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Ryan Young hasn’t been at his dream job long, but he’s already a photographer to watch
Photos and captions by Ryan Young
Light / Dark
The Jamie Farr Kroger Classic, food porn and a layoff: It’s all part of Ryan Young’s sort of traditional, sort of weird road to his dream job as a staff photographer for the PGA Tour.
Young came up in the 1990s in Toledo, Ohio. (“Go Mudhens. We’re the original goofy minor league baseball team name; all the others are just posers.”) He describes himself as a typical Midwest suburban sports-obsessed kid. Except for golf. He thought it was “boring and stupid,” but his father was a big fan and kept pushing the game on him. Finally, they went to the LPGA’s Jamie Farr Kroger Classic up the road at Highland Meadows Golf Club. Something clicked.
“A week later I told my dad I wanted to go golfing,” Young says. “At the same time, Tiger was blowing up, so suddenly golf became cool.”
He started down the same path of many who end up with careers in golf: working in the cart barn of his local course, making extra money caddying, and playing whenever he could, including on his high school team.
At Ohio University, Young indulged his other passion. He earned a photojournalism degree from the School of Visual Comunication in 2012 and set off to The Columbus Dispatch to chase his dream of becoming a sports photographer. He was fired up and ready to go—and they started him at the food magazine.
“It actually turned out to be cool,” he said. “I got a bunch of free food.”
He asked to shoot the Memorial Tournament every year when it came through town, and
he finally got to do it when he transitioned to the sports department. Then, of course, came the layoffs.
For Young, it turned out to be serendipitous. He landed a job in the PGA Tour’s photography department, shooting everything from event setups to hospitality areas to tournament action to, yes, food in the clubhouse. He has grown into the job, and now his unique action photos regularly grace the pages of the Tour’s many media channels.
His eye for the sort of weird, sort of traditional shot is becoming a trademark.
“So many of the photos I admire are when a photographer finds their own spot,” he says. “A professor gave me a great piece of advice: If you’re ever in a spot with a bunch of other photographers, you should probably move. What’s the point of getting the same thing as everyone else?”—Travis Hill
2017 Presidents Cup, Liberty National Golf Club, Jersey City, New Jersey This was at the end of the day as the sun was setting on the 18th hole, with the last match coming in. I thought it was cool that everyone was making the same gesture, so I turned around and shot. I didn’t even realize until later that you could see the World Trade Center. Courtesy of Getty/PGA Tour
01
Arcadia Bluffs Golf Club, Arcadia, Michigan
This is not a pro tournament; it’s my annual golf trip with my buddies. This year we went up to Arcadia Bluffs, right on the lake.
It was crazy difficult; that course kicked all of our butts. This is my old college roommate, Sean, and his stupid red pants.
Courtesy of Ryan Young
02
I always wanted a shot like that, with somebody dropping the club, so I was specifically on the lookout for a spot where you get that nice, dark background. I found it and shot probably half the field. Luckily Kevin Na obliged. Man, that belt buckle is just extra Kevin Na. Courtesy of The Columbus Dispatch
03
Tiger Woods, 2012 AT&T National, Congressional Country Club, Bethesda, Maryland
This was my first pro golf tournament. Over time, you learn that there’s a certain etiquette to shooting golf. Tiger Woods was obviously the biggest story of the day, so I was cued into him and fascinated. It was 100 degrees and 100 percent humidity, and those beads of sweat were so cool. I was so zoned in shooting him that another photographer had to tap me and tell me another player was about to hit. I remember being super embarrassed; I looked like such a newbie. Courtesy of The Washington Times
04
Whee Kim, 2016 RSM Classic, Sea Island Golf Club, St. Simons Island, Georgia
You could see this huge boat coming, and that’s something you never see on a golf course. I love stuff like that; it puts the golf course into a different context. I waited it out in my spot and hoped that I could get a golfer in the foreground to play up the contrast and just show how weird the scene is. Best part: The boat has a golf name! Courtesy of Getty/PGA Tour
05
I was interning for The Washington Times, and I asked my editor if I could go out every day at Congressional for the AT&T National. He obliged me, which I thought was super nice. Looking back, he was probably thinking, “Perfect, now I’ve got this random intern handled for the rest of the week.” I’ve since seen variations of all the mowers coming out at once, but I’ve still never [seen one like this] with 20-plus in a row. It’s kind of bonkers. I saw it from a couple holes away and sprinted over there, running up the fairway ahead of them, trying not to get run over.
Courtesy of The Washington Times
06
For an event like this, we have to document bleachers, hospitality areas without people, tee markers, everything. Those shots basically show our partners how the tournament looks. I saw the World Trade Center over the first tee during those early assignments. I knew the opening ceremony with all the presidents was going to be a whole thing, so I volunteered to get to my spot, take the long lens and let everyone else deal with the mayhem. So here you have the World Trade Center and still see Charl Schwartzel hitting the opening tee shot. If you look close, you can see that [former] Presidents Obama, Clinton and [George W.] Bush are the first people to his right. Courtesy of Getty/PGA Tour
07
This entire day got rained out. But Loren Roberts and his grandson got out and were just playing a little around-the-world
putting game. The whole scene just had a really interesting quality. Courtesy of Getty/PGA Tour
08
I just thought these were cool angles to shoot. So many times the best photo from an event is the different one. I love stories like when Neil Leifer got the shot of [Muhammad] Ali over [Sonny] Liston. He was new, so he got the D spot, and you can see the poor photographer in the A spot in the middle of Ali’s legs. Courtesy of The Washington Times
09
I just thought these were cool angles to shoot. So many times the best photo from an event is the different one. I love stories like when Neil Leifer got the shot of [Muhammad] Ali over [Sonny] Liston. He was new, so he got the D spot, and you can see the poor photographer in the A spot in the middle of Ali’s legs. Courtesy of The Washington Times
10
I end up doing a lot of agronomy shots in my job, like this one at the 18th tee at TPC Sawgrass. The best light is the morning,
so I’m often out there early with them. It’s amazing how they’re always grinding away. Kind of a thankless job—I can’t imagine
the work they put in. I’m always complaining about getting there at 5:30 a.m. to shoot and they’ve been there since four.
Courtesy of Getty/PGA
11
OLD WESTBURY, NY – AUGUST 27: Dustin Johnson makes a putt to force a playoff during the final round of THE NORTHERN TRUST at Glen Oaks Club on August 27, 2017, in Old Westbury, New York. (Photo by Ryan Young/PGA TOUR)
12
2012 AT&T National, Congressional Country Club, Bethesda, Maryland
Bo Van Pelt finished second to Tiger in that tournament. I couldn’t tell if his caddie was wiped out from the heat or from going against Tiger. Probably both. Courtesy of The Washington Times
