Museum Exhibition Showcases Golf Course As Art Form 

Note: The USGA Museum is temporarily closed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

LIBERTY CORNER, NEW JERSEY | One of the best parts of the USGA Museum is its fine art collection, and it was from that trove of prints, paintings, drawings and sculptures that Rand Jerris, the association’s senior managing director of public services, curated an engaging new exhibition called “The Art of the Golf Course.” The idea, he says, was to show the different ways artists have depicted and interpreted the layouts on which the game has been played through the years. “And if we can provide different perspectives on golf in the process, so much the better,” says Jerris, a former director of the museum who was awarded a Ph.D. in art and archaeology from Princeton.

What makes the golf course such an interesting study in art in his mind is its unique standing as a field of play. “The Rules of Golf … are notably silent on the forms, dimensions and appearance of a golf course,” Jerris writes in an introduction to the exhibit. “It is left to the creativit...