Jim Evans rises before the sun for his commute to work, not even passing a stoplight on his drive to The Cliffs at Keowee Falls, a golf community in rural South Carolina. He starts each day doing the thing he loves most — mowing the greens.

“It’s my passion. I love taking a mower out there and being by myself and experiencing all the different surfaces and making sure the equipment’s working properly,” he said. “There’s a part of the morning that really is special to me. It’s right around sunrise — that dawn, the colors of the sky, the star field. That’s my favorite part of the job: being outside and engaged in physical activity all day.”

As The Cliffs at Keowee Falls’ superintendent and senior agronomist, Evans is responsible for all the outdoor spaces at the community, including its 160-acre, 18-hole course full of rugged boulders and waterfalls. He likens his job to a marriage between art and science, working with the land and nature to provide the best possible course conditions.

In addition to the community’s daily maintenance tasks — mowing, weeding, mulching and irrigating — Evans’ team tackles larger-scale projects like replacing worn bridges and refurbishing pump stations. His role also involves a good amount of outreach; Evans teaches classes for community homeowners, explaining golf course conditioning and offering advice on the right sod to plant for their specific climate and location.

“We are right below the Blue Ridge Escarpment … snuggled up against the mountains, right below Lake Jocassee. It’s absolutely a stunningly beautiful place to work — the vistas, the environment. It’s rural, to give it the very least description,” Evans said. “It’s very unusual in this day and age to be able to work in such a high-quality environment in such a remote area.”

Evans’ journey to discovering his passion was also atypical. Originally a marketing and management student at Florida Southern College, Evans took a part-time job at a golf course while interviewing for full-time marketing roles after graduation.

“I really, really loved working at the golf course,” he said. “I didn’t think about it until I went to Boston for an interview.” But when his prospective employers stepped out of the room to talk at the end of the interview, Evans wasn’t hoping he got the job — he was thinking about the golf course instead.
“I was in a boardroom with windows facing out and thought, ‘Gosh, it’s a beautiful day.’ I looked at my watch, and I said, ‘If I can get out of here, I can get back to the golf course and finish up a project I was working on,’” he said. “And I was like, ‘Oh my God, what am I doing?’ It was like a slap in the face as to what direction my life needed to head.”

A few months later, Evans enrolled in the turfgrass management program at the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (CAES). Three years later, he graduated with an internship at Augusta National Golf Club, where he worked for the next 10 years. He still returns each April to work the Masters Tournament.

Almost 20 years after that interview in Boston, Evans is exactly where he should be — mowing the greens every morning, getting in tune with the environment under a gently waking morning sky.