‘The World’s Foremost Golf Photographer’ tells Worldwide Golf about his journey in life and how he got where he is today.
Nick Tarratt met up with David Cannon, acknowledged as ‘The World’s Foremost Golf Photographer’ on the sidelines of the Bonallack Trophy and Patsy Hankins Trophy at Al Hamra Golf Club, to chat through how his career began and a couple of iconic moments with the legend that is Seve Ballesteros.
I started playing golf when I was around 18 months old – we lived in Ascot in England and my dad cut me down an old three wood – we had a huge garden.
I did not really play golf properly until I went to Public School in Oxford at St Edwards, aged 15 years-old.
That summer golf took over and I got to scratch in 1973, I was a regular for the Leicester County golf team and I was in the England Golf National Team training squad.
At Boarding School my dormitory walls were covered in clippings of sports photos – not of pop stars or female models and even more – like my friends.
I left school in 1973, I did not go to university and my dad, who worked in advertising, got me a job in the winter packing nylon sheets. The bosses were really great and allowed to me to work flexible hours – so I could still play lots of golf.
The sales manager of that company took a liking to me and the Northern Area Sales Manager position became available. They told me to go and give it a try.
I used to take a bag of ten pence coins every Monday morning to Leicester Forest East Service Station, on the M1 and just rang around my 50 clients on my call list for that week from the pay phone. Perhaps five would want to see me and whenever an offer on my nylon sheets came up, I would ring my best clients. They always had my back when someone from HQ asked if young David had made a call or visit – they said yes, of course.
I was then introduced to Neville Chadwick who ran the Leicester News Service and Publicity Club, we went away as a group for a weekend and he invited me to watch some live sport.
The first match I actually attended was at Welford Road to watch East Midlands versus the touring All Blacks rugby team and I sat on the side of the pitch looking after Nevile’s cameras.
Neville told me, ‘Focus on the eyes and fill the frame.’ Good advice that still sits with me today.
I took a few photos and we went to process the photos at the office. After 15 minutes he came out and said to me, ‘This one is a nice frame that you took.’
He could not put my name on it – I was not part of the NJA union – and he sent it out to the papers.
The next day he called me and said, ‘Have a look at the back page of today’s Daily Express.’
My photo had been printed. It was a lightbulb moment in my life. I had a mini car and immediately sold it and then invested everything I had into photography, it was like a drug had hit me.
At the age of 24 or 25 I bought all the books, I could, on photography. I immediately stopped playing golf with any ambitions. For two and half years I did whatever jobs I could for no fee. Bob gave me free film, free processing and so much more. Including free access to all sporting events I wanted to attend.
I was at Trevor Francis’ debut game for Nottingham Forest at the City Ground, the first one million pound footballer, with Brian Clough as the manager of an excellent Forest team that won the European Cup twice and so much more.
Neville then introduced me to a gentleman called Bob Thomas in 1981 – he ran a fledging football agency in Northampton.
Bob invited me to come over to lunch one day – and told me that I could keep selling nylon sheets full-time, or, earn half my current earnings, be given a Morris Marina van and, ‘I promise you that within three months you will be travelling the world.’
He Bob was right almost to the day – within three months I attended my first World Cup Football Qualifying game in Belgium and that year I went to Central America doing football photography, as well as Kuwait, Nigeria and those type of countries for World Cup Football Qualifying tournaments.
I suddenly found my passion for travel, photography and sport all at the same time, the stars were aligned.
Bob had a problem – he was never one for acknowledging the photographer in name, and he always used the byline for all his photos he sent out – ‘Bob Thomas Sports Photography.’
I was cross with Bob and the phrase that comes to mind is, ‘Acknowledge your photographers.’
I was working almost 24/7 for 12 months and earning good money.
I then met up with the guys at All Sports Photography in 1982 at the Commonwealth Games in Australia and they offered me a job as a football photographer, I accepted and Bob literally threw me out of the office and I had three months gardening leave.
I joined All Sports in March 1983, and the rest is history, became a director of the company in July 1986, after the World Cup in 1986 and got shares in the company. The following year we sold out to Getty.
We were pioneers of digital transmission photography in the industry. It took just five minutes to transmit, rather than 20 minutes under the old analogue system, that frequently tripped and we had to start the process again.
We were the market leaders and I recall lines of bikes queuing outside our offices in London ready to take our photos all over London and further afield. The fastest photographic service of decent photos is what all the papers wanted and we were just that.
In 1987 I made my first visit Dubai when one of my best mates Tony Lewis invited me to fly over to photograph the build that was Emirates Golf Club clubhouse and the Majlis Course – the Arabic tent design – when it was just a shell before officially opening the following year.
I attended the 1990 Dubai Desert Classic and I recall staying at JA The Resort, Jebel Ali, transmitting photos digitally from my room, using the pin plug to connect my prongs to connect online and processing prints in my bathroom.
We sent photos of Emirates Golf Club around the world, what an experience.
I have missed only one of the 36 Dubai Desert Classics in its history – that was during Covid when I could not get insurance to travel.
Seve Ballesteros was perhaps the one player who, arguably, changed my life.
In May 1976 I played with Seve in a Pro-Am at my home club at The Leicestershire Golf Club. I remember he hit the ball a very long way.
I connected with Seve when I did Golf World Magazine photography for their Contributing Editors: like Seve, Bernhard Langer and so many other stars of the time.
Seve was always a nightmare on tour trying to tie him down for time around golf tournaments for contracted photo shoots. He always gave us the runaround and obviously hated being distracted at golf tournaments by us.
I then asked Seve, more in jest than anything else, if I could come to Pedrena in Spain for a day to do the contracted annual photoshoot all in one morning, rather than chase him around the world at tournaments when he was focused on all matter’s tournament golf. To my huge surprise he said yes. I travelled to Spain and we did some typical shots in the morning according to the brief and at lunch in Pedrena.
I asked him if we could go in the afternoon to see where he learned his golf as a boy. Where he hit balls on the beach. This was soon to become the best day of my life so far outside of family stuff.
We drove down to the beach and he showed me how he learned to putt on the beach, with a tin can and a napkin. We were so lucky as the tide was out and the sand was rock hard.
I then asked him to hit some 3 irons. This was all gold dust stuff for me and I knew it.
I was exhausted, had run out of film and had just flown in from the Johnnie Walker in Singapore overnight.
I starting walking back to the car and Seve shouted to me, ‘David. We pick up the balls.’
We worked hard to finish the job and then for the last 15 minutes we were looking for a one last Titleist ball, we never did find it, and in the car he was still chuntering and complaining about the lost ball all the way home. Typical Seve.
The next key moment for me with Seve was in 1984 at The Open at St Andrews. On the 18th Green on the 72nd hole I picked a spot to shoot, not in line with the player and hole as I usually would, I was more at a 45 degrees angle to Seve.
I especially liked backgrounds in my photos and this position was ideal with the buildings on the right of the 18th hole at St Andrews created the perfect contrast to Seve putting on the green.
Seve hits his birdie putt, it hangs on the lip and then he stood there to milk the crowd after it had dropped.
Then he started his fist pumping dance. The whole drama from lining up his putt to the dance took a very long time and most of my fellow photographers had already run out of film.
I did not see the actual photo until around 12 noon the next day, the Monday.
I drove down overnight to London – to get the photos to the offices. I thought I had something special. It is, in my biased opinion, the most single used photo in the history of golf.
When I saw the photo, I said WOW!
By David Cannon.
