AKH Golf – Scottish Golf Photography
Before the First Tee: A Thank You to Scotland’s Greenkeepers
EARLY MORNINGS · COURSE PREPARATION · SCOTTISH GOLF
SHARING THE COURSE BEFORE THE FIRST TEE TIME
Some of my favourite moments as a golf photographer happen before the first golfers arrive.
The light is often at its best, the course is quiet and the day is only beginning. But I am rarely out there alone. Greenkeepers are already cutting greens, preparing bunkers, changing holes, checking playing surfaces and completing the countless jobs required before the first tee time.
We may be on the course for different reasons, but our work regularly overlaps. They are preparing and maintaining the course while I am photographing it creating images that will ultimately help the club showcase the condition, landscape and character of the golf experience.
Greenkeepers often appear naturally within those photographs. A mower crossing a fairway beneath the early light, a team member changing a hole or machinery moving through the landscape can add scale, movement and a sense of life to an image. More importantly, those moments help show the work behind the course rather than presenting it as something that simply looks after itself.
THE WORK BEHIND EVERY COURSE PHOTOGRAPH
When golfers see a photograph of a beautifully presented course, the immediate focus is usually the landscape. They notice the colour of the turf, the lines cut into a fairway, the shape of a green or the way the light falls across the course.
What is less visible is the work that made the photograph possible.
Before I arrive at the best position for the morning light, members of the greenkeeping team may already have checked the greens, moved machinery into place and worked through a carefully planned list of tasks. By the time the course is photographed, much of their work has already been completed.
That means a strong course photograph is never only a record of attractive light or scenery. It is also a visual record of preparation, experience and attention to detail.
This is especially clear when photographing a course for a club’s website, visitor marketing or social media. The finished images may help golfers decide to visit, enter an open competition or follow the club online, but the quality being presented began with the team responsible for looking after the course.
EARLY MORNINGS AND CHANGING CONDITIONS
Photographers and greenkeepers both pay close attention to the conditions, although we may be looking at them in different ways.
I may be watching the direction of the light, the movement of cloud or the possibility of mist across the course. The greenkeeping team is making decisions around the weather, turf, moisture, machinery, the day’s play and the work that needs to be completed safely and efficiently.
In Scotland, those conditions can change quickly. An early start can bring clear skies, low cloud, rain, wind, frost or several of those within the same morning. Greenkeepers still have to respond and prepare the course as well as the conditions allow.
Those changeable mornings often produce some of the most atmospheric photographs. A greenkeeper working beneath a dramatic sky or machinery appearing through mist can help an image feel unmistakably Scottish. It also adds honesty. Golf courses are living landscapes, and the photographs should reflect the people and conditions that shape them.
CAPTURING THE PEOPLE AS WELL AS THE COURSE
For many years, golf club photography concentrated heavily on empty views of tees, greens and fairways. Those images remain important, but they only tell part of the story.
The people working behind the scenes give a course its character and help explain how it is cared for. Including greenkeepers naturally within the photography can make a club’s visual content feel more authentic, informative and connected to its community.
These do not always need to be formal portraits. Some of the strongest images happen while the team is working: preparing a green, travelling between holes, maintaining machinery or pausing briefly to assess the next job.
Photographs like these recognise the individuals involved while also helping members and visitors understand what happens before they arrive. They can support club updates, recruitment, member communications, project stories and social content throughout the year.
For me, they also provide a fuller record of the morning. I am not photographing an empty landscape; I am documenting a golf course being prepared for another day of play.
MORE THAN PERFECT GREENS AND FAIRWAYS
Greenkeeping is sometimes reduced to the visible tasks golfers notice most: cutting grass, raking bunkers and changing holes. In reality, course management involves far more.
Teams must look after turf health, irrigation, drainage, machinery, pathways, trees, habitats and the many different areas that make up a golf course. They manage the effects of weather, disease, wear and heavy playing schedules while balancing course presentation with longer-term care.
Much of that work happens quietly and may not produce an immediate visual transformation. The result is experienced through the condition, consistency and playability of the course over time.
That is why behind-the-scenes photography and video can be so valuable for clubs. It gives greenkeepers an opportunity to explain projects, show seasonal work and help golfers understand why particular decisions are being made. It turns course maintenance from something largely unseen into part of the wider story of the club.
THANKING GREENKEEPERS ACROSS SCOTLAND
International Thank a Greenkeeper Day was marked on 8 September 2026, encouraging golfers, clubs and the wider industry to recognise the people responsible for preparing and protecting golf courses around the world.
It is a valuable moment of recognition, but the appreciation should extend beyond one day.
Through photographing courses across Scotland, I regularly see greenkeepers beginning work in the early morning, continuing through difficult weather and completing essential jobs around a busy playing schedule. Their work shapes the experience of every golfer who steps onto the course and influences every photograph used to promote it.
To the greenkeepers and course teams I have shared those early mornings with across Scotland: thank you. Your work is present in far more of my photographs than may be immediately obvious.
You can learn more about the campaign and the work being done to recognise greenkeepers across the golf industry through BIGGA.
DOCUMENTING THE WORK BEHIND THE COURSE
Golf course photography should show more than a collection of empty holes. The strongest club content can also capture the greenkeeping team, the daily preparation, the machinery, the facilities and the wider work required to present and protect the course.
These stories give clubs useful content, but they also provide deserved recognition for the people whose work often begins long before the first golfer arrives.
When a photograph shows a golf course at its best, it is also showing the result of someone else’s early start, knowledge and hard work.
Behind the Scenes at Spey Bay Golf Club
I recently spent an early morning with the greenkeeping team at Spey Bay Golf Club, documenting some of the work carried out before the first golfers arrive on the course.
WATCH: A MORNING WITH THE GREENKEEPERS AT SPEY BAY GOLF CLUB →
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