At 4:30 a.m., Henry Boeschen ’27 rolls out of bed. By 5 a.m., he’s sitting on a lawnmower at the Stanford Golf Course, tending to the turf while the rest of the campus sleeps.
Early mornings are routine for greenskeepers — the behind-the-scenes workers who maintain the playing surfaces of the golf course every day. Boeschen, however, is the only undergraduate student on the Stanford crew. Once he clocks out, often around 10 a.m., the international relations major showers and heads straight to class.
What gets him up before dawn? Guaranteed outdoor time, green grass and the free golf.
“Sometimes, I’ll feel like a zombie when I get out there,” Boeschen said. “But then you start, you wake up and it’s fresh and kind of therapeutic.”
Boeschen first learned greenskeeping during a summer job on a ranch in Oregon, returning to the craft at Stanford during his sophomore fall. Although the endless hours of precise mowing initially frustrated him, he grew to find patience and satisfaction in laying perfect lines for golfers.
Last quarter, Boeschen took a break from the greens to study abroad in Florence. According to his friend Vincent Zhou ’27, however, Boeschen never forgot the greens he left behind.
“We met up in Amsterdam, and he would just reminisce on the smell of the grass, and he was wondering how his grass was doing,” said Zhou, who was studying abroad in Paris at the same time. “He really felt ownership over the greens.”
Greenskeeping, Zhou added, is very on brand with Boeschen, who loves the outdoors and often gravitates towards non-traditional jobs. The two friends were freshman-year roommates who bonded over their “granola” personalities, with Boeschen often leading their friend group on outdoor escapades.
Zhou recalled outings to scenic viewpoints near campus, Point Reyes and a hidden castle just off dodgy backroads in Boeschen’s hometown of Napa, California. Boeschen is often the relentless planner who wants to really get to know the places he travels to. The former roommates have already begun thinking about their senior trip, and will likely ride motorcycles through the Silk Road.
Boeschen mainly helps upkeep the Siebel Varsity Golf Training Complex, the 20-acre practice facility that serves as a laboratory for Stanford’s top-ranked varsity golf teams. The complex has a variety of custom features and conditions — including four grass strains and three sand types — that allows for experimentation and exposure to every possible scenario.
Thus, greenskeepers have to do more than mow lawns. They also maintain bunkers, move pins, monitor moisture levels and treat the grass to keep it green. When Boeschen is stuck on mowing duty, which he often is, he turns to history podcasts and audio transcriptions of his school readings to pass the time.
Boeschen is what his friends call a “history buff.” Zhou said he listens to history podcasts in the gym rather than music. His expansive knowledge makes it easy for him to strike up conversation with anyone, strangers included — and nearly impossible to win an argument against.
Once, during a gym session, a casual inquiry from Zhou sent Boeschen down a rabbit hole researching the Tatars.
“After we left the gym, he made a group chat with me and [our friend] Roome, and said ‘Apparently, Tatars are Sunni Russians for the most part, which is fun,’” Zhou said. “And he pulled up a report on the Tartarston referendum on sovereignty. It’s a 10-page document, a very early case of absentee ballots and he was just super into the political implications of this early civilization.”
Last year, when Boeschen served as president of Phi Kappa Psi, late nights sometimes bled into early mornings. At times, he would show up to work with no sleep. He was also once a videographer for Stanford football and now serves on the RedZone committee, which aims to increase student participation at Stanford Athletics events.
His goals for the near future are to shoot even par on the Stanford course, though he admits he is nowhere close. An international relations major concentrating in international security, he plans to pursue a career in diplomacy after graduation.
Although golf course management continues to interest him, Boeschen said he is saving the bulk of his time on the course for retirement.
“The grass is always growing,” Boeschen said. “There’s always something to be done.”