The Golf Slice

A friend of mine is really into amateur photography. He is also an excellent golfer and is interested in following the PGA. He’s managed to combine these two interests into one by attending Tour events and taking high-quality photos of the players during their rounds.

He offered a few tips to me for anyone else who shares his hobbies and wants to get into photographing golf events:

• Get a nice telephoto lens. The only way to get really nice photos of the golfers is with a good zoom. His photo of Sergio Garcia that I posted above was taking from a great distance but with great results thanks to his lens.
• Keep moving. When you’re at a Tour event keep moving with the gallery from hole to hole to find the golfers that you want. If you get stuck in one spot all of your shots will end up looking identical with the same background in each.

From time-to-time he takes a photo good enough to be printed and framed. He’s a big fan of a company called PsPrint that does custom poster printing. He sends them a digital copy of his photo and he gets back a high quality printed poster of his work. They make them as large as 27″ x 39″ but he usually opts for something smaller.

I’m sure some of you out there think you’re good enough at the game of golf to turn professional and start your own golf career. If you’re thinking about going pro, or just interested in finding a new job in the golf industry, you might want to check into the program the San Diego Golf Academy has to offer for aspiring golf professionals.

There are a lot of golf schools around the United States but the San Diego Golf Academy is certainly one of the best. The SDGA is a two-year golf college that offers both golf instruction and courses on golf business management. Graduates from SDGA have an excellent chance of finding a job in the golf industry upon graduation. The school currently has a 90% placement rate for students completing their 16-month program.

The San Diego Golf Academy has schools available in four states: California, Arizona, South Carolina and Florida. Students who attend are not required to have a particular handicap but if you’re concerned you might not be good enough you can talk to the staff at the SDGA beforehand and they can direct you as to whether or not the school or program is right for you.

I wanted to take some time today to publicly thank our newsletter sponsor, Fore Score Golf Stats.

Fore Score Golf Stats lets you track your golf game and stats online using a very simple interface. It provides users with a place to record all of their scores after each round and then presents them with a bevy of in-depth stats personalized for their scores.

Fore Score has a ton of features but here are some of my favorites:

• Calculates your handicap.
• Provides real-time weather information for your favorite courses.
• Personalized scorecards for your favorite courses with your stats and averages built in. This is great because you can tell what your historical stroke and putting averages are for each hole as you play them.

I really can’t do the entire site justice so you might want to hop on over and register for a free demo account. A Premium Account is normally a one-time $20.00 USD fee but they’re currently running a special for 50% if you use the coupon code 6BWH9HU.