Biography

I was introduced to golf at the age of 8 by my grandfather, who at the time was the superintendant of Brown Deer Park Golf Club, the current home of Milwaukee's annual PGA Tour event. On weekends and during summer vacations I would often ride with him to work in the morning and play all day long until he took me home. While I was in fifth grade my father set up a photography darkroom. After just a session or two in the darkroom I became enthralled with the concept of making images appear on a piece of paper using nothing but light, some chemicals and my imagination. By 13 I had found the dual passions which would guide the rest of my life.

I lead my school's camera club all four years in high school while also earning 5 varsity letters in football, baseball and track; serving as editor-in-chief of our senior yearbook; and graduating 6th in a class of 368. I went on to play football at the University of Notre Dame and graduated (magna cum laude) in the top 10% o a Marketing Degree, Advertising specialty, and a minor in Psychology. By the time of my college graduation I had become deeply interested in the area of golf course design and had already visited, studied and photographed -- primarily for my own records -- hundreds of golf courses throughout the US. Seriously considering a carrer in colf course design, I applied and was accepted into the Master's Degree Program in the University of Colorado's School of Urban Planning and Landscape Arhitecture. The specific track I selected was a 3 year program which would lead to dual Master's Degrees in Landscape Architecture and in Regional & Urban Planning. Before beginning my graduate work that fall, however, my senior year photography thesis at ND was picked up and published by a magazine with worldwide circulation in more than 30 countries. The essay garnered significant critical acclaim and that complicated what had seemed, until then, to be a fairly straightforward career choice.

As often happens, unforeseen events played a major role in shaping that choice. I was still studying and photographing courses whenever and wherever possible, but instead of keeping the photographs strictly for my own use, courses began asking to buy the rights to use those photographs for thier own advertising or for clubhouse decoration. It did not take long to figure out that charging courses to have me come and study them was a better idea than continuing to spend my own money to travel to and study those same courses. I soon discovered that I relished the challenge of capturing different courses on film while striving not to let all of the courses -- or all of the photographs -- to begin looking the same. As clients discovered that my images significantly enhanced their marketing efforts (and revenue), golf course photography developed from a personal interest into a full time career. Although I still harbor the dream of some day designing and directing the construction of my own course, I have never regretted the path I 'm on.

Before turning my attention almost exclusively to golf courses I had earned national awards and recognition for my fine art landscape photography. That makes my approach unique among golf course photographers because I bring an extensive fine art background with me every time I photograph a course. Like all successful artists, my attention to the smallest of details -- as well as to the major considerations of light, balance, composition, framing, texture, perspective, and rythym -- is meticulous.

Some recent commissions include limited-edition prints for the 2008 USGA Mid-Amatuer Tournament; a special print for the 2008 USGA Women's Amatuer; and limited edition prints for the 2006 Shivas Irons Society weekend at Erin Hills, the Womens Senior Golf Tour's inaugural event in 2001, the Straits Course at Whistling Straits, the Grand Opening of Horseshoe Bay Golf Club, the 1999 PGA Club Players' Championship, and a framed double limited-edition print for the 1997 US Amateur Championship at Cog Hill GC. I was also commissioned to produce a lithograph for the 1998 US Womens Open and the first three "Great Golf Holes of Wisconsin" calendars. In 2001 my work was featured in the Wisconsin State Golf Association's "Playing Through," a coffee table book celebration of the WSGA's first 100 years. Publishing credits include LINKS Magazine, GOLF Magazine, Landscape Architecture, Golf World, Golf Digest, Golf Chicago, Par Excellence, and Wisconsin Golfer magazines, and several limited edition books for the anniversary celebrations of varoius private golf clubs. In 1998 I received the award of "Outstanding Achievement in Golf Course Photography" from the International Network of Golf. My images have been exhibited at the Denver Museum of Modern Art, the Milwaukee Art Museum, and private galleries in Denver, Chicago, Indianapolis, and Milwaukee.

In January, 2004 I was retained as the sole photographer for Aspen Golf Worldwide, Inc., a golf course builder whose principles have been involved in the construction of Whistling Straits, The Ocean Course at Kiawah Island, Old Marsh GC, The Dye Preserve, and The Dye Course at Colleton River Plantation, among other world-class courses.