Here are the opening paragraphs from an article I wrote about golf photography last year. I've posted this on my blog before, but I think it is worth airing again.

First impressions

Like curry, politics and religion, photography prompts an immediate response. Indeed, unlike other media, there is no pause, delay or interruption when you look at a photograph - you either love it, or you hate it. For some, however, the issue of photography goes far beyond merely preferences.

“I can’t believe they don’t get it,” exclaims an incensed magazine editor. “Good photography can make such a difference to their coverage.” Sitting quietly, I let the respected journalist let fly, venting his fury on golf clubs that clearly don’t agree with his assertion. With 22 years under his belt, the daily search for images for his market-leading magazine has clearly left its mark.

I have heard this so many times from editors. Faced with a dearth of good photography, they inevitably fall back on clubs that do provide good-quality images that capture the spirit of the game and instil a desire to play. That, after all, is what golf-friendly magazines, websites and newspapers are all about. The result is clubs with good photography get greater coverage. 

Proud to be home

I have just posted new images of Forrester Park as part of a photography project I am working on with the Fife Golf Partnership. The idea is to shoot a series of courses around Fife that perhaps don't get the recognition they deserve.

It has been a fascinating exercise.

Despite growing up in St Andrews and bringing up my two sons with my wife in Fife, I haven't really had an opportunity to study in any depth the courses outside my front door, so to speak. I remember playing them as a kid and I have often driven past them wondering what they would be like to shoot, but more often than not my work has taken me further a field, until now.

Fife is awash with interesting, quirky and quality layouts that many visiting golfers have never heard of, nevermind seen. Now that I have had my chance to photograph some of them, I hope I have captured something of what makes them special.

Anyway, here's the link to the Forrester Park images. Let me know what you think.

http://www.markalexanderphotography.co.uk/ForresterPark/

 

New images

Just posted some new images of Ladybank Golf Club. As ever, these are best viewed by selecting the full-screen option on the right-hand side of the website window.

I will be working on more images this week so you can expect further galleries to follow soon.

Let me know what you think.

 

http://www.markalexanderphotography.co.uk/Ladybank/

Higher power

Here's an excerpt from an ode I wrote about golf tees. It was first published in Golf Illustrated. Hope you enjoy it.

LOVE FOR AN ELEVATOR

From its earliest beginnings, the humble golf tee has been often overlooked and taken for granted. Well, no more

Golf is a game built on confidence. With it, your swing becomes effortless, your thoughts pure and the outcome of each shot preordained. Nirvana found. Without it, golf becomes a tortuous test of self-resilience that can be as much fun as a poke in the eye.

Confidence is key. It can mean the difference between a golfing high and calamitous low. It drives golf club and ball sales around the world and, wonderfully, at the start of every hole, the gods of golf offer us a precious taste of it in the form of the humble tee peg.

It may seem like a small thing, but a ball perched on top of a tee is both iconic and reassuring. Discussing the value of the common tee in a 1965 issue of Sports Illustrated, Jack Nicklaus asked: “When you can have a perfect lie, why give yourself a mediocre one? This is a question I ask… when I see golfers, both good ones and bad, hitting a tee shot on a par-3 hole without teeing up the ball.”

Although clearly not favoured by the world’s greatest player, failing to use a tee is certainly within the confines of the game. In fact according to the R&A’s eleventh Rule of Golf, a player is permitted to hit a tee shot from the ground (which includes irregularities in the surface), from sand or another natural substance. This ruling harks back to the days when golfers teed up the ball using a pile of sand or fashioned mounds of earth as impromptu perches. Indeed, some players still follow this approach; Laura Davies being one.

If you choose to follow the Golden Bear’s advice and tee it up, it would be advisable to choose a conforming tee that is no more than four inches in height, doesn’t indicate the line of play and doesn’t influence the movement of the ball or generally assist you in any way. These stipulations are important because if a player were to use such a tee he could find himself being unceremoniously disqualified and duly marched from the course. A conforming tee may be a godsend, but using one that is not could have severe consequences. You have been warned.

Teaching pros will tell you that using a tee properly will raise the ball above the top of the grass thereby cutting down your chances of hitting a fat shot. More crucially it can prevent blades of grass being trapped between the ball and the clubface enabling the club to attack the ball cleanly producing maximum backspin on the greens. All this results in more accuracy, greater consistency and, ultimately, lower scores. Who would have thought a couple of inches of plastic or wood could do so much?

With so much going for them, you might imagine the first tees were snapped up by golf fans eager to get their hands on the latest game-improvement technology. Apparently not. When the American dentist William Lowell patented the Reddy Tee in 1921 (so named because the tee was painted red), it had been 22 years since the first tee patent application had been lodged; coincidentally also by an American dentist called George F Grant. Unfortunately the intervening years had not enamoured golfers to the idea who refused to play with the pegs despite them being handed out for free. It was only when Walter Hagen received $1,500 from Lowell for endorsing his Reddy Tee that the idea sparked the public’s imagination and the idea caught on.

 

Links beauty

The summer in Scotland (the first for about six years) has been wonderful, producing ideal conditions for hard and bouncy fairways and slick and fast greens. At Muirfield and St Andrews, we saw Majors decided over historic courses that for once, bit back.

Now I know there is a deep love for all things links, but I wonder if our love of salt-laiden air and lively turf is purely derived from the playing experience, rather than aesthetic appreciation. As a photographer, I love shooting all kinds of courses – links, heathland, parkland, clifftop, resort; you name it, I’II shoot it. The objective is to select the features that make each course stand out. For me, a big part of what I do is discovering beauty in what I find in front of me.

A links course that has been exposed to the relentless sun and wind and then exhaustively managed to within an inch of its life, is a spectacle of humps and hollows that conjure up fear and excitement in equal measures. I have just finished processing a batch of images of a course that looks as wonderfully linksy as I have seen for a long time, but I wonder if the viewer sees it the same way.

We all know that seaside turf is special. The fun, difficulty and possibilities it provides makes links golf a joy. But, when you see a true links course, brown and bare, does this titillate like an image of Augusta would?

 

Let me know.

 

Resurrection men

A story of a fabled links designed by Old Tom Morris convinced a group of fanatics to rescue the forgotten layout hidden somewhere on Scotland’s Western Isles. Intrigued, Mark Alexander finds out how they did it

Golf can do funny things to people. Perhaps it’s the smell of the grass or the undulation in the greens. It could be the pressure on the first tee or simply a good walk followed by the pleasure of a pure strike that does it. Whatever it is, it is a powerful potion.

Of course some of us are more susceptible to golf’s charms. The golfer who diligently takes his weekly direction from the club pro or elopes to sun-drenched fairways while his bank balance, and wife, scream that he shouldn’t. From the unquestioning commitment of the youngest member of the club to the die-hard determination of the oldest, golf instills a love that few sports can match.

On South Uist, where 20 miles of brilliant-white shell beaches run continuously down the west coast of the island, that love has inspired a monument to golf. Lying roughly 60 miles west of the Scottish mainland, somewhere towards the outer extremities of the UK, a golf course has been built, by hand, on a pristine stretch of stunning linksland. Most importantly, it has been built by those who treasure the game and its origins.

“It was pure golf design,” admits golf course architect Martin Ebert, “and one of the best bits of land I had ever had the opportunity to work on.” Martin was one of an army of volunteers who have willingly given up their time over the last six years to secure Askernish Golf Club. “It was the pure love of golf. The project wasn’t really commercially orientated; it was more about making it as good as we could and hopefully re-finding some of those Old Tom masterpieces.”

You see, despite Honorary President Kenny Dalglish officially opening the club in the summer of 2008 and club captain Donald MacInnes hitting a sweet opening tee-shot with an aging hickory iron, the club has history, and plenty of it. In fact, records show the club stretches back 120 years to a time of tweed coats, white beards and snug-fitting bonnets. Indeed, the twists and turns of this enigmatic place were first conceived in 1891 by the grand master of golf himself; Old Tom Morris. This is a place of resurrection.

“There is no doubt,” Martin insists, “all the evidence is here that Old Tom was striding these links. It’s every architect’s dream to work with land of the highest quality, but to follow in Old Tom’s footsteps is something special.”

How Old Tom Morris came to be on a Hebridean island at the age of 70, just a few years before his death, is an intriguing tale. How a respected golf course architect together with a band of esteemed industry experts and fanatical enthusiasts returned 115 years later to unearth his lost course could easily become a poignant Hollywood script.

There can be only one

While East Lothian basks in the media spotlight, there is one course that perhaps deserves a little more of the limelight. Here's an excerpt from my Golf Illustrated article on Musselburgh...

 

Being the first golf course ever has a certain ring to it. It’s a title with added pizzazz and status. So significance is it, you would think it would be easy pick a winner. But it ain’t

 

Some birthdays pass by in a blink of an eye while others stay with you forever. Reg Dean celebrated his big day by going into the record books as the undisputed oldest man in Britain. He celebrated his birthday from his bed safe in the knowledge he had reached the top.

At 110, he had every right to take it easy while the national papers and news channels pounced at the opportunity to celebrate his landmark age. It is, after all, human nature to mark the achievements of others, especially when those achievements are unsurpassed. Reg celebrated his record in style. It’s a pity the same can’t be said for the World’s oldest golf course.

Until recently this title resided in the ancient, free-draining turf of the Old Course at Musselburgh, which is located just six miles east of Edinburgh. The unassuming links, which is encircled snugly by a horse-racing track, was home to some of the greats of the game. Legends like Wille Park Sr and Jr, Mungo Park, David Brown and Bob Ferguson all made a name for themselves here. It is believed the game-transforming Guttie ball was developed in the club-making shops that surrounded the course and, as significantly, six Open Championships were decided at Musselburgh which eventually got its full complement of nine holes in 1870.

During a golden era when the tentative green shoots of the modern game were first emerging, Musselburgh was, without question, at the centre of it all.

 

To find out more, visit http://www.golfillustrated.co.uk/

 

In good company

So what is it really like inside the clubhouse at Muirfield? Here is an excerpt from my Golf World article explaining just that.

What lies behind Muirfield’s gates is a club of speed-loving members who would do anything for good lunch as Mark Alexander finds out

As entrances go, Magnolia Lane is special. The colourful blooms provide the ideal lead up to Augusta. Yet despite all its reverence, some would argue it pails into insignificance against the walk from the car park, along Duncur Road and onwards to the gates of the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers. For some, this is as spine-tingling as it gets.

With the sound of flight bags being dragged across the tarmac and the wind whistling through the trees, the 200-metre walk gives you tantalising glimpses Muirfield’s fluttering flags through the wrought iron lattice. Beyond, groups of traditionally clad golfers stride across the links in jovial form bolstered by the heat of competition.

Only the world’s great golf clubs give you that feeling. The aura of the place takes over and your heart starts to pound and your eyes widen. Pushing against the heavy iron gate, you enter in hushed deference. This is, after all, where Tom Watson and Ben Crenshaw were dutifully vilified for playing a couple of extra holes with hickories on a quiet Sunday evening. The fact that Watson has just won the 1980 Open Championship with Crenshaw coming third was of no interest to the club’s notorious secretary P.W.T. “Paddy” Hanmer, a retired Royal Navy captain.

For more information visit http://www.todaysgolfer.co.uk/magazines/golf-world/2013/golf-world-magazine-open-issue/
 

Open invitation

No matter where you are or what you are doing, the week of the Open Championship is a spin-tingling point in the year when golf does something very special indeed. Every year in July, all the bickering stops and we all settle down to find out who will be this year’s Champion Golfer. Best of all, it takes place where all great golf happens; on a links course.

And this year’s jamboree could be a cracker. It has all the ingredients of a great tournament. A course that swirls around the East Lothian coastline mixing up requisite shots at every turn. A clubhouse that is stern and iconic, and best of all, the weather seems to be playing its part with the sunshine gods shining brightly on the links at Muirfield. The turf has been baked and the rough has grown long. It’s almost time to get this fiesta of firm and fast golf started, and I can’t wait!

To whet your appetite, check out my images of the fabulous Muirfield links.

http://www.markalexanderphotography.co.uk/Muirfield2/

New images

After being on and off the road for a number of weeks, I have at last found time to update my blog which I have neglected shamefully.

Back in the office, I am preparing for a series of shoots here in Fife which are long overdue. I just hope the good weather continues.

In the meantime, check out my pics form a recent trip to Malaysia, which is a hot, humid and stunning place. Enjoy.

http://www.markalexanderphotography.co.uk/DalitBay/

Long game

Could Canon’s new EF200-400mm f/4L IS USM EXTENDER 1.4x be the ultimate zoom lens? To find out, I asked Getty shooter Andrew Redington

In sports photography prime lenses rule, so when specialist golf photographer Andrew Redington (Getty Images) moved from a fixed lens to a zoom, it raised a few eyebrows. But, as CPN writer Mark Alexander finds out, the interest in this lens – Canon’s new EF200-400mm f/4L IS USM EXTENDER 1.4x – had a lot to do with envy rather than ridicule.

The best piece of advice Andrew Redington received was as direct as it was profound. Handed down from fellow Getty Images’ sports shooter Ross Kinnaird, its simplicity has stayed with Redington throughout his career as a sports photographer.

“If you see something happening, make sure you have your camera to your eye so you are following it, rather than just looking at it,” Andrew Redington recalls clearly. “Given what we do, you can’t be caught gawping. That’s the best piece of advice I have ever been given, and it has paid off - keep a lens on them at all times.”

Tasked with photographing the world’s best golfers, Redington rarely has one of his three EOS-1D Xs far from his gaze, and these days he usually pairs at least one of them with Canon’s breakthrough EF200-400mm f/4L IS USM with a built-in 1.4x extender. “I got it the week before the [British] Open Championship,” he recalls. “It was quite compact, and when I lifted it out of the box it was surprisingly light but robust. On first inspection it seemed like a very nice piece of kit, so I was pleased.”

Read the full article at http://cpn.canon-europe.com/content/education/technical/redington_on_new_telephoto_zoom.do

Flight of fancy

Flight AF1886 wasn’t exciting or luxurious. It wasn’t destined for an exotic country or exciting metropolis. It was pleasant and on time. What made it notable was the service delivered by the crew - personable, polite and thoughtful.

The AirFrance/Cityjet flight from Paris to Edinburgh was noteworthy because the crew followed the very basic principles of good customer service. They considered all their passengers as guests and customers. They were mindful that their clientele were returning from a well-earned break or busy day at work. They engaged with the children and delighted in their tales. They were courteous and respectful to business travellers and helpful when any enquiries were made - no matter how trivial.

Most of all they seemed to take satisfaction in doing their job - serious when the role required it; hospitable at all other times. I know customer service is a perennial bugbear of many frequent flyers, so when I chanced upon an exception to the rule, I thought I would share the good news.

The Links Collection

With Father's Day fast approaching, what better way to treat your dad than with a set of exclusive prints?

With this in mind, I have teamed up with the good folks at Golf Course Architecture magazine to create an exclusive collection of golf images that celebrate the very best in golf course design. Check out the offer at

http://www.golfcoursearchitecture.net/prints.aspx

Scotland's best golf experience

Dear all,

For your viewing pleasure, here are the top 20 best golf experiences as voted for by Bunkered readers (a link to the website is posted below, which contains a nice pic (!)). Do you agree? St Andrews down at 5 beaten to fourth spot by Aberdour. No North Berwick, but the Glen GC gets 10th spot.

Not sure of the criteria, but the ranking was "designed to identify and celebrate the golfing venues in Scotland that offer visitors a truly memorable day out, as opposed to just an excellent golf course".

Let it begin!

1. Turnberry Resort, Ayrshire
2. Kingsbarns Golf Links, Fife
3. The Gleneagles Hotel, Perthshire
4. Aberdour Golf Club, Fife
5. St Andrews Links, Fife
6. Archerfield Links, East Lothian
7. Castle Stuart Golf Links, Highlands
8. Royal Dornoch Golf Club, Highlands
9. Gullane Golf Club, East Lothian
10. The Glen Golf Club, North Berwick
11. The Duke's St Andrews, Fife
12. Dundonald Links, Ayrshire
13. Tain Golf Club, Highlands
14. Cruden Bay Golf Club, Aberdeenshire
15. Crail Golfing Society, Fife
16. Carnoustie Golf Links, Angus
17. Fairmont St Andrews, Fife
18. Ladybank Golf Club, Fife
19. Murcar Links Golf Club, Aberdeenshire
20. Blairgowrie Golf Club, Perthshire

http://www.bunkered.co.uk/index.php?cID=1924

New e-brochure

Just updated my e-brochure. It contains examples of my course photography, editorial and commercial shoots. All together, a rip-roaring read! Let me know what you think.

http://issuu.com/markphotography/docs/mapbrochure_pub_3

New pics of Ridgewood Lakes

New pics of Ridgewood Lakes Golf & Country Club now available (see link below). In the meantime, here's an excerpt from my Golf World article on Undiscovered Florida. Enjoy.

New greens please
Although the course is at the heart of a gated community, the houses are kept a respectful distance from the course, meaning you don’t have to interrupt someone’s barbeque to retrieve your ball should you hit a flyer. Best of all, it’s a genuinely good layout.

“It is more of a precision golf course – very target-orientated, but fair,” says McLoone. “There is a lot of room off the tee; you just need to know where to hit it.” And what distance to hit it - 14 holes have water and many have fairways with unseen inlets that demand accuracy rather than length. The result is a course that requires consideration off the tee and deftness around the greens – not what you would expect from a lakeland course in Florida.

Check out the full article at http://www.todaysgolfer.co.uk/Golf/Magazines/Magazines/Golf-World/

Here's a link to the pics: http://www.markalexanderphotography.co.uk/RidgewoodLakes/

The Eagle Has Landed

For your viewing pleasure; some more photos from my trip to Florida in January (see link below).

This time it’s the challenge of The Club at Eaglebrooke!

To give a bit of an insight, here is an excerpt from the accompanying article I wrote for Golf World. You check out the magazine at http://www.todaysgolfer.co.uk/Golf/Golf-World

Where eagles dare
The Club at Eaglebrooke picks up where Southern Dunes leaves off with a series of visually dramatic holes incorporating not only impressive bunkering but also several lakes which add tough approach shots and an island fairway to the fray. Opened for play in 1996, local golf course architect Ron Garl certainly had a sense of mischief when he laid out this design.

After hosting LPGA Futures Tour events and Champions Tour qualifying, John Greiner, head golf professional at Eaglebrooke, says the layout is tough enough to challenge any player. “For a Florida course, it has some elevation to it,” he says coolly. “It has some rolling hills and undulating greens and it has its share of water and bunkers.”

http://www.markalexanderphotography.co.uk/Eaglebrooke/

Let me know what you think.

New images posted

In January, I was lucky enough to go the PGA Show in Florida. During my visit I shot a number of courses and thought you might like to see the results. The first link is posted below (the photographs are best viewed by clicking on the full-screen icon on the far right).

Let me know what you think.

www.markalexanderphotography.co.uk/SouthernDunes

Party on!

Here is an excerpt from a Golf Management Europe article I wrote about making the most of a celebration. Enjoy.

CELEBRATE GOOD TIMES

Special anniversaries offer golf clubs a chance to let their hair down. Mark Alexander finds out how to celebrate in style

Every so often there comes a time when you just have to party. At golf clubs, these special occasions suspend normality and generate fervoured activity driven by specially formed committees. Anniversaries or special centenary dates need to be marked accordingly, and these committees are the ones to make it happen.

The team at Montrose Golf Links certainly did that last year when they invited just about everybody to the east coast of Scotland to celebrate 450 years of golf at the historic Montrose Medal Golf Course. “There simply wasn’t a downside,” says Alan Crow, chairman of Montrose Golf Links Limited. “A lot of people went away with smiles on their faces.”

Montrose is home to the fifth oldest course in the world where play was first recorded in 1562. Last year, the 450th Committee masterminded a series of events to mark this historic date including a re-enactment of the first locally recorded golf shot and a weekend of matches in which 450 golfers were invited to play - in the end, 522 took part.

Montrose’s blockbusting programme also included a junior open, a special exhibition in a local museum and the extension of the 11th hole to 450 yards. It was a year-long pageant of fun, but with all that going on, you might expect the coffers to reeling. Not so, says Crow who praises the input of local sponsors. “We got sponsorship from Glaxosmithkline, the local Rotary Club, the Round Table and individual businesses that wanted to make a contribution to our celebrations. Because of our generous sponsors [GSK contributed £4,000], the net costs to Montrose Golf Links Limited was £700 for the whole year.”


The complete article can be found at http://www.golfmanagementnews.com/gme/current-issue.html

Jeff Mingay: On Golf Architecture: Ever hear of High Pointe?

Jeff Mingay: On Golf Architecture: Ever hear of High Pointe?: High Pointe, from Doak's infamous book 'The Confidental Guide to Golf Courses' (1996). The educated taste admires simplicity of design ...

Streamsong interviews

As a journalist, I interview lots of people. Some can be wary or shy, while others feel uncomfortable talking about themselves. It's my job to get the best out of them, which hopefully I do.

Yesterday and today I interviewed Ben Crenshaw and his business partner Bill Coore at the official launch of the new 36-hole Streamsong resort in Florida. Both were generous with their time and gave me some revealing insights into the way they approach their jobs and their views on golf course architecture. Despite the legion of media vying for a few words, both were kind and respectful, and even posed for a few portraits.

The courses at Streamsong are phenomenal. After playing Streamsong Red (a wonderful layout by Tom Doak, who I will interview next week), I immediately went back out on the course and was lucky enough to take some photos that will hopefully capture the beauty of the place.

The pics will be processed when I get back to Scotland - stay tuned!

Long-haul travel

Long-haul travel has its perks. These days, the choice available to passengers through the on-board entertainment systems is so vast, you barely have time to scroll through the options before its time to touch down. I just got off a flight from Edinburgh to New York during which I opted for the longest film available – Lincoln. A little slow and a tad drawn out but it passed the time.

Before I knew it, I was checking the options for film number two – I had already watched a couple sitcoms, played a terrible game of chess and checked out the extensive music archive.

More importantly, this level of choice can reveal much about your fellow passengers. The two old dolls in front of me, for example, made no attempt to search through the options. Dressed in bright, primary colours as if to draw attention to their vacationing status, they spent the entire flight transfixed to their screens; gambling. I’m no expert, but it looked like they could play a mean hand and were even willing to play during a fairly bumpy landing. I couldn’t tell if they broke even, but they certainly had a good time, cackling and chirping at their online antics.

I stuck to emancipation, and the time flew by.

PGA Show - a first time for everything

Without doubt, the PGA show is one of the most important golf expos of the year. It is enormous, attracting an array of golf equipment manufacturers and clothing companies. This year, the show celebrates its 60th anniversary, and I will be there to witness it all.

I am heading out to Florida to cover the show for some magazines and then visit four golf courses in Polk County. The latter stages of the trip will be all early mornings, late evenings, polarizer filters and tripods - it's what must be done to get the best light. The start of the trip will be all handshakes, business-card swaps and walking the isles bumping into old clients and perhaps meeting some new ones.

It should be good. If you're going, give me a shout and we can meet up for a well-earned beer!

Pass it on

Following a well-timed request from one of my readers, I have added Facebook and Twitter buttons to the right-hand side of my blog. I have also included icons at the bottom of each post, including this one!

This functionality should enable those of you so inclined to share my thoughts and ramblings with the wider world. So, if you feel the urge, please share or tweet without mercy!

THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE

Being the first golf course ever has a certain ring to it. It’s a title with added pizzazz and status. So significance is it, you would think it would be easy pick a winner. But it ain’t. Please find below an excerpt from my Golf Illustrated article on Musselburgh. Enjoy.

Some birthdays pass by in a blink of an eye while others stay with you forever. Reg Dean celebrated his big day by going into the record books as the undisputed oldest man in Britain. He celebrated his birthday from his bed safe in the knowledge he had reached the top.

At 110, he had every right to take it easy while the national papers and news channels pounced at the opportunity to celebrate his landmark age. It is, after all, human nature to mark the achievements of others, especially when those achievements are unsurpassed. Reg celebrated his record in style. It’s a pity the same can’t be said for the World’s oldest golf course.

Until recently this title resided in the ancient, free-draining turf of the Old Course at Musselburgh, which is located just six miles east of Edinburgh. The unassuming links, which is encircled snugly by a horse-racing track, was home to some of the greats of the game. Legends like Wille Park Sr and Jr, Mungo Park, David Brown and Bob Ferguson all made a name for themselves here. It is believed the game-transforming Guttie ball was developed in the club-making shops that surrounded the course and, as significantly, six Open Championships were decided at Musselburgh which eventually got its full complement of nine holes in 1870.

During a golden era when the tentative green shoots of the modern game were first emerging, Musselburgh was, without question, at the centre of it all.

To find out more about this story, visit www.golfillustrated.co.uk

A year in review

2012 will be remembered for many sporting triumphs, not least the heroic efforts at the Olympics and the amazing European team victory at the Ryder Cup in the US. From my perspective, I was grateful to be at The Curtis Cup in Nairn and the Irish Open in Royal Portrush to witness the passion of the crowds and some incredible outcomes.

More significantly, I was proud so see my images being used by Nairn and the Northern Ireland Tourist Board in the run-up to these events. Similarly, one of this year’s highlights was being taken into the impressive dining hall at Royal Lytham & St Annes during the Open Championship to inspect my images which are now hanging in this magnificent room. Those images were also used by the club and the R&A during the build-up to the event.

It was also gratifying to fulfil special commissions for Glenmorangie and Ralph Lauren during what was to be a busy week in July.

Later in the year, I headed out to Spain to shoot La Manga’s three courses which proved to be a special treat, as was the news that my 2013 St Andrews Links Trust calendar sold out two months before the end of 2012. Adding to my portfolio with entries from Portugal, France, Germany, Ireland, England and Scotland and visits to Turkey, Holland and Sweden, it was a busy but fulfilling year.

Most of all, I will remember 2012 as a year in which I was able to travel the world doing something I love and contributing (either pictorially, editorially or both) to some very fine magazines.

Here’s hoping 2013 will be as much fun.