Monday, December 26, 2011

Boxing Day in Sharp Park



In the British Commonwealth countries, there is an official holiday the day after Christmas called Boxing Day, which has something to do with giving servants boxes from gifts and has morphed into a serious public shopping holiday over the years.



Three of us shunned the shopping experience and joined a horde of other cheap municipal golfers on Monday at the recently reprieved Sharp Park Golf Course in Pacifica, where it was easy to pretend we were golfing on Scottish seaside links, even though it was probably about thirty degrees warmer.



The course has been the subject of extreme controversy over the last four years because a consortium of "deep ecology" groups have decided that pristine nature is preferable to an inexpensive municipal golf course in one of Pacifica's main valleys, even though the exquisitely laid out Alister MacKenzie track has been there close to 100 years, and its presence has preserved the land from commercial development.



Mike Wallach above has been writing about the absurdist politics of the situation at his MW cellphone photoblog (click here).



He had an up and down day but managed to par the last hole, which as you can see made him happy.

2 comments:

mw said...

I was under the impression that everyone was as happy as me about that putt. Just glad that you did not publish the pictures of the naked Conga Line dance that formed spontaneously around the green after the putt found the bottom of the cup.

mw said...

All kidding aside, this photo actually depicts the exact moment that I was smacked by a wayward approach shot from the 13th fairway.

I expect this photo will mark the high point of your career as a photographer Mike. It is destined to rank up there in the annals of photojournalism with Frank Capa's "Falling Soldier", particularly with the obvious stylistic similarity and comparable provenance integrity.