18 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY FEBRUARY 12-18, 2026 www.montereycountynow.com The first thing Shelley Cost does is draw. Before the paint, before the color, before the seduction of greens and blues, there is graphite and paper and correction. In her studio, large sheets lean against the wall, sketched landscapes pinned and repinned, horizon lines nudged lower, rock faces widened, trees turned slightly so they frame rather than block. The work looks almost architectural. Cost does not describe herself as a painter of golf courses so much as a painter of landscapes that happen to include golf. “Some artists use the term ‘golf landscape,’ which I like,” she says. “Because the landscape is still landscape painting.” The distinction matters. She is after composition, not documentation. Her studio reflects this discipline. One wall is a corkboard dense with reference images: Pebble Beach greens, Carmel coastline, China Cove, Mission Ranch, bison in snow, sheep crossing a river, cypress trees bent by wind. Nearby, finished oil paintings hang framed in gold or dark wood. Cost grew up inside this process. Her father was an artist, and the family ran an art gallery in Carmel for about 30 years. In the 1960s and ’70s, when few artists were painting golf, he was asked to illustrate courses for the Northern California Golf Association and Golf Magazine. “He was a golfer himself,” she recalls, “and nobody was really doing it then.” Pebble Beach and Cypress Point entered the family orbit early—branding opportunities, and a local terrain. Cost was 11 when one of her paintings sold from the gallery. Her parents hung it without identifying the artist. “It was a little floral thing,” she says, still sounding amused by the fact of it. She kept painting. She studied art in college. When the family gallery closed, she continued on her own. Her professional relationship with Pebble Beach Company began in the early 2000s, when the company opened a gallery and reached out about her father’s work. That inquiry led to a longer association—about 14 years— during which Cost painted the property under license. Through that work, her paintings entered lodges, private clubs, and personal collections. Two portraits she painted—Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus—remain on view at the Pebble Beach Lodge. Yet golf is only one thread in her practice. Cost is a member of American Women Artists and participates in national juried exhibitions. She was recently admitted to her first museum show and has shown bison paintings with Oil Painters of America. She travels to photograph wildlife, including an upcoming private tour in Yellowstone. “You have to find your way,” she says. “But I’ve always painted.” Cost’s golf work is distinguished by both insider access and restraint. “Not every golf hole makes a good painting,” she says. “It all has to be a really good composition.” She points to the 9th hole at Pebble Beach, which slopes downhill toward the ocean. Left untouched, the lines pull the eye out of balance. “You really have to take your artistic license—just like you would as a writer—and make it work.” That license involves subtle but consequential changes. Horizons are lowered. Greens are adjusted so they do not flatten under photographic dimension. Features are enlarged so they carry visual weight. “Photographs distort,” she says. “Especially with a golf green. You don’t want it stretched out.” In one large graphite drawing of the Lone Cypress, Cost explains the revisions she is about to make for a commission. The client wants a rock formation more prominent. To achieve that, she will enlarge the rock, open the water behind it, shift the trees, and invent a cove that does not appear from the standing viewpoint. “You don’t see that cove when you’re standing there,” she says. “But for the painting to work, it has to be there.” This kind of editing is largely invisible to viewers. The final painting simply looks right. “People don’t know when they look at a painting that you’ve edited,” she says. “It just looks like the Lone Cypress.” The same is true of China Cove, where she enlarges the opening in a rock and lowers the tide to lead the eye inward, toward light and depth. 2026 AT&T PEBBLE BEACH PRO-AM BRUSH STROKES For golf artist Shelley Cost, the courses of Pebble Beach are landscapes worthy of canvas. By Ava Homa BRUSH CONT. ON PG 20 Artist Shelley Cost in her Seaside studio. She initially set up in Monterey, but as demand for her work increased, Cost needed a larger space. Cost is inspired by landscapes besides golf. “Stone’s Edge” depicts the Lone Cypress. Cost has portrayed Pebble Beach Golf Links on many canvases, including this painting titled “Return to the 9th.” DANIEL DREIFUSS SHELLEY COST SHELLEY COST
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