This oil sketch, a study for the much larger and more crowded painting, ‘The Golfers’, records a famous match played on the Old Course of St Andrews during the Annual Meeting of 1841. Two Scottish baronets, Sir David Baird of Newburgh and Sir Ralph Anstruther of Balcaskie, challenged two other gentlemen players, Major Playfair and John Campbell of Glenseddel, to a match. This loose sketch has all the appearance of having been painted rapidly, perhaps even on the spot. This contrasts to Lees’ finished painting, in which the figures appear more posed, perhaps because the artist utilised photographs of the figures as a visual aid.