My post last week about that golf bag telephone really got me thinking about why these golf nicknacks are created in the first place. And then it occurred to me that these things are, technically speaking anyhow, a form of art.

A telephone in the shape of a golf bag is art you say?

My wife has a BFA (Bachelor of Fine Arts). She’s always said; “if the person who created it calls it art, then it’s art.” It doesn’t matter if it’s just a canvas splattered with paint shot out of a cannon at 500 paces – if the guy lighting the canon fuse calls it art, then we’re perfectly justified in hanging it on our wall.

So let’s get back to my golf bag telephone for a second. Pat from New York (who emailed me to win said phone last week) considers it art, even though I didn’t. He plans on displaying it in his house with pride. And for Pat, it’s not just static art, but it’s functional art too (after all, it’s a phone to boot). Pour yourself a glass of wine, pull up a chair and admire it, Pat!

But let’s face it, when we think about golf, we think about things like the tours, or courses, or clubs & balls. When we think about the golf industry, apparel and equipment retailers come to mind. But we forget that this multi-billion dollar industry includes a place for art too. And I’m not just talking about the golf bag telephone anymore.

Take a look at the images below:

That, my friends, is golf art. I spied those at a touristy-type store in the historic district of Albuquerque. Both are created using golf things (parts of a club, a ball, tees – even the crown on the bird’s head in the top photo is pieces of a soft spike)! It takes a certain breed to put those kinds of tchotchkes in your home, and I’m not among them. But you can’t deny, it’s art.

Of course, art also includes paintings and there is no shortage of golf paintings out there – observe the two distinctly different ones below:

My eye was drawn to painting on top, while my wife (the artist) chose the one on the bottom as being attractive.

And what about the subject in the aforementioned paintings – the courses. Are they not art in and of themselves? Walking down a quiet fairway on a perfect day – as far as I’m concerned, when you’re on the golf course, you’re surrounded in amazing art. The way the green distinguishes itself from the fairway and rough; the gorgeous vista from the tee; a ball that softly landed a foot from the cup – to me, this is all art – and I’m sure the course designer considered it as much. Heck, one could argue that the new forged wedge in my bag is a work of art! (OK, maybe I’m getting a little carried away).

But let’s try to answer my original question: What is golf art? Perhaps an appropriate way to answer that would be to rearrange the question into a statement…

Golf is art.