"emphasis sounds a lot like MacKenzies camoflauge, whereby 'false information' is perceived by the untrained eye, leading to challenges being perceived to be more difficult than they are."
James:
It is! Or one should probably more accurately say a LACK of "emphasis" (in an "art principle" sense) on Mackenzie's part to first draw the eye to the most important part of the arrangement was part of his ideas on military camouflage and his novel application of same in golf architecture.
I feel that result, however, may've only been a by-product, although certainly an intended one on his part, of his application of the theory behind military camouflage in golf architecture.
Probably the most significant result of his application of the theories behind military camouflage (of the Boer variety), and what he was really intending to do, was to "tie in" what was natural to what was man-made in such a way as to make the divisions or apparent distinctions between them almost undetectable! (this goes directly to the other developing theories on the part of Mackenzie, perhaps the Heathland architects and perhaps even Jones but most certainly Max Behr on the idea behind the importance or even necessity of extreme naturalism in golf architecture and golf!).
It was not lost on Mackenzie in the Boer War that the Boers made the military trenches that they were actually in so natural looking in how the "lines" of those trenches melded with the natural lines of their locale as to be virtually undetectable to the British military. Not just that, and this is probably the larger "key"---he noticed that the Boers also created "dumby" trenches complete with highly engineered, straight edged, artifical lines just like the British style of military trenches.
The latter is what drew the British military's "eye" (most important part) and also their fire!! Of course that's not where the Boers were and so although the British may've thought so that (the artifical looking trenches) was not 'the most important part of the arrangement'!
