Stodghill ready to grow ESYCC

Pictured: from left, Chris Stodghill, the new general manager of the Eastern Shore Yacht and Country Club with his wife Maggie and their three sons, Issac, Lucas and Benjamin.

By Bill Sterling

Chris Stodghill needed no introduction to the club or its members when he was recently named the general manager of Eastern Shore Yacht & Country Club. Stodghill, 43, and his wife Maggie with their three sons live on the fourth fairway of the golf course and have been active and energetic members of the club for the past six years.

“My family and I love this place and all it has to offer,” said Stodghill recently, at his office after a quick game of pickleball that morning. “We use the pool, the tennis courts, play golf, and enjoy the restaurant. The opportunity to serve the members and guests of the club was just too great to pass up.” 

As a member of the club, Stodghill was active, serving as chairman of the Pool and Activities Committee and implementing new events from Top Golf on the driving range to a variety of live entertainment and events in the clubhouse, including teen pool parties and video game tournaments.

He did all that despite frequent travel involved as site director and community relations director with the National Counseling Group. “I enjoyed my career immensely, and my wife and I talked about it and also prayed over the decision to leave NCG.” Indeed, Stodghill speaks fondly of the career and co-workers he just left, mentioning the late Sharone Bailey, in addition to Marion Long, Wayne Bell, Shelia Turner and David Richardson.

Stodghill said it came down to time with his family. “I was driving to Virginia Beach and Norfolk quite often, and here I am just around the corner at a place where I already spend a lot of time. My boys are active in all sorts of sports, and I coached Pop Warner League football for three years and have coached Little League baseball for just over 10  years. So it just was a good fit, but the important thing is it allowed me to continue to do what I love: determine the needs of a community and then provide service to fulfill those needs.”

Stodghill has an athletic background. Born in Oklahoma City, he was raised in San Diego from the age of 8 and then came east to play quarterback at Chowan College in North Carolina after two years at a junior college. Graduating with a degree in psychology, Stodghill played well in a Division III college all-star game and impressed a coach, who convinced him to play semi-pro football with the Virginia Ravens in Richmond. He was named an all-conference quarterback in the Mason-Dixon Football League in 2004 and 2005, as well as being the second team punter in 2005. The Ravens won two Mason-Dixon league championships and an East Coast National Championship in Stodghill’s time with the Ravens. 

He met his wife when answering an ad in the Richmond Times-Dispatch for a door-to-door sales position. She was the trainer. Raised on the Eastern Shore, Maggie is one of five daughters of Dr. Frederico and Jo Ann Molera. “I married into a wonderful family,” said Chris, whose parents and two siblings are scattered from North Carolina to Missouri to Arizona.

Maggie sells real estate for Coldwell Banker Harbour Realty and arranges floral creations in her shop in Onancock. Both parents are often at a ballfield with one of their three sons. The oldest, Benjamin, is a senior at Nandua High School and will be attending Hampden Sydney College next fall, planning to play baseball and possibly golf. The middle son, Issac, is a sophomore at Nandua High School and plays baseball. The youngest, Lucas, is a sixth grader at Montessori School in Franktown and will attend Nandua Middle School next fall. The Molera family has been instrumental in the formation and operation of the Montessori Children’s House of Franktown, and it was Maggie and a childhood friend who worked to reopen the school after she moved back to the Shore with Chris so their children could experience the same educational start she and her sisters had.

Relationships are important to Stodghill. He praises the work of course superintendent Andrew Howard, who with a staff of seven maintains the course. “We have the original greens from over 60 years ago when the course opened, and they are in excellent condition, thanks to the work of Andrew and his staff,” he said. “This job would be overwhelming if it wasn’t for Blake Johnson running the food operation with the help of Dana Floyd, who has known my wife’s family forever because of her directing ‘The Nutcracker’ for many years. Amaris Mazziott, our business manager, has helped me to get up to speed in this job. The pro shop staff, led by Harper Matthews, have also been great to work with,” said Stodghill, who had an early morning meeting with the golf committee the morning of this interview. 

Stodghill knows golf and the needs of golfers firsthand. A mid-iron shot from his house sits the fifth green, where he has aced the 174-yard par 3 hole twice, one year and a day apart. “I know I will be playing golf this year on Sept. 11,” said Stodghill, who explains it was on that date in 2020 he made a hole-in-one on the fifth hole. And then on Sept. 12 the following year, using the same hybrid 3 club, he duplicated the shot. “It was a different ball,” noted Stodghill, a 15-handicapper who said that neither time did he see the ball go into the hole, thinking it went just over the back of the green. His wife was in the foursome for the second hole-in-one, making it that much more special. 

But the relationship Stodghill credits most for his new position was the one he had with the former general manager, Monika Bridgforth. “What Monica did here has been simply amazing. Membership at one time after the fire destroyed the clubhouse had dipped to below 200, and now it stands at 487. It’s a daunting task to try to fill her shoes, but at the same time she has established so many programs and built such a strong foundation that I just need to tweak it as the need develops. I worked with her closely as a volunteer at the club, and when she realized she would be leaving to spend more time with her family, she talked to me about this job and piqued my interest to the point I had time to think about it. She was very encouraging.”

Another note of encouragement came from the first president and founder of the club, George McMath, in the form of a letter Stodghill has pinned on the wall, where he can easily see it from his desk. McMath, who as a young man in his 20s in the early 1960s, gathered community leaders and started the process to form a country club even before there was land available, wrote to Stodghill, saying the position he has now assumed is about “serving the community while providing recreation and entertainment for its members.”

“That sums up exactly what I want to do here,” said Stodghill.

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