A Sketchbook Diary: Cornwall and the Pro-Am Years

For fifteen summers, from 2005 right through to 2020, I had the best free ride in golf.

The pro-am team — Mike McLean, our pro, along with Paul John and David — would head down to Cornwall for their annual pilgrimage, and somehow I always managed to talk my way into the car. The fare was simple enough: I listened to every missed putt replayed in forensic detail, laughed at the same jokes I'd heard the year before, and became, without ever quite agreeing to it, the team's unofficial taxi service home from the pub each night. It was, without question, the best deal I ever struck.

Cornwall has been one of my favourite counties for as long as I can remember, and those trips are a large part of why. There's something about the light down there — softer, more silvery than anywhere else in England — that made every journey worth the price of admission, missed putts and all.

St Enodoc was always my favourite morning. The course sits low among the dunes near the Camel Estuary, and I'd wander off with my sketchbook while the four of them disappeared into the gorse to hunt for balls that had no business going where they went. The little church of St Enodoc, half-buried in sand, sitting so quietly among all that windswept grass — I must have half a dozen studies of it tucked away in old sketchbooks. The estuary light changes every twenty minutes down there, and I never once got bored trying to catch it.

Rock, looking out over the estuary — lots of apple blossom that year.

Trevose was wilder still — properly exposed to the Atlantic, with views out over the headland that made me wonder, not for the first time, whether the golf was really the point of these trips at all. I'd find a spot near the clubhouse with a flask of tea and watch the four of them become smaller and smaller figures against all that sky, and by the time they came back in, windswept and full of stories about the eighth hole, I'd usually filled a few pages.

Some of the best painting happened on the coast path around Trevose rather than the course itself. One blustery afternoon I sat above Treyarnon Bay at half three, strong light, breezy, painting straight into the sun until my eyes watered. Further round, at Thunderhole Point, the gorse was so bright a yellow it barely looked real against the blue — I wrote “muscles ripple the sea” in the margin that day, which tells you the wind had got into my head as much as the water.

Treyarnon Bay — 3.30pm, strong light, breezy, painting into the sun.

Bright yellow gorse towards Thunderhole Point.

Porthcothan's rock caves gave me a whole afternoon once — David and the others played on ahead while I stayed behind scrambling over the rocks with my paints, and further along at Constantine Bay I set up by the rock pools only to find myself with an audience: a spaniel called Freddie who took an inordinate interest in the painting, sniffing the water jar and generally supervising. Best day of the year, that one — high seas turning, and a dog for company.

Rock caves, Porthcothan.

Rock pools of Constantine — high seas turning, and Freddie the spaniel very interested in the painting.

And then there was Newquay — which needed no excuse at all. I'd happily have gone every year just for the town itself, all clifftop views and Atlantic light tumbling over Fistral Beach, the whole place looking like it was built for anyone with a paintbox. While the boys played, I'd set up on the headland above the harbour, and more than once I'd still be there when a phone call came through asking rather sheepishly whether I might collect them from a pub with a name I can no longer remember, somewhere they'd found their way to “for just the one.”

Port Isaac became a regular detour too — I have a whole page of gulls sketched in pencil before I'd even opened the paints, watching them wheel over a little red-sailed boat in the harbour. And from Lobber Point looking back at the village, all stacked white cottages and dark rock, I wrote just one word in the margin: awesome. It was windy enough to nearly take the sketchbook with it, but worth every page. Another afternoon there was sunnier and altogether calmer — a 3pm cream tea by the harbour, scones and all, which I noted was “yummy” in handwriting that gets progressively less steady the longer the tea went on.

Port Isaac from Lobber Point — awesome, and windy.

Gulls sketched from the harbour, and a red-sailed boat below.

Sunny Port Isaac — 3pm cream scone tea. Yummy.

Some evenings there was nothing to do but sit and watch the sun go down over the water, paints packed away, the whole sky turning orange and gold over the rocks. Those pages don't have much written on them beyond a time — half past eight, thereabouts — because there wasn't really anything more that needed saying.

Evening light over the rocks — no notes needed for this one.

What I remember most, though, isn't the courses or even the coastline — it's how well I was looked after. Mike, Paul, John and David between them made sure I never once felt like the spare part on a boys' trip. There was always a seat kept warm for me at the nineteenth hole, always someone insisting I try whatever they were having, always a great deal of good-natured fuss made over whichever sketch I'd produced that day. I was thoroughly spoilt, and I knew it.

Fifteen years of missed putts, cliff-top gorse, harbour gulls and late-night pub collections — I wouldn't trade a single one of them. Cornwall gave me some of my favourite paintings. The pro-am team gave me the free ride to go and find them.