By Mitch Laurance
All of us who play the greatest game have, at one time or other, known the feeling of a special round, a beautiful golf course, a memorable day. We carry the images of that day with us, forever, and though they may fade over time, the feelings and emotions that we once experienced can be quickly recalled and relived.
Linda Hartough (who I profiled for the 2005 edition of On The Green Magazine) proves again that there is no one more adept with a brush and canvas and access to the world’s great courses than she is.
Patrick Drickey is likewise at the top of his considerable game, a celebrated landscape and architecture photographer whose dream of capturing the soul of golf’s courses and performers, on film, led to a career as one of the world’s great golf photographers, and whose pioneering work with panoramic images set the game’s standard (Drickey is also, thankfully, the founder of Stonehouse Publishing, publisher of ‘Green Glory’).
When you combine the richness and detail of Hartough’s landscapes and Drickey’s photographic images in one magnificent book, the result is, fittingly, a truly major achievement. As you turn its pages and go through the venues one by one, courses you’ve seen or played come to life in exquisite clarity, and courses you’ve not had the chance to yet see will become a dream-like goal. Such is the brilliance of each contributor’s work that I found myself sometimes wondering if the page before me contained a Hartough painting or a Drickey photograph, such is the rich, impressionist quality of each one’s work.
Jack Nicklaus perhaps put it best, in his Introduction to “Green Glory”, when he wrote, “You will discover that this book isn’t only a tribute to the courses that have hosted the majors, it is a celebration of golf’s history and tradition…..A Linda Hartough painting always makes me want to play.”
Sit down with “Green Glory”, turn its beautiful pages, and I guarantee that you’ll feel the same way.
Green Glory may be ordered from Stonehouse Publishing: www.stonehousegolf.com