Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Tiger By The Numbers

art by Steven Anthony Salerno  visit sasgolf.com

(author's note: since the original posting date on 3/27/13, Tiger won again on the PGA Tour, upping his tournament victory stat from 77 to 78.... so the art image will have to be modified yet again to indicate 01-14-78)

This weeks victory at the Arnold Palmer Bay Hill Invitational Tournament by Tiger Woods marks the player's astounding 77th PGA Tour win, his recapturing of the World Golf Ranking's number 1 position... and has elicited renewed buzz that he may very well be firmly back on track to win more major championships again (he currently has 14 titles) and may either tie or surpass Jack Nicklaus' record of 18 major championship victories.

Posted here is a painting I did a few years ago for the PGA Tour web site's "Player Spotlight" feature section... and at the time the numbers graphic within the art image (I think) was set at  1 -  14  -  71.  So, now I modified the numbers graphics within the art image to be:  1  -  14  -  77.

Of course, the 1 in the artwork is Tiger's world golf ranking, the 14 is how many major titles he owns, and the 77 is how many PGA Tour wins he has. Relative to his golf skills, the man in red has talent, experience far beyond but a few other players in history, a strong work ethic, and clear goals. I personally think Tiger will indeed either tie or surpass Nicklaus' record. And in so doing I think he will win a major at 50 years of age! 

When Tiger's life became a tabloid feast a handful of years ago, and his personal and public world was crumbling... it seemed his golden train in golf had been permanently derailed. No one can avoid catastrophic periods in their life, whether they come from illness, outside forces, or are even self created.... but sometimes one can truly heal, can learn, can become stronger than before. Second chances are available but must be earned. Maybe Tiger indeed is becoming better both on and off the course. And his new prowess on the course suddenly has everyone thinking his golden train is on a very fast track once again.

Portrait of Ernie Els

portrait of Ernie Els by Steven Anthony Salerno visit sasgolf.com

I recently completed a small portrait of World Golf Hall of Fame golfer, South African Ernie Els... shown hoisting the Claret Jug upon winning the 2012 Open Championship at Royal Lytham & St. Annes, his fourth major championship victory. Now being the holder of four majors places Mr. Els into pretty rare company, as only 27 players in the entire history of the game have ever won four or more major championships. (and we all know that Jack Nicklaus hold the record with 18 majors and Tiger Woods is in a not so distant second with 14 majors)

I created this portrait painting using pencil, crayon, acrylics and gouache on Arches 260 lb hot press paper. In 2012 I had completed a series of "signature hole" golfscape paintings for Ernie Els Design (his golf course architecture company) which you can view at sasgolf.com in the Ernie Els project section.

I usually prefer doing "swing portraits" of players, rather than straight forward "portraits" simply because I enjoy expressing my knowledge of the golf swing and also capturing the unique look of an individual's swing... but in this instance, I actually could not locate sufficient reference photos to my liking of Mr. Els in action during the final round of the 2012 Open Championship... but the multitude of photos of him after winning and hoisting the Claret Jug caught my eye, as they radiated his sheer joy in winning his 4th major championship. So I used about 5 different photos as reference to construct my own art image... simplifying and editing out folds and wrinkles in clothing, adding or eliminating shadows, repositioning his pose, etc... all the multitude of actions required when using static photo reference to create an organic drawing and painting artwork. 

Visit sasgolf.com to view all my available limited edition golf art prints.