Photographing a golf tournament amid 67mph winds and near horizontal rain is quite the challenge (all be it quite fun!). However, after 72 holes of gloomy skies and pretty flat light for photography (see first picture of Welsh golfer Lydia Hall as an example of the inclement weather conditions) the cold, wet and wind was all made worth while by a sensational sunset as the winner, South Korean Jiyai Shin, strolled down the 18th fairway to sink the winning putt and seal victory. The spectacular colours in the sky made for some of my favourite golf photos I’ve ever taken.

The beautiful Buckinghamshire Golf Course played host to the Ladies British Masters, one of the top tournaments on the Ladies European Tour featuring top name players including Laura Davies, Melissa Reid and Carly Booth.

I was commissioned to photograph the event by a Portuguese golfing magazine who coincidentally happen to sponsor the eventual winner, a Welsh talent named Lydia Hall. Below are some photos from the event.

I recently photographed Dunboyne Castle Hotel and Spa in the idyllic Irish Meath countryside just outside of Dublin city centre for a magazine feature and spread. The luxury four star hotel with 145 spacious rooms is where both the American and European teams will be staying during the Solheim Cup tournament at Killeen in a few weeks time.

Last week, I spent a few days photographing Killeen Castle, just outside of central Dublin, which will play host to the 2012 Solheim Cup in a few weeks. The Solheim is the female equivalent of the Ryder Cup and already extensive preparations were being made with grandstands being erected and scoreboards being prepped.

You certainly can’t forget you’re in Ireland at Killeen. With it’s Shamrock shaped Bunkers, the Jack Nicklaus designed course centres around a magnificent 13th Century Celtic castle which you approach up the last. The course recently hosted the women’s Irish Open and is replete with photographic water features and challenging doglegs proving a stiff test even to the most proficient golfer.

Here’s a behind the scenes video of a shoot I did for Middle East Golfer magazine recently put together by an excellent fellow photographer Tutti Del Monte:

As part of my regular monthly flagship feature for Middle East Golfer, I recently traveled to Sarasota, Florida to photograph The Concession golf club a course designed by two legends of the game Jack Nicklaus and Tony Jacklin. The 7,470 yard course offered spectacular views over its 18 holes which offered ample opportunities for photography; I even spotted a few alligators in some of the lakes lining the immaculately cut fairways! The course was named the “Best New Private Course” in 2006 by Golf Digest Magazine and I greatly enjoyed my afternoon in the Floridian sun shooting the vast sand traps, sloping greens and natural water features. As always with this feature, I also got to photograph some of the excellent food on offer in the clubhouse (always a highlight!). Below are the results of the feature which were just published in the May version of the magazine.

Thanks to Tutti Del Monte Photography for the behind the scenes shot.

Given this morning heralded the start of the Masters tournament at Augusta, I thought it was appropriate to post something golf-related. Concurrently today the new issue of Middle East Golfer magazine was also published and my regular monthly photographic feature “One Course Meal” focused on the famous Sunningdale Golf Course, one of the most prestigious courses in the UK. As usual, I spent a day at the club photographing the signature holes along with the clubhouse, facilities and of course the food on offer. Below is a digital copy of the spread.

“My worst day on the golf course still beats my best day in the office”

Anonymous

As part of my ongoing assignments for the magazine “Middle East Golfer”, last month I photographed the historic Wentworth Golf Course in the UK for my regular feature ‘One Course Meal’. The magazine has a readership of almost 1.5 million people and my ongoing brief is to showcase each course in a unique and artistic light to an Arabian audience. As part of the feature, I spent quite a bit of time shooting the notoriously difficult 18th hole on the West Course, recently redesigned by the South African golfer Ernie Els before moving into the delightful surroundings of the Wentworth Grill to sample and shoot the delicacies on offer.

Wentworth is steeped in tradition and both the course and clubhouse were a joy to photograph throughout my day there. I’m hoping to return in the Spring when I’ve heard the course comes alive with the vivid colors of early bloom; apparently the famed rhododendrons are a must see! Below is a digital copy of the final feature which was printed in the February version of the magazine.

You may remember a couple of weeks ago, I wrote a blog post about my first feature published for “Middle East Golfer” (a magazine with a circulation of over a million people) from a shoot where I got to photograph gorgeous tree-lined fairways bursting with fall color in the late autumnal sun. This month the editors set me an all together more challenging task by asking me to follow up with a similar feature but, this time shoot a course in the snow in mid-December. Indeed, photographing a golf course in Winter was a daunting proposition at first given the mass expanse of sheer whiteness, lack of definition in the landscape, freezing temperatures and perhaps most importantly the absence of any golf buggy to carry me and my equipment around in!

Consequently, I spent a few hours traipsing around the course on foot with my tripod slung over one shoulder and my lenses over another trying to find interesting perspectives or unusual angles that could bring the course to life even in the depths of Winter. Unfortunately, on the day of the shoot there was little to no sunshine which only added to the flatness of the scene. I therefore deemed it necessary to draw out detail and accentuate shadow, highlight and contrast by employing HDR on this Winter, tundra landscape. The temperature was approximately 10 degrees Fahrenheit which, meant that I was trying to work fast as I knew a cup of hot chocolate was waiting for me back in the club house. Therefore, after shooting a series of panoramas and bracketing my exposures as much as I could while out in the field, I headed back to the warmth of the club house to defrost; whilst there I was also lucky enough to sample and photograph some of the food on offer for the feature.

Below are the sample pages from the resultant spread in the magazine. Enjoy!

I was recently commissioned by a large and popular golf magazine “Middle East Golfer”, a monthly glossy that circulates across Europe with a particular focus on the Middle East and Arab markets; the editorial has a distribution of approximately one million. My brief was to photograph some prestigious golf courses for a new feature article that was to run as the center fold of the magazine showcasing some of the best holes and food on offer to golfers at a variety of different courses.

The premise of the feature “One Course, One Meal” meant traveling to numerous courses photographing one each month,in a unique, creative and artistic way. Through my photography, I hoped to demonstrate the beauty and intricacy of the course design especially the signature holes and then capture and review the food on offer to the punters in the clubhouse following a round (one of the added perks of the job!). Below is the result of the first feature which was run in the November issue of the magazine. Click on any of the images to view the pages larger if you would like to read the article. I’m looking forward to shooting some more courses in the coming few months.