Submitted photoJeff Stoefen, a 25-year-old from Bend, poses on the 18th green at Merion Country Club in Ardmore, Pa., after the final round of the 2013 U.S. Open Championship on June 16, 2013. Stoefen, who is the volunteer liaison for the 2014 U.S. Open, has worked for the United States Golf Association during the past two U.S. Opens.

Jeff Stoefen’s name does not resonate with a golf fan like that of a PGA Tour star. The 25-year-old, who grew up in Bend, describes his own golf game as pretty ordinary, no better than a “work in progress.” In fact, most will watch the 2014 U.S. Open Championship, in June at the famed No. 2 course at Pinehurst Resort in North Carolina, without the slightest hint of Stoefen’s contribution to one of professional golf’s four major championships. Still, as the United States Golf Association’s volunteer liaison for the 2014 Open, Stoefen will most certainly have an impact.

Typically, the U.S. Open requires the help of some 5,000 volunteers. Organizing that many individuals from around the country would be a daunting enough task. But because Pinehurst will host the U.S. Open and the U.S. Women’s Open on back-to-back weekends (June 12-15 for the men, June 19-22 for the women), the USGA will utilize roughly 6,200 volunteers over the course of the two tournaments.

The job for Stoefen, who began in February 2013, is to organize the volunteers and their duties. And that is no easy task.

“It’s a lot of work, but it really is rewarding when you stand on the 18th green on that Sunday and kind of see what you helped accomplish,” says Stoefen, who will count this year’s championship as his third consecutive Open working in some capacity for the USGA.

How does a 6-foot-5-inch former Bend High School and Linfield College basketball standout, who has never played competitive golf, land a gig with one of the most prestigious golf tournaments in the world?

That story starts in 2011, when, after Stoefen struggled to find a job with his political science degree, he enrolled in a master’s program in sports management at the University of San Francisco.

“It’s a little bit of a cliché, but people tell you to do what you love,” explains Stoefen. “I wanted to pursue that.”

With San Francisco’s Olympic Club set to host the 2012 U.S. Open, Stoefen saw something that intrigued him: an internship on the USGA’s volunteer coordination management team.

“It sounded real interesting,” Stoefen recalls. “It sounded like a lot of work but a lot of fun as well.”

He was one of three students to land a six-month internship for the 2012 Open, where he would help the USGA staff organize the legion of volunteers needed to do just about everything at an Open short of knocking down a 10-foot birdie putt. (Volunteers man the merchandise pavilion, marshal on course, work in player hospitality or shuttle players around the course, for example.)

Stoefen turned out to be a natural.

“We were really impressed by his work ethic and just how he got along with different people,” says Matti Dubberstein, the assistant manager for the 2014 U.S. Open championships. “He’s a really hard worker and laid-back, but he is able to change on the fly.

“We have plans A through Z, and something doesn’t work out. So you have to be able to go with the flow. He is really good at being able to do that without getting flustered and kind of take the lead.”

The USGA stations rotating teams at three host sites at a time for the U.S. Open. (Currently, teams are set at Pinehurst, 2015 host site Chambers Bay in University Place, Wash., and 2016 host site Oakmont Country Club in Oakmont, Pa.). And all three teams converge on the U.S. Open in the weeks surrounding the tournament.

The nomadic nature of the job, Stoefen says, tends to lure 20-somethings like himself — a single guy who is free to move about the country.

A few months after the Open, he saw a job on one of those teams, organizing the 2014 Open at Pinehurst.

“I kind of jumped on the opportunity and applied for it,” says Stoefen. “I knew the people who were stationed here (Pinehurst) already because I worked with them a little bit at Olympic around the few weeks of the Open, and I was lucky to catch on here.”

The work is hardly glamorous.

Nights, weekends, Stoefen will work them all.

Now he is spending his days managing a database of volunteers. The information includes what sort of work each volunteer is interested in and what days and times they will be available to work.

He is beginning to meet with volunteer committee chairmen, one of whom is assigned to each group of volunteers, to begin organizing the event and scheduling volunteers.

“It’s definitely a long and arduous process at times,” says Stoefen, who also worked at the 2013 Open at Merion Golf Club near Philadelphia.

As the tournament draws closer, Stoefen will work harder.

He expects to be logging between 60 and 80 hours a week soon. And once his army of volunteers reaches the Pinehurst grounds in the weeks leading up to the Opens — not to mention the weeks during play at the two Opens — he figures he will be working close to 120 hours a week.

“He is basically right now the face of the championship office,” says Dubberstein. “Anybody who calls or comes or walks in, they’re going to see Jeff right away.

“He’s doing a great job,” Dubberstein adds. “He’s such an asset to the team.”

Stoefen’s job lasts only through the 2014 Opens, but he is hoping to catch on with the USGA for at least the 2015 U.S. Open at Chambers Bay near Seattle, just to be part of the first Open ever to tee off in the Pacific Northwest.

If not, his experience with the USGA should set him up for his career in sports, he says.

“Every week you are learning something new,” Stoefen says. “Every Open you are doing something different. … It’s definitely valuable experience.”

In other words, he is exactly where he wants to be.

“Everything has worked out so far for me,” Stoefen says. “The sports atmosphere is great. … I feel very fortunate where I am at.”

— Reporter: 541-617-7868,zhall@bendbulletin.com.