It has taken 14 years, but T.J. Anthoine has reached the top of the golf professional world.

The Lewiston native is in his second year at The Quechee Club in Quechee, Vermont, where he is the director of golf for the private resort community that sits in the Ottauquechee River Valley, right on the Vermont and New Hampshire border.

The resort has two golf courses — Highland and Lakeland — along with other amenities, including skiing in the winter, racquet facilities and other recreation options.

The Lakeland course is a flat course on which golfers can see everything around them. It doesn’t make playing any easier, though, as water comes into play on 17 of the 18 holes.

Highland is more of a mountain course where there’s no flat lie on the course and golfers are surrounded by trees.

“It was an opportunity that came up in 2016 — last winter — through the connections that I had and the network I built in the Boston area,” Anthoine said. “They were looking for a pro up here, a couple emails back and forth, a couple conversations up in Vermont, my wife and son, we packed up and we moved up to Vermont.

“Its been awesome; director of golf up here at a 36-hole private facility with two golf courses, with a four million indoor and outdoor pool, skiing in the winter — it’s like an adult playground.”

Anthoine has used his skills at past stops to leave his mark on the club, such as implementing different tournaments. He also credits his 42 staff members that help him run the two courses.

“We work hard and communicate every day about the member-player experience at the club,” Anthoine said. “We have a good team that we built and we are having fun on how busy it is. We just had our first member-member tournament, wrapped on (June 25). It was my first tournament as director of golf. It was fun to kind of change up some things and add some energy to the event.”

He changed where the players ate before and after their round and added side games like skins and cash prizes so everyone was involved.

Building up his resume

To work at a facility like The Quechee Club takes years of hard work, which for Anthoine started right when he graduated from Lewiston High School in 2000. He made the trek down south to Methodist University in Fayetteville, North Carolina, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in business and his PGA certification in 2004.

It was a simple decision to go down south.

“I think it was location,” Anthoine said. “Growing up in Maine, driving down there in late November or whenever it was for college visits and still being sunny and 70, playing golf year-round drove my decision to go south.

“I liked the small feel of the school. Walking on campus as a prospective student and the staff knowing my name, knowing where I was from hit home real quick. Moving so far away, I felt comfortable taking a step that far, knowing how much they knew about me and how much they invested in me as a student.”

He got to learn the business side of golf along with club repairs and running tournaments. He did try to make the Monarchs’ golf team — he played for the Blue Devils in high school — but he was facing stiff competition just to make the team.

“I tried out my freshman year,” Anthoine said. “When I went to Methodist, they just had won 10 national championships in a row in Division III. I remember being a kid from Maine shooting in the 70s and being 10 shots off the lead, kids are shooting the 60s. I never faced competition like that when I was in Maine. Suffice to say, I didn’t make the team my freshman year, and didn’t pursue it after that and focused on the golf management side of the program while playing golf with friends on the side.”

Going to Methodist University also allowed him to take internships anywhere in the country. He stayed local for most of his internships, working for courses in North Carolina, but his final internship brought him closer to home at Brae Burn Country Club in West Newton, Massachusetts. That internship also turned into his first job out of college as an assistant professional.

He knew he didn’t want to spend his entire career down south.

“I am a New England guy, I loved being down south, you know, I made a lot of good friends wherever I went, but I am a New England guy,” Anthoine said. “I always wanted to come back to this area. The club in Boston was a good fit for me out of college. After my internship, it turned into a professional job there. My network started growing dramatically and quickly in the Boston area. I was in the Boston area for 12 years with two different clubs.”

After three years at Brae Burn he moved onto Weston Golf Club in Weston, Massachusetts, as a first assistant, which gave him more responsibilities. He worked there for four years before returning to Brae Burn for a second stint, spending another four-plus years as the first assistant.

Giving back to the game

While he was in Boston, Anthoine had an itch to give back to the sport he loved. In 2011, he became of the head coach at Wayland High School. It was a position he held until taking the job at The Quechee Club.

“That was something I always wanted to do,” Anthoine said. “Playing sports my whole life, being apart of a team my whole life, I didn’t have an opportunity to do that in college. I remember after college, I wanted to get back into some coaching along the line somewhere.”

The opportunity arose when he was giving lessons to a couple of kids that went to Wayland High School and their parents approached Anthoine to see if he was interested in coaching because the team had just lost its coach right as tryouts begun.

He helped guide Wayland to a state title in 2014 and was named the Boston Globe golf coach of the year.

In addition to coaching at Wayland, he also helped out with the local U.S Kids Golf Association.

“I am still a U.S. Kids Certified Golf Instructor,” Anthoine said. “It was something I did four or five years ago when I started out the college thing to keen my skills on connecting with juniors, and when the PGA Junior League rolled out probably four years ago when I was at Brae Burn, we moved on that program as well. We ended up getting 26 kids. It’s like the Little League of golf, it’s a great program.”

nfournier@sunjournal.com

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