This may seem totally crazy. My buddies and I have just planned a trip to Pebble Beach - we plan to play 36 holes a day over a long 4 day weekend.

We are anticipating going all out and having caddies for each of our rounds of golf.

I just had this crazy idea - and I wondered if anyone here has ever done this. Has anyone ever had / hired a photographer and had them follow you around during a round of golf? It would be great to capture a bunch of candid shots from our group.

Or is this idea just totally insane? Somebody set me straight. Thanks!

Never thought of it, but it could be cool - could get some nice blow ups for your wall in your office

Seems to me bringing a photographer would make it feel more artificial

Just make sure your digital camera is charged up and pass it around and snap away. You're bound to get some good shots out of it and they'll seem more "real".

Yeah, every year we try to "up the ante" and out do what we did the previous year.

Last year we played 10 rounds of golf in Palm Springs over 4 days. We each had our own digital camera - but I hate having to remember to snap a photo. Would be nice to think only about golf and the fun we are having and let someone else capture all the moments.

Crazy i know....

Just curious, have you done the whole Bandon thing yet?

The Pebble thing sounds like fun, any way you slice it. Enjoy!

I think that it's a great idea. As long as the photog is inconspicuous, and doesn't interfere with the round, then cool. I can already see it happening where everyone wants a specific shot and that would take away from the spontaneity of the event.

We have a family golf outing every year and I would love to video tape our yearly scramble grudge match. Never done it yet.
It is a pain when trying to score well to whip out the camera and make notes of the good/bad/ugly shots to capture the drama.
Sounds like a business plan!
We have had some incredible matches and drama, would be great to watch it again and again.

If you want to pay for my trip - I'd do it for you!

Well I took a photographer with me to Pebble. My buddy and I were playing the course. We told his girlfriend to go and she was up for it. She snapped photos the whole time. Our caddy told us it happens all the time, heck even the caddy was taking pics of us with my camera. Definitely do it! Besides who gives a s*** what other people think, you are paying $500 to play golf, just do whatever you want. They did charge us $35 for her to ride along in the cart though.

My wife does this regularly as she doesn't play. She usually rides in the cart with a novel in one hand and the camera in the other.

I think it's a great idea, not only will you get shots of everyone in the group but you will get shots that you wouldn't normally get, say like you and your caddie talking about a shot while standing in the fairway, without a photographer you wouldn't get those kinds of shots as your buddies would be busy worrying about thier own shots. Have fun!

cool idea.

I'm a part time photographer and full time golf nut....

I've done it before... bringing my lenses to the course, but I was shooting.
Definitely with professional lenses you get a different look and better image quality
rather than point and shoots.

For Pebble beach my scores would suffer just case I would be taking pictures quickly.

Thanks for all the feedback. Maybe this is just a good business plan. For the last 5-6 years my golf buddies get together for these golf marathons. We have so many stories, so many battles, so many crazy things that have happened - and when the competition gets really tight - everyone forgets to snap shots.

That is why I thought of this idea. But so far I have not had any luck. I have talked to 4 different photographers and they each want $1200-1500 per day. To just follow us around in their own golf cart and document our round.

Sounds like I am in the wrong business....

Good idea if you have the $$$$$, and you should get allot of pictures during a 6 hour rounds.

Just thought I would report back. I found a professional photographer that is an avid golfer that lives in the area. I have hired him for 3 days and 6 rounds of golf. Hopefully I won't have any trouble asking for a 5th person to tag along in our group as a spectator.

We have:

Day 2 - Spanish Bay, Spyglass Hill
Day 3 - Pebble Beach, Spy Glass Hill
Day 4 - Poppy Hills, Pebble Beach.


When it is all done - I will report back how it goes.

This is an awesome idea!

I have a feeling some of the pics are going to make great desktop wallpaper.

I think this is a great idea. You'll have to fill us in on the results after your trip.

Cool. If the guy you're hiring doesn't work out let me know. I'm a decent amateur photog (some photos here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tinou/sets/72157603675073671 . Have the equipment for shooting. My 500mm lens would be perfect. Would allow me to shot more or less candid shots from far away. You don't want to look artifical/stiff because some guy has a camera right in your face. Wouldn't charge you...just buy me a couple of beers. I've played at Pebble, Spyglass and Spanish Bay--so let me know if you need any info. You'll have fun. And yea, caddies are totally worth it.

Great idea and have been thinking about the very same thing with for some of our golf trips.
Having the memory in your head is great, but being a picture fan, a good picture is just timeless...

I have yet to find a "reasonable" photographer yet. I understand the time, but it's not like they are shooting my wedding or anything!

+1

Ok I wanted to report back. We had our trip - and it was amazing! Hiring a photographer was the best decision I have ever made for an event like this. We were able to focus on golf and not worry about trying to capture the moments with our little pocket cameras.


Here is a summary of what we did.

Day 1 - Poppy Hills & Bayonet
Day 2 - Spanish Bay & Spyglass Hill
Day 3 - Pebble Beach & Splyglass Hill
Day 4 - Poppy Hills & Pebble Beach


For all four rounds on Pebble and Spyglass we got caddies. TOTALLY WORTH IT. It was my first time using a caddie and I must say - it feels like cheating. Most of the greens I never saw the breaks. The experience of walking both courses is totally wroth it. If anyone has any questions about caddies at Pebble / Spyglass - please feel free to PM me.

Now on to the good stuff - photography. I originally had lined up two photographers to follow our 8 golfers. In the end one had to cancel on us so we just stuck with the one guy. He did a fantastic job and for sure deserves a plug. We used Scott from Bluesky Aerial. He fit right in with our goup and was very pofessional and had all the right equipment. He rode in his own cart. We were never charged any extra cart fee at any of the courses - in fact the starters at Poppy Hills and Pebble Beach said they have seen this done before. - Normally wifes, girlfriends, or family members just ride along to watch as spectators.

The days were really long - each day started between 5:30 and 6:00 am and went to dusk pretty much every day. All in all I ended up with just over 6,000 photos from the trip. Here is a small taste of what we got!

Some of these are just amazing! Well worth it if you ask me! If you have any questions - feel free to ask away!





Here is a link to the actual gallery we have. Golf Gallery

Right, who gives a s*** what other people think or the effect it might have on the group playing behind you? The last time I played Pebble, the group in front of us had a photographer with them to record their "trip of a lifetime". Between the constant picture taking and the running into the house they had rented for drinks and toilet breaks, they were oblivious to everyone else and their actions helped extend the notoriously slow Pebble Beach round from 4 1/2 hours to close to 6 hours. Add the terrible green on Hole 2 and the temporary green on Hole 3 to the interminable 6 hour round and inaction by marshals to move things along for the boys having their "round of a lifetime", and it made MY round a pretty unhappy experience. I used to love Pebble and Spyglass, but the current cost, course conditions, and slow play will discourage me from going back. (Cypress Point, however, WAS the treat I expected and, incidentally, was a fraction of the cost of PB and Spyglass).

Oh, I had also paid $450 each for my wife and me, the same as the group in front of us (whose experience the marshall didn't want to ruin). I guess it was OK to ruin mine.

Sorry to hear you had such a horrible experience. I can say without a doubt we never slowed down play. We stayed on the groups in front of us and the groups behind us stayed on us. Sure we had some waiting on a few holes - namely the 7th and the 18th. But I can honestly say - having a photographer never slowed down the play. Our rounds were not 4 hours by any means. Longest was probably 5 hours at Pebble. But it never felt terribly slow.

Not everyone here has access to Cypress Point - that would truly be once in a life time.

can i come? I have a DSLR.

Dare I ask how much you paid for the photog?
Not to be rude, or a downer but....
I'm thinkin' you should have taken the member who posted he was an amature photog, his pics on Flikr look amazing. A few good ones in there from your guy, but for the most part they are just snapshots you could have had the caddy take.

In my opinion I did not pay to much - especially when you consider what people pay photographers for weddings. (Weddings are probably 8-10 hours tops). Our days were a good 12-14 hours long. Granted it was very casual and our photographer did not have to deal with any screaming brides or parents.

We paid $500 per day. Split that up between 8 golfers - $62.50 each (Caddie was $75 + Tip). Worked out to $250 per person for all four days of shooting.

The nice thing was that we just focused on golf. Rarely (just the signature holes) did we stop for any group shots. I like the journalist look of our images. I think handing a camera to the caddie and asking "hey can you take a picture of this buried lie and get me as I try to blast it out of here" would for sure have slowed down play and become a distraction. Most times we did not even pay attention to our photographer - rarely do you ever see any of us looking at the camera.

I won't belittle the job our photographer did. He really did bust his a$$ running up and down the fairways - then back to his cart - then back out again trying to capture all the different "ups and downs" to the day.

Plus I would rather pay someone then have them work for free. Paying our photographer gave us the right to tell him what we wanted and where he should be. I would not have felt right telling a guy who was working for free that he needed to do something. Before each round I went over the score card highlighting the signature holes. Told him that for sure he needed to be on the tee box at #7 Pebble for both groups. Or be out in fairway on 18 as we walk up.

To most of you - seeing the images we have doesn't mean anything - but for the guys that were on the trip - it brings back great memories. Stuff like "oh that is when I missed the eagle putt on 18 at Poppy" - or "that is when I almost hit the deer in the middle of the fairway" - or this was the moment I won the match play event 2 and 1. Those are the things that make it so worth it. Hopefully years from now I will be able to go back and look at the images and all those memories can come flooding back....

Either way my whole point of this thread was to let people know of my positive experience and to hopefuly be a helpful person to anyone else that has ever thought or are interested in doing this.

That's awesome.

Yeah that is unbelievable. Awesome pictures, must've been so fun.

Great idea, great execution. Will pitch this idea to my regular playing partners...

Great idea, and it looks like you got some awesome results. You got a great price too for an all day event!

nice photos, that's for sure.

There are some things you just can't capture trying to do it all yourself.

Nothing like having Arnold watching you putt out on the 18th green at Pebble.....




Or staring down your putt with this back drop...



and of course - the once in a life time "moment" on 18.

It is very different having a real photographer take pics. I have a friend who is down in the Santa barbara area and he mostly does Photography for bands but He has done everything from wedding photo's to action photo's(graduate from brooks Photography school 4year program). just being there and taking pics is a small part of the job. Going through and editing all the pics is the real work.

This is his website. He has been doing mostly bands lately and some really weird pics but the photography aspect is awesome.
http://www.jasonmessick.com/

Thanks for sharing the photos! By the way, looks like you really lucked out on the weather. Shorts and shirt sleeves can be rare on the Monterey Peninsula!

Sounds like a great idea. You can just play and have fun and not worry about taking pics. Besides you will probably get much better pics to boot. A+++ idea.

is that really arnold??

According to our caddies it was him. After all the putts they read for me - I would believe anything they told me.

But you can be your own judge. Sure looks like him to me.

Here is a crop image blow up of one of the images we have.

unless he has a twin that would be him. cool to see a legend there.

Apparently, however, "frozen rope" is not a big Arnold Palmer fan.

It's definitely him!!! Amazing

Not that anyone needs an excuse to admire the view at PB, but maybe Arnold was checking out in person some of the changes he made to the course for next year's U.S. Open.

Looking up to see Arnold Palmer would be a pretty great way to cap off a round at Pebble Beach.

great idea and cool pics, wish i would have thought about that when i went in october

the caddies were great and like you said walking the courses made the experiences much better. you didnt happen to have a caddie name stix? big tall dude and super knowledgable

did they finish most of the work for the open yet? when we were there they were doing some major work on the 5th hole tee box among other things

We had several caddies over the 4 days we were there. I was assigned a guy name Brad the very first round and stuck with him during all 4 rounds that we played at Pebble and Spyglass. The work on 5 is complete. But the rough all around the 18th green has been torn out and replaced. All the rough behind the green on 18 was ground under repair - fortunately none of us hit into that location so it did not come into play. Brad did tell me that all the rough in front of the tee boxes of 9 and 10 will be torn out and replaced later this year.

Brad was great and if anyone plays there - put in a request for him. Not only did he have a great way of communicating the speed and break of putts. He pointed out all the famous homes on the course, that Pebble Beach features the shortest hole for a major championship (#7 at 106 yards) and the smallest green on tour (i forget which hole - maybe #1?). I took my dad and a bunch of buddies - greatest experience of my life.

Cool pics, looks like it was a good time.