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A legendary photographer shares the stories behind some of golf's most iconic images
Photos and captions by David Cannon
Light / Dark
The numbers are staggering: more than 120 men’s majors. More than 70 women’s majors. Nearly 20 Ryder Cups. North of 2.6 million miles in the air. Roughly 115 countries visited. And those are just the tallies from 2022, when David Cannon was awarded the PGA of America’s Lifetime Achievement Award in Photojournalism.
Since then, the native of Sussex, England, has continued to stack majors and sky miles and stop-you-in-your-tracks images of golf’s biggest stars and events. Cannon is the man behind many of the game’s most iconic scenes: Jack at Augusta in ’86, Seve at St. Andrews in ’84, Payne at Pinehurst in ’99. But his collection wouldn’t be complete without the unguarded, unplanned gems along the way. His skill, reputation and respect for the game—Cannon was an excellent amateur player, earning a selection to the English youth squad training program in 1974 while battling with the likes of Sandy Lyle and Nick Faldo—have allowed him the kind of inside access to Hall of Fame names that may seem impossible today.
“We don’t get as close to the players now, unfortunately,” Cannon says. “The magazine and media world has changed, and now the players are paid a heap more money. Which is a shame, because players like Faldo and [Greg] Norman really loved being in front of the camera, and I bet some of today’s players do too.”
That doesn’t mean Cannon, who has been chronicling the game for more than 40 years, is disillusioned. He still has the same passion for finding the perfect shot. But it’s obvious that some of the backstories behind his classics from the 1980s and 1990s are special to him. We sat down with the legend to go behind the scenes on some of golf’s greatest shots.
—The Golfer’s Journal
Nick Faldo Undated
Faldo loves pictures. And we’ve had a good relationship, so I did all of his instructional books. So we did a shoot of sequences at his editor’s club outside of Bedfordshire. It was May, and he drove me up in his Porsche 911. There was a farmer’s field full of rapeseed, which flowers in spring, and I just casually said it would be great fun to get a picture of him in that. Two seconds later, he’s running off into the field. And that was all that was—just a fun moment. But it stands out now because these moments don’t really happen anymore with these guys.
Tiger Woods 1997 Open Championship Royal Troon Golf Club Ayrshire, Scotland
This is Tiger in his early days. I first photographed him in 1995, in Thailand for a Johnny Walker tournament, but he was an amateur. So I knew I had to follow him for a few holes, but everyone else in the gallery did too. This was an elevated tee, and I was hoping it would turn out, and sure enough it’s a lovely shape.
Seve Ballesteros 1988 Open Championship Royal Lytham & St. Annes Lytham St. Annes, England
Seve Ballesteros is my hero. I loved photographing him, and this is my favorite shot of him hitting a golf ball. Slight uphill lie. Into the wind. Friday afternoon. Fifteenth at Royal Lytham. Really tough par 4. And he hit this 3-iron, I think it was, and he birdied the hole. The light’s so nice, and everything about Seve is on his face right there, isn’t it?
Greg Norman 1996 Johnnie Walker Classic Singapore
It’s Friday night, I’m in my hotel room and the phone rings. It’s Greg Norman. At that stage, I still lived in awe of him, and I was panicking—what the hell have I done wrong? Is he about to get after me for some awful picture we published that day? Nope. He wanted to let me know that he would be riding his motorcycle to the course tomorrow with a local Harley-Davidson chapter, and he invited me to come shoot it. Not only that, but he gave me his courtesy car so I could drive alongside them. It’s one of my favorite random moments of my career.
1992 Solheim Cup Dalmahoy Golf Course Edinburgh, Scotland
The Solheim family was massively behind the event. At the first one, in Lake Nona [in Orlando], there were maybe 500 people there, and Europe got absolutely hammered. But the next one, in 1992, they somehow won the thing. This is such a joyous moment. There’s Mickey Walker, Catrin Nilsmark, Trish Johnson [and] a young Laura Davies.
Jean Van de Velde 1999 Open Championship Carnoustie Golf Links Angus, Scotland
This is the saddest but also one of the funniest and most ridiculous moments in golf. I remember being pretty wet. Jean had a three-shot lead standing on the 18th tee. We were all thinking, “For God’s sake, just hit the fairway.” And the caddie gives him a driver. I remember saying to some people down there that it was madness. Then he gets so lucky with that tee shot, because it landed on a bridge and it popped over into a perfect position. Now we’re thinking he should take a 7-iron and just lay it up short, chip it on the green. At worst, if he three-putts, it’s a 6, and he still wins the Open. And then he goes for it. But he was really unlucky with that second shot. And then the rest of it all happens. This was all in the height of Tiger Woods mania. Tiger completely changed the way we worked at tournaments because suddenly security was so strict. But when Jean clambered down into the burn, one of the photographers in our pack started to run. I was second in the pack, I think, and I can still remember to this day hearing the R&A official screaming, “Stop them!” But they couldn’t, and this horde of photographers—there must have been 20 or 30 of us—were hanging on for dear life on the other side of the burn. And why is he smiling at me in this shot? Because that’s just Jean’s character. He did make a great up-and-down to make 7.
Michael Jordan & Sergio Garcia 1999 Alfred Dunhill Cup Old Course, St. Andrews Fife, Scotland
Sergio is about to putt on the first green. As he takes the putter back, suddenly there is this incredible cough. Michael Jordan is taking the mickey and messing with the kid. They were joking and going at each other the rest of the way. You know the layout of St. Andrews—it just goes out and out. So, all the newspaper photographers decided to go back in rather than keep walking. But there was just something about those two. I decided to stay. On the sixth or seventh hole, I heard them talking about some kind of race. Then, on the 15th, which is the par 4, I’m standing on the big humps on the right of the fairway, and suddenly I see these two coming straight at me. So I finally go in and get the pictures sent out, and it becomes the front page everywhere, a full spread in SI. It was the most published photo I had that year. Glad I stayed out!
Jack Nicklaus 1986 Masters Tournament Augusta, Georgia
On Wednesday of the 1986 Masters, I was walking by the old practice range, toward the par-3 course. In those days, we could get much closer to the guys on the practice course, and I saw Jack. He’s flipping bunker shots, and I took four or five shots as I walked past, in the hopes they might be nice. In those days of film, you didn’t know until you processed it, and I didn’t see them until the following Tuesday, in London. I’ve never seen a bunker shot like this in all my time, where the sand comes out in that beautiful, symmetrical way. And throw in the fact that he was the world’s greatest golfer at the time, and, well, only in Augusta.
Mike “Fluff” Cowan 1997 PGA Championship Winged Foot Golf Club Mamaroneck, New York
Fluff, back when he was with Tiger. He doesn’t look any different now, does he?
