News

Hopefully, this will be the last time this year I post a snow scene. Very pretty when first seen, after three months and the worst winter for many years, snow is a substance now "time expired"!!
As March beckons we all look forward to the coming Open Championship. 150 years ago Prestwick organised the first professional open tournament and the "Major" was born, they would go on to host it for ten years before sharing the joy, burden and expense with St Andrews and Musselbrugh. Now there are nine courses on the rotation.
This year the 150 anniversary celebrations the will surround the Championship with past Champions appearing on the Wednesday and a formal dinner. Of course we all wait to see who will be crowned, St Andrews has a habit of producing exceptional champions.
Having not picked up a club for over 5 months ( work gets in the way all too often) I now hear the clarion call and the need to dust them off and get down to the practice range to see if I can find a golf swing!!!

Feb 2010

I have just landed in sunny Colorado Springs as part of the design, production and marketing of my new oversized Golf Greens of Scotland book. The design meeting , in Ann Arbor MI, was especially productive and allowed the design team at Savistksi Design to get all of imagery and information to start their work.

Then on to Toronto to Felton Bookbinding for selecting the various leathers for this limited edition boo and clamshell case.

Now in Colorado, where working in such beautiful surroundings can be difficult, to discuss and plan when and how the book comes out.

So although this has been a pretty hard schedule it is all good.

More later.

The summer has raced by. Australia came and went in a blur, then Israel, France and 6 visits to Lough Erne. I have finished all of the work for the new book
( Ireland, England and Wales with some updating of Scotland) for George and Malcolm and now concentrating on Kingsbarns, Lough Erne and a another photographic visit to warmer parts of the world for the winter.

For the past three years I have been working on a new book ( oversized) for myself, although I suppose it is in truth two books in one cover. To this end the camera and car have been overworked and the whir of helicopter engine still ringing in my ears.

So I have put up a new portfolio to give a hint of what is to come in this new title - more details later.

What was planned as a genteel four week visit around the principle links courses of Australia turned into a frantic and exhausting dash in two weeks. Crazy really but challenging weather and far too much driving in this vast country, just wiped me out. The real highlights were Barnbougle (Tasmania), 13th Beach (Victoria) and The Cut (Western Australia) but the overwhelming impression was from the people I met and the warmth and helped so often offered. I will post an Australia portfolio next week.

In many ways I was glad to get back early. Work was piling up (although my son Chris had a pretty good grip of things) so it is always good to get a jump planning and printing at the start of the new season. But what sort of season is it going to be?

I think the consensus is that St Andrews will be quieter, that offers all sort of opportunities for the visiting golfer, times on the Old Course being easier to obtain and of course with the UK Pound being so weak ( down around 30%) the whole trip should come out a lot cheaper. If you are a (large) golf group organising yourself then maybe push courses for special prices or second round discounts. This must be especially true away from St Andrews. This must be a year when the visitor is King.

April workload - Ireland and then around the courses of Wales and Northern England finishing off the new book but first I need some Spring weather not the snow and gales up North yesterday!!!

My last visit to Castle Stuart Golf Links, Nr Inverness Scotland, provided brilliant weather and a real opportunity to capture images of a course that I am sure is going to cause a flood of positive comments and that is understating it.

Generous fairways allow the golfer to get off the tee but there is a definite risk and reward position to be on each one. The bunkering is quite simply stunning, partially revetted and partially collapsed they give it a real old world feeling but the safe advice is "stay out" and some of them will sneak up and provide a painful surprise.

Greens are also generous and although with some angles, humps and hollows there really is nothing extreme and nobody to blame but yourself!

I have only photographed this course but spent some time doing this and draw my conclusions from all that I see, how I play and what I expect I will get from this course. Put together I can't wait to get on there next year and just hope I don't get crushed in the stampede. Opening mid July 2009.

I am not employed or paid by the course its owners and only derived income direct from magazine work.

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The new Castle Stuart Golf Course (nr Inverness Scotland), by Mark Parsinen of Kingsbarns and Granite Bay, is going to get a few heads turning.

Set on the southern coast of the Moray Firth, with the advantage of mature gorse on site, and already grown-in but not opening until June 2009. Concise labelling is difficult as there is no other links course like it(to my knowledge)on these isles. Traditional risk and reward links course but grown on nearly pure sand(no topsoil) with large areas of natural/growing sand wasteland, playing over or around the sides and backdrop(Pine valeyish)and revetted and naturally formed style bunkering. Add to this stunning views up and down the coast and across the Moray Firth to the Black Isle (giving a great sense of scale).

Photographs at this early stage only provide brief idea and the next 6 months of mature growing-in should be a revelation.

Very exciting prospect.