A TALENTED illustrator’s labor of love calendar has teed up a unique boost for an Easter Ross golf club.
Mike Taylor’s attention to detail in the hand drawn illustrations – painstakingly created over a period of nine months – has delighted bosses and fellow members at Tain Golf Club.
Mr Taylor, who lives near the course and has a 30-year career as an illustrator behind him, had so impressed the club with an earlier illustration that the calendar was mooted.
The club’s Dorothy Melville said: “His illustration was so good I asked if he would be interested in doing illustrations for a calendar, not thinking he would spend the next nine months working on it – and when you see the detail you’ll understand why .
“He has captured the golf course brilliantly and his eye for detail is amazing. For example the train in February’s illustration has the club phone number as its number.”
He refused to take any payment for the one-off which has already sold more than 100 copies.
A non-playing member since smashing a wrist in an accident, he said: “I still like to spend a bit of time there. It’s a beautiful course to walk around. I sometimes find myself watching at the last hole and thinking ‘oh you shouldn’t have played it like that!’
“It’s a superbly challenging, underrated course in my opinion.”
Over three decades of illustration, work has included children’s educational books, among them a very successful pop-up dinosaur book produced in more than 10 languages.
He had many walk rounds the course taking lots of photographs by way of preparation. He said: “I wanted to make sure that the holes were recognisable.”
The Aberdeen College of Art graduate first studied ceramics before turning his hand to drawing – and never looked back. His lovingly hand-drawn pieces pop out in a way those relying more heavily on computer technology do not.
He sees Tain golf course as “a lovely place” and the £10 fee for non-playing members a real bargain. He said: “Some clubs can have an isolationist attitude. I’d say Tain is friendly and perhaps a bit eccentric and I like that.”
He said he was happy to provide it with a bit more publicity as he feels it is well deserved for a course that is perhaps sometimes under the shadow of the better known Royal Dornoch only a few miles away.
He lived in Strathpeffer and Cromarty before settling in Tain.
Mr Taylor said he had walked in to the clubhouse recently to hear two women laughing and realized they were enjoying flicking through his calendar – and suggesting that one image bore a close resemblance to a member they knew…
He said it is likely to be a one-off given the amount of time put into it. That makes it something of a collector’s item for fellow lovers of the golf club.
Do you have a community story or photograph from Ross-shire you would like to share? Get in touch by emailing [email protected]
Do you want to respond to this article? If so, click here to submit your thoughts and they may be published in print.
.