Hacienda's main damage came in the early to mid-60's when a fellow from Seattle named Don Hogan smoothed the course's finer and more natural features away.
Of course this was all because of El Nino -condition that had occured, causing the course to drain a little too slowly. It did very little damage other then made the course unplayable for a few days after the condition had stopped.
One of the more dramatic holes that has changed was the somewhat downhill-doglegging left, par 4, 13th which featured a very craggy ditch area to the left that was to be avoided at all costs. It was in play, but getting out of it was the task as the green was in sight, and it made one really try to bang one out of there only to flail-away and come up extremely short.
The next killer of Hacienda is the trees which have overgrown to proprtions that could waken Bill V. from the deepest of slumbers, with visions of a knife-wielding Freddy Kruger or Chucky.
The damn trees are beautiful, but they have ruined a good golf course. Yes, this is one of those clubs that has cataloged their trees and varieties where many of the members feel they are long lost friends in another dimension.
But the biggest killer of them all is the newer members of this once respectable club. These are the people that feel that a new clubhouse is in the best interest of the members and not rejuevnating the golf course which is in dire need of it.
The green committee is just another one of those, "In for two years/Out in two years" type of committtees that can't make the rest of membership happy because they are all so divided and undecided.
One of the first things I have found on the course was in very typical MacKenzie-style, the 1st and the 9th used to be one huge gigantic fairway with a couple of bunkers seperating them. The grass remained at the same length as there was little/no rough grass.
From the pictures I have seen, all of thebukers had a chaacter that was very unlike their current state, and even worse, many wild green contours had been smoothed out by the Great Robert Trent Jones.
Another great hole was the short 15th which featured a down-hill shot into a Pine Valley-like #10 green complex set into a lake of sand.
From early aerials, Hacienda was just another average course in a decade of great ones. This of course means that it far exceeded many standards. today most of the bunkering has that look of evolvment in the completely wrong direction as the bunkers were ill-maintained and suffered mass build-up and wasn't properly attended to. the green areas have shrunk to extremely small sizes when compared to their earlier days and of course, once again, lack of understanding of contouring of putting reens that may have been pretty special at one time.
I haven't even mentioned anything about the holes Ted Robinson got to, so I must be in too good of a mood tonight!