"To realize that we actually have had 400 years worth of artistic expression around this game is really remarkable."

Nice backstory piece by Howard Pousner on Atlanta's High Museum exhibition, "Art of Golf."

So while the National Galleries of Scotland had Lees' painting and other old sod links depictions, and the High could tap a mother lode of Jones portraits and related pieces around Atlanta, it was left to curator Julia Forbes and consulting curator Catherine Lewis to determine what should surround those central elements. Doing so required them to play rounds of history detective, since, unlike most major art shows, there were no exhibit catalogs or other substantial research trails to follow.

"It was really exciting because no one had really done this work before, taking the subject matter of golf and thinking about how it had inspired artists," Forbes said. "So in the end, to realize that we actually have had 400 years worth of artistic expression around this game is really remarkable."

There were many unexpected discoveries along the way, including that George Bellows, the American painter best known for New York cityscapes, had captured golf scenes, and that the American impressionist Childe Hassam not only enjoyed playing the game in playgrounds for the rich like East Hampton, N.Y., but depicting it.

Beyond the Edinburgh institutions, major loans were secured from the Royal and Ancient Golf Club, the United States Golf Association Museum in New Jersey (which held a series of 16 1935 Harold Edgerton stroboscopic photos deconstructing Jones' swing that had once been owned by the golfer) and private collections including that of Atlanta technology titan John Imlay.