Sam was born in Aurora, IL, moved to Middletown, OH where he grew up, went to school, worked in the steel mill, and played golf. Sam received his training in watercolor painting while pursuing his architectural degrees at Miami U and Cornell. He was co-captain of the golf team at Miami, the MAC champion, where he met a nice girl who liked to shag balls and married her. Sam and Frances live in Bexley, Ohio near their three sons and two daughters-in-law.

He was only eight when his father gave him his first set of golf clubs. This was the beginning of his interest in golf. Sam has found an intriguing affinity of golf to painting. Both are forms of recreation. Both possess a quality known as “simulation” in the science of games and recreation, whereby, with the stroke of a brush or a club, one may attain an altered, heightened sense of reality; a high.

An art critic writes of a recent exhibit of Ingwersen’s work:

"While Ingwersen’s watercolors cover a wide range of subjects, he excels in the depiction of golf courses. That is where his heart lies, and in this viewer’s eyes, there are no bogies in his paintings. Ingwersen’s watercolors are delightful to look at. They have a nice sense of color fusion and transparency; qualities that are attainable only with watercolor media. His handling of the reflection of light on the water surfaces of puddles, ponds, oceans, and streams is dramatic, and evokes no ordinary mood."

Sam is one of the world’s top golf watercolor artists. Sam was honored as “Artist of The Year for Golf Expo 91” for his watercolors, along with an Englishman and an American, at a golf art exhibition held in Charleston, SC with thirty top international golf artists from the United States and Great Britain. This was indeed a rare award since it had been the only international exhibit of art strictly devoted to the subject of golf. Ingwersen’s latest exhibit of his golf watercolor paintings was the “Art of Golf Exhibit”, 2007, The River Tree Center for the Arts, Irving Gallery, Kennebunkport, Maine. Many of the finest golf artists exhibited works in all types of media. Record sales were 5 times that of any other show. Watercolors, mostly Ingwersen’s, outsold all other media.

The painting of golf scenes started about 25 years ago. From the elevated lawn of his summer place, adjacent to his home course, Sam was painting the 15th hole at Webhannet Golf Club, Kennebunk Beach, ME, when to his surprise, someone offered to buy it, unfinished. H’m…a sale, sight unseen? It happened again. His gallery in New York called him about 6 weeks after their client had purchased his painting and asked if a small reproduction might be sent to their client so that he might see what he bought. Why doesn’t he look at the original? The response was: He is anxious to see it, but it is hanging in one of his homes, to where he will not return for awhile. So it goes.

Sam paints in watercolor. He has used acrylic and oil. He states that no opaque media is able to achieve the fusion of colors and the dramatic quality of light that is possible with watercolors. With watercolor, an ordinary scene can become extraordinarily alive.

Ingwersen’s technique borrows from the styles of the English golf landscape artists Harry Rountree and Arthur Weaver, of the early and mid 20th century. Rountree’s paintings are dominated by dramatic skies of all colors (few blue) done in Constable’s Romantic Style, more possessed of natural, romantic surroundings than the subject hole, and various bodies of water with reflections. His “Out of Bounds” Sheringham, is as the name implies and is typical. There is no flagstaff or green. Weaver departs from the Romantic Style; distant land/seascapes are incidental to his focused depiction of fairways, bunkers, greens and flagstaffs. Upon viewing, you quickly know that Weaver’s are golf scenes. Weaver/Rountree have turned the most prosaic scenes; wastes (bunkers), out of bounds and such into delightful paintings. A mix of the two styles; romantic and focused; are assimilated in Sam’s technique.

Consistently, Sam’s paintings depict: 1) a positive statement of surrounding natural and/or man designed features that impart to the golf course its unique appeal or beauty, and 2) a focus upon the golf green, always accented with a lens of sunlight. The subject features are painted in a variety of light conditions; bright sun light with strong patterns of light and shadow, the fading light of late afternoon sun, water and reflections upon the water, or sun rays bursting through clouds as in his Guillane #8 and Bethpage Black #11. Sam often does a series of paintings to capture the mood of a golf course and the surrounding land/seascape. Sam ascribes to Ruskin’s principal: “The landscape painter must create an image capable of producing in the distant mind of the spectator precisely that impression which reality would have produced.” Sam creates his impression, which, by his technique and research, the reality of the image is enhanced in his paintings. The result: a work of art for every day, with a high or a pleasant memory with every look.