Christie’s to auction Valderrama founder’s private collection of golf art and memorabilia

Valderrama founder Jaime Ortiz-Patiño is auctioning off one of the world’s most important private collections of golf art and memorabilia.

The sale, at Christie’s in London on May 30, is expected to raise more than £2 million.

Assembled by Ortiz Patiño over 25 years, this auction will see the return of many rare items to the market, including an 18th century metal headed putter previously in the collection of The Royal Perth Golfing Society, which took a record £110,000 when sold by Christie’s Scotland in the late 1990s. In May it is expected to realise £60,000 to £100,000.

Other highlights include the preparatory oil sketch for perhaps the most famous painting in the history of golf, ‘The Golfers’ by Charles Lees, which is now in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. It is expected to realise £120,000 to £180,000. ‘The Golf Course, North Berwick’ by Sir John Lavery, from a series of works painted between 1921 and 1922 that are the most valuable and desirable modern depictions of the game, is estimated at £200,000 to £300,000.

A range of feather filled balls, with estimates ranging from £5,000 to £20,000, will be sold alongside an early gutty ball made by Allan Robertson and inscribed “A new kind of golf ball made of gutta percha in the year 1849” (estimated £12,000 to £18,000). There’s also a programme from the inaugural Masters in 1934.

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