Bubba’s Backswing

Bubba, the woodcarving sculpture creation of artist and golfer Jeff Olson.

An oak tree between the seventh and eighth fairways at Stonehedge Golf Course in Egg Harbor has been given new life and a new name – Bubba.

Golfer and artist Jeff Olson, whose woodcarving sculptures are a familiar part of the Door County landscape at Not Licked Yet in Fish Creek and the Peg Egan Performing Arts Center in Egg Harbor, created Bubba.

Olson’s media includes wood, ice and limestone, and he is currently working on a limestone sculpture for the Edgewood Orchard Galleries. Bubba was carved with a chainsaw and chisel. Olson said that he didn’t trim the stump down, but kept its height for the sculpture.

“I pretty much used what we had there,” he said.

Bubba is much more trunk than stump, and his smooth wood figure rises above the human golfers on the course. Bubba wears a baseball cap and his body is frozen in the middle of a backswing. It looks as if a giant, wooden cousin of Elmer Fudd has wandered onto the course.

The tree from which Bubba was created was cut down in 2013, and Stonehedge owner Jon Oswald saw the potential for a piece of art.

“I called Jeff Olson,” he said, “Right away we started throwing around ideas.”

Olson and Oswald considered carving the trunk into a totem pole, with the faces of Tiger Woods and Arnold Palmer on it, but ultimately the knots in the old oak tree sealed Bubba’s fate.

Jon explained that the knots were perfectly positioned for the backswing and to create the hands. After creating Bubba’s hands and body, a golf club was added.

“The final touch was to add a golf club to his hands and at first Jeff was going to use a metal pipe with a wooden club head but then the thought of a lightning rod came to mind and he made one out of wood,” Jon wrote in a press release.

Olson said that after the wooden club was placed in Bubba’s hands, someone had tried to swing from it. “We drilled a couple of holes in it,” he said, “so if they try it again it will snap.”

Once Olson had completed the sculpture, Jon noticed it was still without a name.

“A local kid here came up with the name,” he explained. After submitting the name Bubba, the kid (named Luke), was rewarded with a free round of golf for his family and with Night Flyer and logo golf balls.

“A lot of people were putting their dad’s name and other things,” he said, “One kid wanted me to name him Barney, but Barney didn’t cut the mustard.”

Oswald said he chose Bubba out of the submitted names because “it was a catchy name,” that he “liked a lot.”