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WSDOT spokesperson Laura Newborn said the men work 65 to 70 hours a week and are entitled to take an extended lunch break and spend it hitting golf balls if they so choose.

"Please know, if this were state employees in the same situation, this would not be permitted," Newborn wrote in an email.

The men spotted at Interbay Golf Center are managers who supervise crews working on various parts of the replacement project, according to WSDOT spokesperson Laura Newborn.

Over the past month, KIRO Radio has spotted STP trucks at the golf center three to four times a week. On several occasions, workers hit golf balls at the range for nearly an hour and a half before returning to the job site near South King Street and Alaskan Way.

"It seemed strange to me or odd to me," said a tipster, who emailed KIRO Radio's Dori Monson to say he had regularly seen the trucks at the golf center, starting in April.

It was the third day in a row that week that workers for Seattle Tunnel Partners, the company awarded a $1.35 billion contract to replace the aging Alaskan Way Viaduct with a deep bore tunnel, took a break from the project to practice their golf swings.

On a sunny day last week, four men jumped out of pickup trucks marked with "Seattle Tunnel Partners" logos, retrieved their clubs from large toolboxes, and walked into Interbay Golf Center in Seattle.

With Bertha at a standstill, project managers find time to practice their golf swings