A Pair of Golf's Artists

By: Blaine Newnham

As golf course photographers, they combine a love of light and the game, searching for the perfect picture and occasionally finding a new life along the way.

In the early 1990s, Wood Sabold was mired in the humidity of Florida, a practicing landscape architect whose real passion was nature photography. Not to be denied his dream, he and his wife spent six months traveling the country in a fifth-wheeler, bent on finding the prettiest place on the planet. They found it in Bandon, Ore.

"People talked about the horrible weather on the Oregon coast," said Sabold, "but we thought it was wonderful. "As a place to live out our life, the only drawback I could see was the lack of golf. I was an avid player."

Who would have guessed that one of the great places to play golf in the world would mushroom almost at Sabold's front door. In November of 1998, he was called to photograph the near-completion of the resort's first golf hole, the par-3 12th at Bandon Dunes.

"It was near Thanksgiving, and I was lucky with the weather," he said.

Sabold actually helped with some of the landscape architecture during the development of the resort, but wasn't the resort's official photographer until general manager Hank Hickox, in a panic, needed six beauty shots of the debuting Pacific Dunes. Sabold responded in an artistic way that would change his life forever.

Recently, Bandon Dunes has produced a massive coffee-table book of the resort's now 85 holes. Sabold photographed them all. "I'm not sure we would still be in Bandon without the golf business," he said. "The nature-photography business is a thing of the past."

Rob Perry, who photographed the cover for the recently-published book of Chambers Bay getting the 2015 U.S. Open - "America's St. Andrews" [Editor's Note: the book's author is Blaine Newnham] - was schooled at the Brooks Institute of Photography. He combines his training, eye and love of the game - Perry is a low-handicapper - to produce splendid golf photos.

"When it comes to golf courses," said Perry, who lives in Bellevue, Wash., "the time of day and the time of year are extremely important. I photograph the first two and last two hours of the day. If possible, I try to shoot at a time of year that the course is in its best condition and/or showcases its special features: spring flowers, fall colors, snow-capped mountains, etc."

The image of the famed "lone fir" 15th hole at Chambers Bay has become almost a cliché. The charge for Perry was to do it differently.

"Having photographed the course before and played it many times, I knew the time of year I wanted to photograph the 15th hole was around the summer solstice; the time of year the sun sets farthest north," said Perry. "It was also the time when the native fescue had turned golden in color contrasting with the emerald green of the golf course."

Perry, photographing with an hour or less of daylight, produced an image that captured the warm afternoon light, helping create depth and texture while enhancing color.

Using a wide-angle lens, Perry tied a foreground of fescue grasses with a large bunker that leads your eye through the hole to the green.

In doing nature photography, Sabold, 65, said he would avoid shooting the sky. But golf photography, he said, demands sunlight, clouds and shadows to define holes.

Years ago, he used a large-format camera for his nature pictures. "Every time I pulled the trigger it was $5," he said.

Now, with digital photography, he can shoot many more pictures, but hopes to retain the discipline he learned from the bigger format. Sabold also said he does Photoshop his pictures to get rid of a beer can or a few cigarette butts, but doesn't alter the basic photograph.

Both Sabold and Perry are accomplished artists, who also play a little golf. Sabold's handicap index has slipped to 12.4, but he is a guy who appreciates the game and can still deliver it.

Perry, a classic photographer who still uses film for his own projects, also has a classic swing. They seem to go together.

Blaine Newnham has covered golf for 50 years. He still cherishes the memory of following Ben Hogan for 18 holes during the first round of the 1966 U.S. Open at the Olympic Club in San Francisco. He worked then for the Oakland Tribune, where he covered the Oakland Raiders during the first three seasons of head coach John Madden. Blaine moved on to Eugene, Ore., in 1971 as sports editor and columnist, covering the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. He covered five Olympics all together - Mexico City, Munich, Los Angeles, Seoul, and Athens - before retiring in early 2005 from the Seattle Times. He covered his first Masters in 1987 when Larry Mize chipped in to beat Greg Norman, and his last in 2005 when Tiger Woods chip dramatically teetered on the lip at No. 16 and rolled in. He saw Woods' four straight major wins in 2000 and 2001, and Payne Stewart's par putt to win the U.S. Open at Pinehurst. In 2005, Blaine received the Northwest Golf Media Association's Distinguished Service Award. He is the author of the book, "America's St. Andrews," which tells the colorful back-story of how Chambers Bay was selected as the site of the 2015 U.S. Open. The book was released October 1, 2014, and may be ordered at www.AmericasStAndrews.com. He and his wife, Joanna, live in Indianola, Wash., where the Dungeness crabs outnumber the people.

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