The artistry of golf

ART has always been a huge part of Linda Hartough’s life, but it is only in the last 18 years that she has found a market niche producing golf paintings and she has now gained a reputation as the foremost artist in the world in this field.

However, it was almost a complete accident that she turned her hand to painting golf scenes and found not only a market for quality work, but also great personal satisfaction and fulfilment.

She was for many years a native of that golf haven, Hilton Head in South Carolina, although that had nothing to do with her eventual metamorphosis. A graduate of the Art Institute of Chicago, she had been involved in art in one shape or form throughout her life, although she confesses to having been “more of a horse person” and still takes an interest in all things equine - to the point of even breeding her own horses.

After graduating from Art College, she turned to landscape painting and came to the attention of the powers that be at Augusta National, the home of The Masters and, in 1984 they commissioned her to do a painting of their world famous course.

She came to the task, she says, as a landscape painter, and she took on the commission on the basis that she appreciated aspects of the course as a landscape in its own right and not just a golf course.

“It was a different approach, I suppose, and I was not sure that it would work, but the people in Augusta were pleased and it was only when I realised that they were marketing prints of the painting and also selling it as postcards through their merchandising division, that it dawned on me there was a market for this type of work,” she says.

Creating the market for her paintings was a lengthy process, but once she began to get established it helped make the activity viable.

“A big eye-opener was the annual PGA Golf Show, which is a huge exhibition for all manner of companies and individuals involved in the production of golf related merchandise. I went along there in 1988 and I found there was really big potential for what I wanted to do. Everybody was really appreciative of the work.”

Hartough admits that, historically, golf paintings are not necessarily high art or even mainstream art. “I tried to bring to my paintings a sense that it might be appreciated as fine art and I have tried to develop my work along those lines. One man who helped me greatly was a Scotsman called Bob Pringle, who is a golf artist based in Troon. In Scotland, unlike America, there is a real history of golf art and there have been many fine artists from there over the years.

“Bob not only helped me to get other commissions, but he also introduced me to the history of the sport and the traditions of golf, as well as showing me places like the Old Course and Troon, which are of course such an integral part of golf’s history.”

Those courses inspired her further and she has done some very successful work as a result of her association with Scotland.

Ireland was always going to be a natural progression and she made her first visit 13 years ago: “My husband had a friend who was in a band touring Ireland so we tagged along, but during the course of the visit I got to see places like Ballybunion and Portmarnock and I knew I would have to come back some day.”

Hartough and her husband spent three weeks here in early September and travelled the length and breadth of the country, visiting some of the major golf courses Ballybunion, Lahinch, Doonbeg, Tralee, Waterville, Killarney, Portmarnock and Portrush.

Hartough never does any more than four paintings in any given year, finding that is about as much as she can deal with, but she promises that she will have produced her first Irish painting by the end of next year.

And what will it be?

“Ballybunion, definitely,” she asserts firmly. “That place is just so beautiful and so natural, it has to be top of my list. And anyway, when I go somewhere I always like to start with the best ones.”