Lie + Loft Founder Luke Davis, PGA, Recalls an Epic PGA Championship at Oak Hill

Golf and photography force you to be present. As someone who struggles with focus and wandering thoughts, maybe that's why I enjoy both so much.

When staring down a fairway or through a lens, time slows, and the million little voices of anxiety go mute.

That was certainly the case when I first stepped foot onsite at Oak Hill for a practice round at the 2023 PGA Championship. With camera gear, I wandered through the front gates still a little shook from almost missing my 6:15 am flight (another reason to get TSA Pre-Check).

The front 9 reminded me of portions of Southern Hills, or maybe it was just the familiar yellow and blue pins. I crossed over a few bridges and along some gravel, then up the right side rough of No. 10. I stopped to ask a volunteer if she knew where the media center was.

WHOOSH.

Like an arrow coming out of the sky from a castle of archers, a golf ball whizzed past my face and bounced a few hops into the rough. Consider me fully in the moment now.

"Keep heading into the line of fire and you'll find that media tent!" she chuckled.

This would be my third PGA Championship shooting for the PGA Digital team, sunup to sundown, capturing photo and video content to be used for PGA Championship and PGA of America social channels. I don't think that the imposter syndrome will ever go away (or stressing if my batteries are charged). Hey, that's life right?

It's the same with my day-to-day job, too. I left the green-grass side of being a PGA Member and in 2015 started my own venture, Lie + Loft, which began with drawing golf course maps of places I'd worked or played at. I sold custom maps out of my car to courses and to any friends that wanted new hangs.

Now, over eight years in, we've evolved into a full-blown golf art and design company, still drawing, photographing, and printing everything in-house. In both cases (entrepreneurship and shooting photography) it started with not really knowing what the heck I was doing and learning the hard way.

Anyway, back to Oak Hill. Rochester, Wegmans, and “garbage plates” felt like home as I grew up in central NY. The track was lush green, hilly, and routed amongst flowing creeks and towering trees. The talented PGA Digital team I worked with was a collection of fellow golf nerds, stoked to be there onsite to share with the world the scenes and stories from the week. We had our own private area in the media center with plenty of sunscreen and water that I forgot to utilize. It was time to get to work.

As the lone PGA Member on the photography crew, my first task was to settle in and document the Corebridge Financial PGA Team. For those not familiar, the identity of the PGA Championship is that twenty PGA Professionals from around the country qualify for this team and get a shot to compete against the tour players you see every week. It's a chance for us PGA Members to show what we're made of beyond the lesson tee or the walls of a golf shop.

I saw familiar faces from PGA Championships past — Wyatt Worthington II, PGA, on the range grinding, Alex Beach, PGA, pounding lefty drives, and Michael Block, PGA, in a foreshadowing manner, leaning against the Wanamaker Trophy. I searched for all the newcomers playing in their first PGA Championship — I met Matt Cahill with an ever-present Seminole smile, JJ Killeen reppin' Red Feather, Steve Holmes exchanging handshakes with his supporters, and Cordes from Cherokee getting fan love for his fun to say last name.

An entire book could be written about the week at Oak Hill, but I'll keep it at a quick shutter speed.

When you're in the moment, time stands still and flies at the same time, and when the dust settles, a blur of shots remain. I think I took over 5,000 photos along with video. I interviewed Josh Allen and other Buffalo Bills players. Almost knocked noses with Dustin Johnson when turning around at the short game area, and saw Scottie Scheffler’s ballerina feet at such close quarters I could have tied his shoelaces together.

My favorite things to capture at a major championship are not the players (as cool as it was seeing Rory rocking a backwards hat). It's the energy between the course, players, and amphitheater of those waiting to be entertained. The fans. That's where the real magic happens.

Scanning through my edits is like a Where's Waldo book full of emotions and characters. And this year, Mother Nature joined the photography party, presenting cold, wind and rain, between plenty of warmth and sunshine. When the clouds and umbrellas cleared Saturday, a spectator told me to be ready — they would 100 percent streak down the fairway if a rainbow popped. You betcha I hung out in that area for a bit with hopes of capturing a viral moment, but alas, sensors were spared.

Come Sunday I wasn't ready for the PGA Championship to be over . . . but my right calf was. We were doing 15 plus mile days and my 34 year old body felt 74.

I hobbled up the fairway of 18 with my trusty 24 and 70-200mm cameras to memorialize the final moments. Each stride shot pain through my entire body but I kept a smile as I passed CES security in their bright yellow uniforms and an impressive quantity of law enforcement. The crowd was buzzing like a honeybee’s hive, still energized in wake of Michael Block's slam dunk ace on 15. I had flashbacks to Phil Mickelson's miraculous victory at Kiawah Island, where I had to fight my way through a giant wave of spectators rushing the course. I thanked the officers and security guards that made eye contact for being out there. It felt like the roof was about to blow off the Oak Hill building again, except crazily this time, it wasn't for the leader of the tournament!

Block, now approaching folk hero status, knocked his final approach down left of the 18th grandstand, an impossible up and down with big future exemptions on the line remaining — a par here would get him a ticket to next year’s PGA Championship at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville.

He would go on to loft an unorthodox scooping blow and sink a putt to finish T-15 as Corebridge Financial Low PGA Club Professional of the week. Block was just as much (if not more) the star of the show alongside Brooks.

A final hike led me to the top of 18 grandstand to shoot the Wanamaker Trophy ceremony and Brooks' finish. Shout out to two very kind fans who let me awkwardly stand behind them on the highest row railing awaiting the Brooks last putt, I appreciate you so much.

But I wasn't there just to see Brooks. It was time to celebrate something much bigger on behalf of all my nearly 29,000 fellow PGA Members and the Association who does so much to grow the game.

It was time to celebrate the history that Michael Block just fossilized for the ages. Call it serendipity or call it imposter syndrome, my distance from the other mob of photographers set the beautiful stage to witness the Trophy Ceremony. I see you, Michael Block, PGA. Thanks for representing the PGA of America and making the 2023 PGA Championship one for the photo books.

Until next year, it's back to the Lie + Loft print shop, where we're already getting course maps and illustrations ready for Valhalla.