Photographing Tiger

Golf Digest’s Dom Furore has been documenting Woods for 28 years and counting

- Dom furore

In 1985, I was just out of college and took an entry-level photography job at Golf Digest in Trumbull, Conn., owned then by The New York Times Company’s Sports & Leisure magazine division. To be honest, I was less interested in golf than I was in the number of consumer and trade publications the company-owned. I didn’t plan to stay more than a year or two, just long enough to add published tear sheets to my portfolio to help launch my career.

Well, I’m still here, and a big reason is because of one assignment that set the trajectory for my career—one that has included millions of frames and miles travelled to photograph golf courses, tournaments, instruction and, of course, golf legends.

In 1992, Golf Digest Design Director Nick Didio asked me if I wanted to go to California and “photograph this young kid—Tiger Woods.” I jumped at the chance for a couple of reasons: I could visit some college buddies I hadn’t seen in a while, and take some photographs of an up-and-coming hot-shot golfer who was just 16 years old.

My assignment was to shoot a swing sequence using our Hulcher high-speed film camera. This was the first sequence of Tiger ever published in Golf Digest, and it has appeared in the magazine several times since. I was also asked to get some casual pictures of Tiger running. He had recently decided to join his high school’s track team, and it was an opportunity to see him doing something other than playing golf.