I joked with friends that I should have gone out and bought a lottery ticket after calling Ryan to set up our shoot. Ryan is a fantastic guy, one of the refreshing few on tour who is a genuine pleasure to work with and who understands what a photographer needs from a shoot and is willing to put in the time and effort to make it happen. As we’d worked together before a few years ago, I knew all of that, but that still didn’t stop my jaw from hitting the floor when he a) actually answered his phone on the second ring and b) asked, “What day works best for you?” If you haven’t guessed already those are not two things you often experience when trying to work with a professional athlete.

Thursday was my first look at TPC Scottsdale in a year. It always amazes me how the infamous 16th hole there grows–the skyboxes and bleachers seem to multiply exponentially. But this year Golf World writer Geoff Shackelford was concentrating on a different hole–the far more strategic 17th, and my task for that day was to make an image showing not just action but the layout of the hole and illustrating the decision making process which faced the player on this drive-able par 4. It didn’t hurt that as the day went on the harsh desert light settled down a bit so that by the time Phil Mickelson approached the tee, most of the tee box was in shadow, allowing him and his wisely-chosen bright blue shirt to stand out.

Friday and Saturday were my days to work on a new project for Golf World involving the Gigapan process (more on my work with that here). The high resolution and user-interactive potential of the images made from it make it a natural for the 16th hole at TPC Scottsdale, one of the most crowded, and certainly the loudest and rowdiest, holes in all of professional golf. Thanks to the benevolence of a security guard who bore a striking resemblance to the Sopranos’ Big Pussy Bonpensiero, I was able to find a perch in the penthouse skybox overlooking the green, and came away with this 17-gigabyte monster of a panorama, comprising 720 individual images stitched together:

Sunday was back to the golf–enough lounging around in the corporate tents! TPC Scottsdale is a hard course to shoot, with few clean backgrounds and even fewer shortcut opportunities when chasing leaders around the course, and I never like to only devote one day to actual game coverage but in this case I didn’t have much of a choice. After a relatively peaceful front nine of following the two lead groups all hell broke loose, with Hunter Mahan, Y.E. Yang, and Rickie Fowler puling away from the pack and putting themselves in positions to win. Naturally, they were all playing in separate threesomes. So after much running around I settled on Mahan, who did me the courtesy of hanging on for the win.

Nice to be back on the golf beat again after a little bit of a break. But as I was discussing with a colleague out on the course, this is definitely not the ideal event–or place–to get your feet wet as a golf photographer. Let’s set aside, for a moment, the phenomenon of the “Jumping Cholla”–a type of cactus that, if you get too close to it, will literally dislodge barb-filled pods of stinging pain onto your person. Ignore me at your own peril; I scoffed at the notion at first, too. It only took one encounter to make a believer out of me. But if you can get past that, the World Match Play Championship is a long trek over a bland course that is designed to be played in a cart, not walked in the fairway, let alone outside the fairways in the rocky, cholla-filled desert. It takes a lot out of you; I usually feel guilty when I don’t have time to run while I’m on the road, but not here. Thirty-six holes a day (or more) on this course is plenty, thank you very much.

And for what? Well, I’ll give it this much: the beautiful, crisp, clear desert light is unmatched. At least, for 45 minutes right after sunrise and 45 minutes before sunset it is. The rest of the day is an exercise in futility, plodding around the course in harsh, high-noon sun that turns the space underneath a cap or visor where half of a player’s face would normally be found into a nice, even, black abyss. But it’s match play, so you slog it out. Anything can happen, as they say, and the golf gods don’t ever seem to take photographers’ prayers for good light into consideration when they decide that it’s time for an upset.

Or do they? Maybe that’s why the competitors doff their caps for the ritual post-match handshake…

Anyway it’s always good to get back to Tucson for a week. I love the pace of the city, sort of like Arizona’s Austin to the Dallas/Fort Worth of Phoenix. Those who know me (or have read since the beginning) know that one of my favorite places to eat is in Tucson, and as usual my trip to Cafe Poca Cosa did not disappoint. So let’s recap: Very few opportunities for good pictures. Hard golf course to walk. Nice town. Great food. Not really a bad week after all. Just watch out for the vengeful cacti.

About the photos…

2008 ACCENTURE MATCH PLAY CHAMPIONSHIP

Tiger Woods and caddie Steve WIlliams are silhouetted against the sunrise outside of Tucson, Arizona as they prepare for the final round of the 2008 Accenture World Match Play Championship at the Gallery Course at Dove Mountain.


TIGER WOODS WINS THE 2005 MASTERS
As the lone freelancer hired to cover the Masters (along with three staff photographers) for Golf Digest and Golf World magazines, I was “stuck” with the reverse-angle position on the 18th green at Augusta National GC. With the traditional Sunday pin placement, this normally means getting the image of the winner’s back as he sinks the final putt. On this occasion, however, Tiger decided that a 180-degree spin, complete with a fist pump, was in order. Which was fine by me.


2006 PGA CHAMPIONSHIP, FINAL ROUND
Covering the 2006 PGA Championship on assignment for Sports Illustrated, I had the opportunity to shoot the final round from the air–more specifically, from the MetLife Blimp Snoopy One. Here, Tiger Woods and Steve WIlliams walk between the shadows in the 14th fairway en route to Woods’ victory.


TIGER WOODS, 2003 WESTERN OPEN
Say what you want about the guy, given the past month’s turn of events–but he’s still arguably the greatest golfer to have ever walked the planet. He’s so good that he can tell whether his shot is good, bad, or horrendous in the time it takes his club to get from the point of impact to his follow through. And when it’s horrendous, the pictures can be pretty interesting…


2005 BRITISH OPEN AT ST. ANDREWS
A remotely-triggered camera set up on a balcony of a building overlooking the 18th hole of the Old Course at St. Andrews captures the overall scene as Tiger Woods raises his arms in celebration upon winning the 2005 Open Championship.


PHIL MICKELSON BLOWS THE U.S. OPEN
“I am such an idiot,” he said, and truer words were never spoken than on that Sunday afternoon in June after Phil Mickelson double-bogeyed the 18th hole at Winged Foot to lose the 2006 U.S. Open. Photographed on assignment for Golf World magazine, I was actually positioned behind Mickelson when he crouched down and ever so briefly held his head in his hands after realizing the enormity of what he’d just done; fortunately I had a remote camera clamped to the grandstand which was able to capture a wide view of the scene.


PHIL MICKELSON’S FANS, 2009 U.S. OPEN
Phil Mickelson loves New York, and the feeling is mutual. After three soggy, rain-delayed days the the 2009 U.S. Open at Bethpage State Park, the fourth round began at about 7 p.m. on Sunday night–and Phil’s loyal fans stuck around to watch. On the second tee, they express their approval (and amazement) at a tee shot.


MICHELLE WIE, 2007 LPGA CHAMPIONSHIP
Most of the decade was a rough one for teen phenom Michelle Wie, as illustrated by her frustration following a (very) wayward tee shot on the tenth hole during the third round of the 2007 McDonald’s LPGA Championship at Bulle Rock GC in Havre de Grace, Maryland.


MICHELLE WIE, 2006 KRAFT-NABISCO CHAMPIONSHIP
On what used to be one of of my tee boxes for shooting, now altered beyond recognition, Michelle Wie reaches the top of her backswing before hitting a drive on the 15th hole at the Kraft Nabisco Championship at Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage, California.


MICHELLE WIE, 2005 SAMSUNG WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
Michelle Wie’s professional coming-out party, via a sponsor’s exemption into the 2005 Samsung World Championship at Bighorn GC in Palm Desert, California was marred by a disqualification for taking an illegal drop and consequently signing an incorrect scorecard. Prior to that, she exuded the confidence (some might say brashness) of youth walking off of the sixth green during the third round.


LORENA OCHOA, 2008 MASTERCARD INVITATIONAL
Construction continued around the periphery of Bosque Real Country Club outside of Mexico City during the 2008 Mastercard Invitational; on Friday afternoon during the second round, two stone masons took a break to watch national icon Lorena Ochoa hit her tee shot on the second hole.


LORENA OCHOA, 2008 KRAFT-NABISCO CHAMPIONSHIP
2008 was a breakthrough year from Mexico’s Lorena Ochoa as she secured her position as the top-ranked female golfer in the world. Here, she is surrounded by family and friends during the traditional champion’s leap into the pond fronting the 18th green at Mission Hills CC in Rancho Mirage, California following her victory at the Kraft-Nabisco Championship.


PRE-DAWN ON THE RANGE, 2007 FBR OPEN
I always loved covering the Phoenix Open back before Arizona observed daylight savings time, because the late sunrise made for some spectacular pre-dawn images that you couldn’t get anywhere else. Players with early tee times were forced to practice under artificial light on the driving range; here, Camilo Villegas and Jesper Parnevik hit balls on the range at TPC Scottsdale prior to their rounds.


CAMILO VILLEGAS, 2008 BRITISH OPEN
As what’s left of the late afternoon sun barely peeks over the grandstands, Camilo Villegas takes a full swing, and a full load of sand, as he blasts out of a bunker on the 18th hole at Royal Birkdale during the third round of the 2008 Open Championship.


2009 U.S. KIDS GOLF CHAMPIONSHIP
Golf World magazine sent me to Pinehurst to cover a golf tournament like I’ve never seen–the U.S. Kids Golf Championship. Hundreds of kids, ages 5-12 with their parents, learning the game and sportsmanship in a historic setting made for a great time and some nice images. Here, kids warm up on the driving range before the start of the second day of competition.


It’s been a long time coming. Too long, actually. After years of over-hype and under-performance, years of listening to everyone from her handlers to her parents insist that she could handle the pressure while she herself proved otherwise, Michelle Wie finally did it. Maybe the Solheim Cup was a revelation to everyone in her circle, that perhaps it was best to just let her be herself and have some fun out on the golf course. Who knows? But it’s indisputable that in the two months since, she’s been a totally different golfer–and now, she gets her first professional win at the Lorena Ochoa Invitational in Guadalajara last weekend.

I’ve been photographing Michelle Wie for half a decade now, starting at the 2005 Samsung World Championship in Palm Springs. It certainly hasn’t always been easy; with the hype surrounding any phenom comes a contingent of overzealous handlers, over-protective tour media staff, and overreaching security personnel. But after working through all of that, Michelle is great to photograph in much the same way Phil Mickelson is: there’s an infectious buzz around both of them on the golf course, and once that club starts back on the takeaway, you really never can be sure what the hell is going to happen next. But after all this time, of course I wasn’t in Mexico last weekend. I wish I had been. If nothing else, at least it gives me an excuse to share my favorite pictures over the years of the LPGA’s newest first-time winner.

Photographed from the MetLife Blimp Snoopy One, Tiger Woods and Steve Williams walk down the 14th fairway at Medinah CC during the final round of the 2006 PGA Championship.

Peace. Serenity. A whole gondola to yourself, two thousand feet up. No jostling with other photographers. No running to get into position ahead of everybody else. No snarling caddies. No spectators grabbing you, shoving you out of the way, spitting on you or threatening you with bodily harm. No F-bombs dropped on you by the fans, or by the man himself. No drinks being poured on you, umbrellas jabbed in your back. No interns with clip-on ties telling you you can’t shoot from the same exact spot you were in just a threesome before. No cops with pistols, security guards with earpieces, or officious volunteer course marshals with logoed shirts, optimistically-waisted Dockers and an extremely misplaced sense of empowerment. Nope. Just you and the blimp pilot circling the skies over suburban Chicago on a lazy Sunday afternoon, with Tiger and Stevie walking between the shadows in the fourteenth fairway on their way to another major championship.

Yep. It’s enough to make you want to sit back, take a deep breath, and crack open one of those bottles the blimp guys keep suspended in the cargo net above your head. Until you realize that’s not exactly beer in them.

I mean, really. How could I ever turn down a trip to Pinehurst? So when Golf World magazine called with the assignment to cover the U.S. Kids Golf Championship, there wasn’t any hesitation on my part. A chance to stay at The Carolina Hotel, to stroll through Pinehurst Village on a lazy summer evening, to while away half an hour with a nightcap in a rocking chair on the Carolina porch and, of no less importance, to partake of the breakfast buffet in the Carolina dining room (and you wonder why I run as much as I do?)…what better way to spend a weekend in August?

Oh, wait–you mean there’s a golf tournament going on, too?

As a freelancer who’s constantly on the road, it’s easy to look forward to the trappings of the trip. Depending on where I’m going, I have my favorite hotels, restaurants, running routes, and the like; all of these make the prospect of being away from home that much more bearable. But in looking forward to those things it’s all too easy to overlook the reason for the trip in the first place: The assignment itself. I’m not sure that’s entirely avoidable in the sports photography business. Eventually one football game starts to blend in with another, golf courses all start to look the same, the baseball game you shot yesterday feels eerily like the one you shot last weekend.

And that’s what was so great about this assignment. Sure, it was a golf tournament–but it was like no golf tournament I’ve ever covered. It was all kids, all the time, ages five through twelve, in a setting more suited to the myriad professional events I’m used to covering. There was a real disconnect–the cynic might call it a reality check–in watching a bunch of kids and their parents hugging, laughing, and running around the same putting green and warming up on the same driving range where, the last time I was here, for the 2005 U.S. Open, dozens of the worlds wealthiest and most stand-offish athletes stoically went about the business of big-time professional golf.

Now, that’s not to say it was all giggles and fun–this is still serious business, this golf thing. Everybody wants to win. And yes, there are some kids–and parents–who take it a wee bit too seriously. Emotions ran high, at both ends of the spectrum. But it was a pleasure to see kids learning the game, and the sportsmanship that is so integral to it, at such a young age, and doing it all without the arrogance and attitude that I’ve come to expect when I’m out on a golf course on a typical assignment.