildre