The drama at the centre of this picture is one that everyone will recognise, regardless of their degree of enthusiasm for the game of golf. Is the ball, played by the gentleman just left of centre, going to drop neatly into the hole or will it stop, like that of his opponent, just tantalisingly short of its target? A crowd of onlookers presses forward to follow the action and, as viewers, we are drawn into this critical moment in the match.

The origins of the game of golf may be disputed but Scotland will always have a strong claim to be the spiritual home of the modern sport. This vast panoramic painting by Charles Lees not only doc­uments the growing popularity of golf in nineteenth-century Scotland but also conveys something of the sense of pride and excitement that this national pastime can arouse in our country. Lees was a portrait and genre painter who had studied with Sir Henry Raeburn. The Golfers, dating from 1847, was his first major sporting picture; he would later follow up his success with this work with other paintings of outdoor activities including curling and skating.

The setting for The Golfers is the famous Old Course at St Andrews and it depicts a two-ball foursome match involving Sir David Baird and Sir Ralph Anstruther play­ing against John Campbell of Glensaddell and Major Hugh Lyon Playfair (who has just taken his shot). The development of such a complex composition involved elaborate preparatory work. In addition to the four players, most of the figures are por­traits and they include many of the leading personalities associated with the game at the time. Several oil studies and sketches for the picture have survived and it is likely that Lees also turned to the new medium of photography as an aid. The painting  was bought and perhaps commissioned by Alexander Hill, the brother of the photogra­pher David Octavius Hill, and it is possible that Lees enlisted the latter’s support in capturing likenesses of the various charac­ters in the painting.

Lees skilfully animates his picture with vivid characterisations and colourful detail. As the contrast with the barefooted urchin selling ginger beer underlines, this is a group portrait of the privileged social classes bound together by their enthusiasm for a leisure activity. But the sheer range of personalities involved hints at the future of the game and its eventual transition from an exclusively elite pastime into the hugely popular sport that we know today. The picture was privately owned for over 150 years but when it came up for sale, the National Galleries rightly made every effort to acquire it, accomplishing this with support from the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Art Fund and, appropriately, The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews.