36 ARCHITECTURAL ARTWORK Left, ‘The Golf Links, North Berwick’, Sir John Lavery, 1922 (Image: Christie’s, London) he did do a beautiful series of five of the New course at Sunningdale, Moor Park, Walton Heath, Rye and the then brand new Red course at the Berkshire in 1930; they appeared in the Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News. A number of other artists have followed him, including the influential American impressionist Childe Hassam and the Irishman Sir John Lavery. The golf writer Charles Ambrose, whose greatest claim to fame might just be dissuading developer Walter Tarrant from his original idea to have 20 potential residents each lay out a hole to create the St George’s Hill course, and to provide the opportunity for Harry Colt to create one of his greatest works, mostly drew portraits of other golfers in pen and ink. But Ambrose – who seems to have lived his life as a gentleman amateur – never appears to have worked, except for his time in the trenches during the First World War. He also drew beautiful sketches of golf holes – his rendition of Tom Simpson’s new ninth hole at Woking is especially charming. Ambrose was not a golf architect, but he clearly moved in those circles – his drawing of the then partners Simpson and Herbert Fowler at work sits the shorter Simpson at a drawing table to make the reader notice the height of the six-foot three-inch Fowler. Simpson himself, like a lot of architects across history, was a notable artist: his drawings in charcoal are a particular favourite of the golf architect Thad Layton. Simpson’s bunker drawings are particularly distinctive, as, to be fair, were his bunkers – surely no-one has ever drawn such jagged edges? In today’s uber-competitive golf architecture market, distinctive drawings, whether executed using manual methods, or on a computer, give a definite boost to a designer. Layton, himself an excellent artist, says: “Most of my current work is renovations. The ability to render a layer of what’s possible on top of an existing hole has been a great way to communicate ideas and win work as well as painting the picture for the contractor when construction starts. I’ve been drawing golf courses since I was a kid – I’ve never stopped! One of the biggest lessons I learned at university was the value of drawing to understand composition – it was an indispensable tool for truly seeing an
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NzQ1NTk=