GREAT SHOT
By Evan Schiller
Pasatiempo in Santa Cruz, Calif., has captured my imagination since the first time I played it in the early 1990s. As I planned my return to photograph it last May, my love of all things Alister MacKenzie, the course’s unique history (MacKenzie lived on the sixth hole), and its recent restoration by Jim Urbina excited me beyond words. One of the foremost experts in MacKenzie architecture, Urbina relied on historical photos from the course’s earliest days (1929–31) and painstaking archeological techniques to remove close to 100 years of sand accumulation, aeration, and bunker splash.
The par-4 16th has long put fear in golfers’ hearts due to a blind tee shot and an approach into one of the most diabolical putting surfaces around: a three-tiered green that spans a 12-foot change in elevation.
I’d hoped to capture an early morning image of the hole, but I knew that would be challenging given the fog that usually socks this place in. Whether it was luck or fate, a clear morning greeted me, and I captured the photo I wanted of this truly magnificent hole. Equipment: Sony A7R5 Camera with Sony FE 50mm lens mounted on a Sony Airpeak Drone.
Before becoming one of the most sought-after golf photographers, Evan Schiller was a tour pro who competed in the 1986 U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills. He lives in Weston, Conn., with his wife, four cats, and parrot.