Should golf be your passion, there’s a chance you’re discouraged and maybe deflated by all the noise and contentiousness that currently overruns it.

Obscene gobs of money to athletes who merely hit a little white ball across immaculate green fields and contribute very little to the betterment of mankind. Insulting claims about “growing the game” and making a better life for your family because as none of us realize, $30m to $40m annually doesn’t get you far these days. Copious amounts of beer overserved to cowards so they can stand 50 feet away and be ignorant and vile and a team golf silliness for massive piles of loot being played by old-timers and also-rans – or didn’t you see that a Phil Mickelson-led team finished dead last, 40 shots (FORTY!) behind the winners in just 54 holes in Las Vegas?

And they still got paid handsomely. Sigh.

Leaders and some players are selling their souls and spewing out nonsense, gambling is preached to be a necessary evil to widen interest, and all the while the noise is suffocating and views of this great game are being blocked.

Which is why Evan Schiller – he of New York roots, years in the California desert, and current Connecticut residency – earns profound thanks and a round of applause for his eye, for his patience, for capturing the essence of golf’s beauty in a breathtaking way.

That Schiller’s has been a compelling journey in the world of golf is joyous in itself. That he found his calling as a golf course photographer and is in high demand because of his uncanny ability to match shadows with sunlight with topography with backdrop is great news for those of us who desperately cherish the splendor of this game.

The serenity of those walks down a fairway, the majesty of ocean views or mountain backdrops, the awe we feel when we walk along artistry envisioned by Bill Coore or Ben Crenshaw or Tom Doak or Gil Hanse or David McLay Kidd or any of the hundreds of great courses left by MacKenzie or Ross or Tillinghast or Thomas or Raynor or Dye . . . the quiet and stillness is what we love about the game.

Schiller has captured so much of that on film.

His photos inspire and offer a sense of awe. He will offer views on X, formerly Twitter (@Evan_Schiller), where he has 15,400 followers, or with Instagram (@evan_schiller_photography) where 77,000 follow his splendid content. And to the many of us who wish we could capture with an iPhone the beauty that often captivates us during a round of golf, Schiller does so with his Hasselblad H6D-50 and DJI Inspire 2 drone. Treat yourself to a tour through his website – evanschillerphotography.com – and you’ll marvel at the quality that is offered for sale.

And to think, none of this might have happened if not for a high school golf coach’s rigorous tryout. “Let’s look at your swing,” he told the ninth-grader, who promptly swung. “OK,” he told me, said Schiller, laughing, “you’re on the team.”

Bless that coach, because “my real interest in golf developed in high school,” and Schiller handled the game well enough to go on and play alongside Woody Austin and Nathaniel Crosby at the University of Miami.

Soon after graduation, Schiller played the post-grad mind games, toying with insurance, maybe Wall Street, “just wondering what I was going to do.” That’s when his dad kept him on a path that Evan perhaps didn’t know he belonged.

“My dad said to me, ‘Why not go play golf? Don’t you love it?”

So between that day and the one several years later where Schiller, playing a round of golf with fellow club pro Tom Patri, fell in love with photography after staring at a hole at PGA West, he was like a thousand other wannabe golfers. A dream-chaser with an ability to occasionally show a spark.

Schiller did qualify for the 1986 US Open at Shinnecock and six other PGA Tour tournaments, including the 1988 Northern Telecom when his 147 missed the cut but had him one ahead of Brandel Chamblee. Take that.

It would prove to be his last PGA Tour chance and even though Evan Schiller got to the final qualifying stage with Q Schools in the US and Europe, he was at a crossroads.

“I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do,” said Schiller.

He wasn’t so confused that Schiller didn’t realize Quaker Ridge and Winged Foot were two pretty good places to pursue possible assistant pro positions. Time spent at Quaker Ridge was well spent as was a move over to Westchester CC where he reunited with Patri, the director of instruction.

Since that round of golf at PGA West years earlier, Schiller had continued to photograph golf courses and truth be told, his passion for that outweighed being a club pro. It even surpassed that other job in golf photography – snapping pro golfers. Through an old friend from high school and junior golf days, Michael Johnson, the equipment guru at Golf Digest, Schiller was contracted for photo assignments at several Masters.

“It was a great gig, I enjoyed it and appreciated it, but going up and down fairways (covering golfers) was not where my interests lie,” said Schiller.

Ah, but scouting out positions on a golf course, then patiently waiting and waiting for the right moment? Schiller is in his element. “I know people don’t really understand how my business works,” said Schiller, who has 20-to-25 “shoot assignments” lined up this year and maintains a licensing agreement with three prime properties for golf photos – Pebble Beach, Bandon Dunes, and Whistling Straits.

“Taking a picture you want requires a lot of waiting. People might say ‘It’s a cloudy day, let’s wait till tomorrow.’ But I’ll tell them, ‘No, let’s wait for today.’ ”

While there are those who’ll show up announced at a course, shoot away, maybe even fly a drone without notice, then post photos on Social Media, Schiller works through proper channels. He is hired by courses (Desert Mountain in Arizona is a popular client, Cabot Cliffs in Nova Scotia, and Ireland classics such as Ballybunion, Lahinch, Rosapenna, and Old Head are some of the 600 courses he’s photographed) and approaches each day with a passion. Constantly, he is  working with general managers and superintendents to confirm those spots where he wants to shoot.

“My windows to shoot are generally very small. Knowing what time, what the angles are, dancing around golfers . . . it all requires a lot of coordination with superintendents,” said Schiller. “You just can’t go out and shoot.”

It was Patri who suggested Schiller put his photos in the clubhouse for members to look at. “Who would want to buy one of my photos?” Schiller said to himself, only members in a steady line answered emphatically, “We would.”

Thus was a new career born, photography, within his old love, golf.

To know his story is to smile. To see his work is to marvel. Then tell yourself how envious you are because Evan Schiller is constantly around golf the way so many of us would love it to always be – quiet, orderly, and beautiful.