Saying that, I do appreciate the lush landscape of Augusta (Ga.) National Golf Club that is shown during the annual television coverage of the men's tour Masters tournament. The Masters is the first men's major golf tournament held each year, and the prestige of winning that competition -- other than it being a grand slam event -- is enhanced not only by the fact that it's first grand slam event on the tour schedule, but also because its winner earns a coveted "green jacket" ... and the fact that it is golf's only grand slam tournament anchored at the same course. The three other slams -- the U.S. Open, the British Open and the PGA -- move to different courses every year, although some return to courses from time to time (this is especially true of the British Open, whose pool of major-caliber courses is much small than those in the United States).
The vacation club Lee Ann and I belong to owns a resort in the World Gold Village, a massive residential and commercial community in Florida about 15 miles northwest of St. Augustine. The village, since 1998, has been home to the World Golf Hall of Fame, which honors both male and female golfers and is supported by 26 golf organizations worldwide.
We had only two nights in St. Augustine on our itinerary, so because of my relative indifference to golf, I almost blew off grabbing any pictures of the hall of fame property. Alas, sentiment set in as we departed on check-out day, and we made a spontaneous stop at the complex. I didn't even bother to grab my Canon 6D; I used my iPhone to take the pictures you see here. When I got home and saw what I had, I do wish I had taken more time -- and used the 6D -- to do the shoot. Hindsight ...
The Hall of Fame sits near a large pond with fountains, and across from the pond are a series of shops and stores. You see some of those in the third image below. Unfortunately, I faced back-lighting in a few of the angles of my shots of the pond, and reviving detail in JPG-only images proved to be a struggle. I did what I could.
I also took some pictures of the sunset skies and trees lining two of the major thoroughfares leading to or inside the complex -- International Golf Parkway and World Golf Village Boulevard. Some examples appear at the bottom of this post. For those pictures, I used by Canon 6D and Tamron 28-300mm f/3.5-6.3 Di PZD VC lens.
A note about the very last picture below -- I was amazed at how well this shot turned out, considering that I was sitting in the passenger's seat of the car (so it was through the windshield), the scene was to my left (on the driver's side of the car), and I caught it while the car was moving at a normal clip. And yes, that orange sphere in the bottom of the image is the sun. The settings for that image were f/6.3, 1/1600 and ISO 640; the lens focal length was 161mm.
To view a larger and sharper version of any image here, just click on the photo. To see a full gallery of images from my visit to the World Golf Village and World Golf Hall of Fame, click on the link in this sentence.
Photo geek stuff: As mentioned higher up, all shots were taken with my iPhone X ... except the last five images below, which were taken with my Canon 6D equipped with a Tamron 28-300mm f/3.5-6.3 Di VZD VC lens.
Next up: St. Augustine Beach
Previous posts in this series:
Savannah at night
Savannah in daylight
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