The Golfography Experience is usually filled with a plethora of smiling faces. However, this time around we only had two grinning mugs. Channing Benjamin, and myself embarked on a scouting report for an upcoming Experience at Reynolds Lake Oconee. This southern golf powerhouse is located about an hour and a half east of Atlanta which is just about halfway to Augusta National.
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The Golfography at Arbor Links
The golf party always rocks hard whenever The Golfography Experience comes to town. However, for the 2021 Arbor Links edition we decided to dial it down a notch and focus more on the charitable aspect of golf as well as the Dormie Network experience at Arbor Links.
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Read MoreThe Golfography experience - Victoria National
After the rousing success of The Golfography Experience’s inaugural event at Rams Hill, the golf fans demanded a second coming of “The Experience.” For this second installment Channing Benjamin and I partnered up with the impressive Dormie Network and took the golf party to the critically acclaimed Victoria National Golf Club in Newburgh, Indiana. It was time to get down on some of that Southern Indiana goodness.
In addition to a Top 100 golf course serving as our venue, we had three very exciting guests joining us.
Brian Morgan - When it comes to accomplished golf course photographers, very few can offer the resume that Brian Morgan delivers. For over 50 years Brian has photographed the game’s most iconic figures at the world’s most storied venues. Player, Nicklaus, Palmer are just 3 of the 1200 golf personalities that have come under his lens. In addition to the player profiles, Brian has photographed over 1600 courses in 50 different countries. He has worked in an official capacity for USGA, PGA, R&A and worked for Augusta National 12 of the 17 years that he covered The Masters. In the early 1980s he started to photograph golf courses and has done over 1,600 in over 50 countries to date. The photography wisdom and experience that resides within Brian Morgan is truly immense.
Gary Kellner - The man behind Dimpled Rock Photography is Gary Kellner. As one of golf’s elite course photographers, Gary turns every course that he shoots into a work of art. Gary has been photographing golf courses since 2007 and has quickly increased his incredible portfolio to include over 150 clubs across the country. As a course photographer myself, I look at Gary’s images from courses that I have visited as well and I find myself saying. “Well, that’s as good as it gets.”
Katie Kearney - What good is a photography experience if you don’t have any good golf models to golf pose for you? In 2012, Katie won Miss Missouri USA, so she passed the Golfography Experience litmus test for model qualifications. In addition to her modeling career, Katie serves as a host, reporter, and travel editor. The complete package exists with Ms. Kearney.
Day 1
The hosts, guests, and participants poured into Indiana with extreme enthusiasm. One of the many nice features at Victoria National is that the guest cottages are right on the golf course. Each house has nice big common areas and 5-6 separate rooms in each house. It’s perfect for large groups of golfers. We excitedly threw our luggage into the rooms and headed out onto the course with our cameras. Fortunately, the summer sky greeted everyone with enthusiasm. These ended up being some of the coolest shots from the trip.
In addition to a greeting from the heavens, Golfography Experience partners were also greeted with a serious swag bag that evening. I have been to many golf events and the swag bag is almost always a topic of conversation, the Golfography Experience blows every one of those away. You can watch the official un boxing of the swag bag on the Instagram stories.
Callaway Golf - Bucket hats! For when it starts raining birdies Chrome Soft - The golf ball of champions. The record for most golf balls lost at Victoria National during one round is 90. Yes, ninety balls, one round. Not a typo. We loaded up our guys good with plenty of pellets.
TaylorMade - TP5 TP5X, serious golf balls in this swag bag. Taylor Made also made a hefty donation of a dozen putters, drivers and 3 woods from their new SIM woods lineup.
Lie & Loft - High quality art poster in emitting strong 1960’s “Jimmy Hendrix” vibes. Includes radical t shirt proudly displaying the limited edition event poster. Your friends will be jealous.
Garrett Leight - What do George Clooney, Brad Pitt, and the Golfography Experience attendees have in common? They are all wearing Garret Leight shades. These puppies are Hollywood cool.
Malbon Golf - Hats and Socks. One of the coolest brands in the game had us covered from top to bottom.
Tamron USA - VIP club membership.
COVID 19 compliance - While the experience made most of us forget about the pandemic for the time being, we weren’t going to take any chances with custom designed Golfography face masks and hand sanitizer.
Day 2
After a night of telling lies and drinking brewskis around the campfire, we woke up to another beautiful morning at Victoria National. The crew was up early. Since the golf course was our back yard, it didn’t take much effort for our lenses to capture the early morning magic. After a brief exploration of the golf course our crew headed out to play nine holes.
The amount of high quality imagery that we captured in just the first several days was pretty amazing. Everyone had a a post to share. Below you will find just a small part of the Instagram golf action. It was an Blitzkrieg style attack on the small corner of the golf social media universe.
Instead of a sandwich at the turn, our group had a little workshop and photography seminar. We listened to Brian tell stories of 50 years in photography and soaked up decades of wisdom. In addition to stories about Palmer, Player and Nicklaus, he added some glorious tidbits about shooting Augusta, The Open, and a handful of other countries. Brian was an open book and gladly answered questions about how he got started and has been able to sustain such an amazing 50 year career.
Katie Kearny and myself were next to take the stage, we offered insights into the highs and lows of social media. It’s always interesting and helpful to learn how others navigate the difficult and every changing world of social media.
Day 3
As the sun came up over Victoria National on June 20th, I was officially celebrating 15 years of sober living and I couldn’t imagine a better group of people to celebrate it with. While the cameras were certainly out and clicking, this day was focused on playing some actual tournament golf. The scoreboards were erected and the handicaps were put in place. We had over a dozen Taylor Made golf clubs to give away to the winners.
Sunset Gilmore showdown
When I first started in photography, one of the more difficult aspects was figuring out the settings to use when shooting in low light sunset situations. How do you capture that magic with the proper settings on your camera? In addition to covering these details we also managed to cover the details of firing barefoot Happy Gilmore drives directly into the setting sun on the 18th hole. The Golfography Experience always ensures that there is a nice mix of information exchange and golf fun.
Shoes not required for this golf party
Photography Competition
With all of the outstanding images captured over the course of 3 days, it was obvious that we needed to host a competition to find out who took the very best one. It was tournament time baby! We asked each participant to submit their favorite image from the Experience and entered each one into a tournament bracket. The fans following along on Instagram were going to be voting for the winner. The prize for second place: A new Tamron lens. The prize for first place: A brand new set of TaylorMade golf clubs.
With thousands entering into the virtual voting booth, the competition was underway. The first few rounds flew fast and furious and wild upsets peppered the early rounds of competition. Eventually a strong group of Final Four contenders emerged from the smoke. I much prefer the finalists below compared to Duke or North Carolina.
The legendary Brian Morgan makes his presence felt in the Final Four.
Brendan Hexberg with his submission of the difficult 18th hole.
With the 2020 Final Four in Atlanta cancelled, The Golfography Experience picked up the slack during these difficult times. For those that want the full competition experience, you can relive the magic by watching the Instagram highlight reel.
David Parker was a strong force in the tournament with this image of the 5th hole.
Matthew Majka makes a strong ruin deep into the Final Four
In a fitting finale, photography newcomer, Matthew Majka, took on the legendary Brian Morgan in the championship match. It was over 50 years of legendary photography vs 3 years. The newcomer held his own but Brian pulled ahead down the stretch and came through with the victory. The experience of listening and learning from a lifetime of photography and then having the chance to go head to head with the experts in competition is truly unique to the Golfography experience.
The only positive news from the Experience coming to a close was knowing that the Experience would reawaken in October of 2020 at Virginia’s Ballyhack. However, the event sold out quickly when golfers got word of the good times in Southern Indiana. Feel free to contact me to be added to the waitlist.
With 6 amazing courses in the Dormie Network, we are excited to bring the Golfography Experience to the rest of the Dormie family.
If you are interested in getting out to Victoria National or becoming a member of the Dormie Network, you can request a discussion with the Dormie team by filling out this form. The full scoop on membership with the Dormie Network is also available to read about here.