The Golfers - Golf's Greatest Artwork?

“The Golfers” by Charles Lees is perhaps the most iconic golf painting in the world. Our resident historian Dr Milton Wayne researches the remarkable story behind the image

Hill & Adamson, “The Golfers”

Perhaps even more intriguing is that Alexander’s younger brother was none other than the artist David Octavius Hill, who with his partner Robert Adamson became legendary pioneers of photography in Scotland.

Inspired by William Henry Fox Talbot, Hill and Adamson began recording likenesses for use in subsequent portraiture, but then raised photography to an art form with their fantastic images of everyday people and events. This included the earliest known photograph of golf at St Andrews, taken in 1845. This shows a “golfing match in progress” and is unquestionably the inspiration for the central structure of “The Golfers”. Indeed, Lees may have commissioned the photograph as a “sketch” for his painting. Ironically, the photograph features a young “Old Tom” Morris, aged just 24 at the time, but surprisingly Lees chose not to feature him in the finished painting.

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