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Ken Moum

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re:When Mackenzie lost it..
« Reply #150 on: October 03, 2007, 07:55:43 AM »
I think it would be an error to compartmentalize Flynn's bunker style into a simple clamshell variety or any homogeneous look.  He did quite a few of these, but it is best to remember that Flynn was one of the first great superintendents in America.  He had a sense for maintaining features, not only bunkers in a cost effective manner.

I would also bear in mind that some things that appeared simple, might not be.

You first point is exactly what I was trying to get at. Did his "architecture" survive because it was less fussy than MacKenzie's?

Re., your second point...remember, I am an editor, so I fully appreciate that getting things to the point where they appear simple and clean takes a heck of a lot of effort and imagination.

So, is it true that Flynn's work survived more intact? And if so is it possible that happened because his style looked more like what emerged from GCA's dark ages? (Not minimizing the artistry and imtelligence of his designs.)

K
Over time, the guy in the ideal position derives an advantage, and delivering him further  advantage is not worth making the rest of the players suffer at the expense of fun, variety, and ultimately cost -- Jeff Warne, 12-08-2010

wsmorrison

Re:When Mackenzie lost it..
« Reply #151 on: October 03, 2007, 07:59:36 AM »
Ken,

I'll reply later today.  I've got to prepare for a meeting, but this is a subject I would like to discuss.  First things first, I'm afraid.  Have a great day.
WSM

TEPaul

Re:When Mackenzie lost it..
« Reply #152 on: October 03, 2007, 08:08:52 AM »
"I have always had a disconnect between my personal definition of what I consider camouflage, and how it doesn't relate with Mackenzies bunkering on some of his more reputed creations."

Paul:

That feeling seems to be pretty common.

I think the reason for it is many misunderstand what Mackenzie was trying to do in golf architecture by applying some of the techniques of Boer trench camouflage to architecture, particularly bunkering.

For some reason many think Mackenzie was trying to make his sand bunkering invisible to the golfer. He never really did anything of the kind, quite the opposite in fact. Some of his bunkering done in America (which was done after Darwin wrote that article above) was highly visible, almost glaringly visible, in fact.

The camouflage principle he picked up from Boer trenches and applied to golf architecture was simply that he attempted to make his bunkers look like they were not man-made at all, like they pre-existed the golf course in many cases.

Obviously to do that well he had to develop a construction technique of "tying in" or "tying out" the lines of his bunkers into existing grades or grades that looked like existing grades so that they looked like they weren't man-made at all.

This is what the Boers did with the military trenches they manned in the Boer War. They did that obviously so the British could not even recognize that they existed and consequently didn't fire in that direction.

I think Mackenzie took this Boer camouflage technique a step farther because he also observed that the Boer's  constructed "dumby" trenches that looked like the British highly artificial and man-made looking trenches.

They did that obviously to draw British fire at those unmanned artificial man-made looking trenches and away from the camouflaged trenches they were in.

So how did Mackenzie use that latter part in his golf course architecture?

I think he did it by also using bunkers in places that may've been functionally or strategically irrelevent or at the very least not very important in that they did not exactly conform strategically to some standardized strategic risk/reward equation that the golfer had come to expect from bunkering.

Could this be considered a form of strategic trickery in golf architecture?

Of course it could. I can't see how there could be any doubt about it. He certainly did notice that the Boer's very much tricked the British military in their over-all trench methods and he probably felt the same was appropriate with strategic arrangements in golf course architecture, particularly with bunkering.

But then what happened with golfers' expectations? I guess one could say just more of the same.  ;)

Apparently they came to not only expect that wherever a bunker was placed was the place to challenge for the best reward on the following shots but also that if a bunker was strategically of low importance or irrelevent it was useless and shouldn't be there.

Many of those old clever architects even wrote things like "no bunker is misplaced" but apparently golfers weren't paying attention to that or were unwilling to listen.

They even came to call sand bunkers "sentinels" or "lighthouses" that protected ideal lines to holes.

Eventually this hugely prevalent expectation amongst golfers that any and all bunkers should have strategic risk/reward  relevence evolved into the idea that bunkers with low risk/reward relevence were "eye candy"----eg if a bunker was in some place where golfers never really got in it, it was therefore useless and irrelevent.

So in a way, and in my opinion, both the Boers and Alister Mackenzie in his use of their military trench camouflage techniques have completely "kept the con", if you get my drift.

Apparently the Boers recognized the stupidity of the one dimensional expectation of the British military and apparently Mackenzie recognized the one dimensional expectation of golfers, and both of them used the same basic principle in military trench warfare and in golf course architecture.

This is a form of camouflage. In this way Mackenzie could actually camouflage, to some extent, the existing strategies of his holes.

I'm quite sure his intention was to force golfers to use their own observational skills better, to use their experience and intelligence more. To better engage with the more natural presentation of the architecture or course.

There really is a connection, in a strategic sense, to TOC simply because much of the arrangement of that course with its natural sand and topographical features pre-existed golf and architecture altogether. In other words, God or Mother Nature with the arrangement of that land had not exactly contemplated its use by golfers with some scientific expectation of hazard or feature arrangements!  ;)

There's one last element of Mackenzie's "camouflaged" bunkering that he certainly became aware of even with the observations of golfers.

And that was, as highly visible as they were as the golfer played his holes, if the golfer turned around at the end of the hole and looked back, those bunkers really were mysteriously invisible from that vantage.

The reason for that was that he "tied in" or tied out" their surrounds into existing grades so well that they weren't noticeable.










« Last Edit: October 03, 2007, 08:23:35 AM by TEPaul »

wsmorrison

Re:When Mackenzie lost it..
« Reply #153 on: October 03, 2007, 08:20:56 AM »
Tom,

What is your feeling of MacKenzie's use of mounds and bunkers that surround and frame many of his greens?  We were talking on another thread of the 15th at Cypress, but MacKenzie did it at Valley Club, Pasatiempo and Augusta here in the US.  Perhaps more so today, but the features don't look at all natural to me and they aren't deceptive in any way...in fact that sort of framing is counter-deceptive (that's probably not a word).  I don't think he did it in the UK (at least that is what Darius told me).

TEPaul

Re:When Mackenzie lost it..
« Reply #154 on: October 03, 2007, 08:49:08 AM »
Wayne:

I believe a lot of good architects of that time did that kind of thing, including Flynn, Mackenzie, Tillinghast, Hugh Wilson et al.

Why did they do that?

I think it certainly was the beginnings of so-called "architectural framing".

I don't believe any of them thought that was a bad thing at all. The very aspect of blindness in golf and architecture had had its day in early natural landform golf and it had become hugely unpopular with golfers in the Golden Age.

The use of mounds (what we call Flynn's "strings" behind greens and such) and sand bunkering around greens to frame it was common practice.

I don't think any of those architects actually attempted to hide whole greens and such from golfers but even with "framing" they could create both a general easily observed direction for golfers while at the same time creating some nuancy visual deception around and amongst it.

I think we know that Flynn, at Shinnecock, for instance, commonly showed some of the parameters of greens by bringing up those two or three mound-like "strings' behind greens while at the same time hiding from the golfer, to some extent, and from some directions, those so-called diagonal falloffs that were created by the lower points between those visible mound "strings".

One might wonder why Mackenzie bothered to create all those "artificial sand dunes" around and behind the 13th green at Cypress but if any of us could see what that course looked like from the vantage of #1 tee during construction and what-all was behind #1 green in sand waste area one could understand that he was probably just "tying in" that over-all look in that general area.

What I have never understood, however, is why Mackenzie did what he did with sand bunkering on the last 3-4 holes. In that area I very much doubt any natural sand ever existed on those particular landforms. It was naturally more of the rocky, craggy California raised coast-line and if he really was attempting to be the ultimate naturalist he should've just gone with that and forewent sand bunkering altogether in that particular part of the golf course.
« Last Edit: October 03, 2007, 09:11:18 AM by TEPaul »

TEPaul

Re:When Mackenzie lost it..
« Reply #155 on: October 03, 2007, 08:52:36 AM »
On the other hand, Wayne, it is becoming my belief that most all architects just throw sand bunkering at almost any situation if something else is NOT completely obvious or available.

In my opinion, the use of sand bunkering has become like "Mother's Milk" to most of these guys, and it's apparently been that way for a very long time.

In other words, it seems just really hard to ever wean them off of it.  ;)

And over time something far worse has come about. Because of that long-term over reliance on sand bunkering by architects, most all golfers have come to expect that over-reliance on sand bunkering.

The only levening or minimizing effect on that over-reliance is that sand bunkering is not cheap to either make or maintain and so over time much of it has been let go and whipped away.

In my opinion, if it is to be used in golf it would be much better to simply not maintain it---to let it fall to pieces, in other words, including the sand surfaces within bunkers that golfers must play from. In a sense this would be allowing Nature itself to have its way with bunkering and if that were allowed to happen sand bunkering could not help but become natural looking and playing!  ;)

In that way it would then reestablish the playable and strategic function for which sand bunkers exist in golf in the first place and also it would be a whole lot more economical.

But one thing in particular has done in that expectation in golf and I'm afraid it happened when the Rules of Golf formalized and prohibited the touching of sand by a golfer or by his golf club.

If the Rules of Golf would simply let the prohibition reign of a golfer not being able to improve his lie no matter where he was on the golf course, I feel golf and architecture would or at least could get back to a better place.

When the Rules of Golf formalized the distinction that a golfer can touch the ground in some places and not in others, I believe it began to turn down the garden path and in the wrong direction.

Did the Rules actually see things coming to this pass when they did that way back when?

I can't imagine that they ever could have. But many of us can sure see it now.

These are the very things that motivated the likes of Max Behr to write the things he did about the Rules, about architecture and about golf.
« Last Edit: October 03, 2007, 09:09:05 AM by TEPaul »

wsmorrison

Re:When Mackenzie lost it..
« Reply #156 on: October 03, 2007, 09:04:57 AM »
Tom,

Here is a pre-construction photo of the site for the 15th at Cypress and today's version.  I think it is obvious that MacKenzie was at the Mother's Milk a bit too long  ;)





Rich Goodale

Re:When Mackenzie lost it..
« Reply #157 on: October 03, 2007, 09:08:11 AM »
Great comparison, Wayne.  What a lost opportunity for a great golf hole..... :'(

JESII

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re:When Mackenzie lost it..
« Reply #158 on: October 03, 2007, 09:08:51 AM »
But...as Tom was explaining up a few posts ago...leaving that area au natural might have left it too easy in AM's mind...

wsmorrison

Re:When Mackenzie lost it..
« Reply #159 on: October 03, 2007, 09:30:57 AM »
Rich,

Must you take things to such extremes?  My photoshop skills stink, but what's wrong with this slightly restrained style?  As I said on the other thread, I love the front bunkers.  It is the obviously man-made mounds and bunkers that I do not like.  I don't mind some framing, as Tom P said, Flynn and others did it, but much it is much more subtle and less unnatural.  Sully, I don't think it should be left au natural, but more natural and less contrived.  And I don't just mean in this particular example.  He did it so many places.  It was a systematic effort.  Why?  That is my question.  I don't see the improvement in strategy or design.

« Last Edit: October 03, 2007, 09:32:23 AM by Wayne Morrison »

TEPaul

Re:When Mackenzie lost it..
« Reply #160 on: October 03, 2007, 09:35:48 AM »
Sully:

That's my very point.

If Mackenzie was looking for something that made those particular holes (15-18) play harder or even look and feel harder psychologically, there certainly were a number of architectural opportunities, including natural ones, available to him on those landforms rather than those glaring sand bunkers.

As Behr said many, many times, sand bunkering is that old linksland vestige in golf that just hung on to golf and architecture without cessation for all it was worth. By that he meant it was not technically necessary to golf as were tees, fairways and greens.

Behr's implied point or question was simply that it is not naturally occuring on most golf sites as it was in the natural Scottish linksland where golf and architecture began, so why should it be used so prevalently all over the world?

Behr did make another point, however, which I've always found pretty mysterious and I do admit I've never really understood it.

His comment is surely one that's used throughout art but he used it as a definition of what golf architecture should also be as an art form.

He said; "Golf architecture should not be representation but  interpretation".

It seems he qualified that statement by saying that a paint artist's "medium" is paint over which the artist is master, but a golf architect's "medium" is the earth over which he has serious limitations to his fancy, and over which he is not its total master. The only real master of the "medium" of the golf architect (the earth) are the forces of Nature.

I should start a separate thread on it but what in the hell does it really mean, this quote?

"Golf Architecture (or even art) should not be a representation but an interpretation?"


paul cowley

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re:When Mackenzie lost it..
« Reply #161 on: October 03, 2007, 09:51:37 AM »
"I have always had a disconnect between my personal definition of what I consider camouflage, and how it doesn't relate with Mackenzies bunkering on some of his more reputed creations."

Paul:

That feeling seems to be pretty common.

I think the reason for it is many misunderstand what Mackenzie was trying to do in golf architecture by applying some of the techniques of Boer trench camouflage to architecture, particularly bunkering.

For some reason many think Mackenzie was trying to make his sand bunkering invisible to the golfer. He never really did anything of the kind, quite the opposite in fact. Some of his bunkering done in America (which was done after Darwin wrote that article above) was highly visible, almost glaringly visible, in fact.

The camouflage principle he picked up from Boer trenches and applied to golf architecture was simply that he attempted to make his bunkers look like they were not man-made at all, like they pre-existed the golf course in many cases.

Obviously to do that well he had to develop a construction technique of "tying in" or "tying out" the lines of his bunkers into existing grades or grades that looked like existing grades so that they looked like they weren't man-made at all.

This is what the Boers did with the military trenches they manned in the Boer War. They did that obviously so the British could not even recognize that they existed and consequently didn't fire in that direction.

I think Mackenzie took this Boer camouflage technique a step farther because he also observed that the Boer's  constructed "dumby" trenches that looked like the British highly artificial and man-made looking trenches.

They did that obviously to draw British fire at those unmanned artificial man-made looking trenches and away from the camouflaged trenches they were in.

So how did Mackenzie use that latter part in his golf course architecture?

I think he did it by also using bunkers in places that may've been functionally or strategically irrelevent or at the very least not very important in that they did not exactly conform strategically to some standardized strategic risk/reward equation that the golfer had come to expect from bunkering.

Could this be considered a form of strategic trickery in golf architecture?

Of course it could. I can't see how there could be any doubt about it. He certainly did notice that the Boer's very much tricked the British military in their over-all trench methods and he probably felt the same was appropriate with strategic arrangements in golf course architecture, particularly with bunkering.

But then what happened with golfers' expectations? I guess one could say just more of the same.  ;)

Apparently they came to not only expect that wherever a bunker was placed was the place to challenge for the best reward on the following shots but also that if a bunker was strategically of low importance or irrelevent it was useless and shouldn't be there.

Many of those old clever architects even wrote things like "no bunker is misplaced" but apparently golfers weren't paying attention to that or were unwilling to listen.

They even came to call sand bunkers "sentinels" or "lighthouses" that protected ideal lines to holes.

Eventually this hugely prevalent expectation amongst golfers that any and all bunkers should have strategic risk/reward  relevence evolved into the idea that bunkers with low risk/reward relevence were "eye candy"----eg if a bunker was in some place where golfers never really got in it, it was therefore useless and irrelevent.

So in a way, and in my opinion, both the Boers and Alister Mackenzie in his use of their military trench camouflage techniques have completely "kept the con", if you get my drift.

Apparently the Boers recognized the stupidity of the one dimensional expectation of the British military and apparently Mackenzie recognized the one dimensional expectation of golfers, and both of them used the same basic principle in military trench warfare and in golf course architecture.

This is a form of camouflage. In this way Mackenzie could actually camouflage, to some extent, the existing strategies of his holes.

I'm quite sure his intention was to force golfers to use their own observational skills better, to use their experience and intelligence more. To better engage with the more natural presentation of the architecture or course.

There really is a connection, in a strategic sense, to TOC simply because much of the arrangement of that course with its natural sand and topographical features pre-existed golf and architecture altogether. In other words, God or Mother Nature with the arrangement of that land had not exactly contemplated its use by golfers with some scientific expectation of hazard or feature arrangements!  ;)

There's one last element of Mackenzie's "camouflaged" bunkering that he certainly became aware of even with the observations of golfers.

And that was, as highly visible as they were as the golfer played his holes, if the golfer turned around at the end of the hole and looked back, those bunkers really were mysteriously invisible from that vantage.

The reason for that was that he "tied in" or tied out" their surrounds into existing grades so well that they weren't noticeable.












Tom ....I kind of knew all that, but I just wanted to give you the opportunity to explain it for all in a much better format than I could ever hope to. ;)...especially considering the time of my post....good God, it could have just as easily been total gibberish. ;D
« Last Edit: October 03, 2007, 09:52:53 AM by paul cowley »
paul cowley...golf course architect/asgca

Ken Moum

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re:When Mackenzie lost it..
« Reply #162 on: October 03, 2007, 09:56:40 AM »
I should start a separate thread on it but what in the hell does it really mean, this quote?

"Golf Architecture (or even art) should not be a representation but an interpretation?"



My oh my, I LOVE that quote.

I've spent a lot of time talking to up-and-coming wildlife artists in the past, and what most of them do is purely representational. They are trying to create the perfect image of the animal they are painting. The more photographic its appearance, the more successful they are.

That's not something I want to hang on my walls.

I prefer the slightly more interpretational style of someone like Chet Reneson. His works feel  like the places he's painting, even though they don't look like photographs.



Others go even farther, preferring something that's COMPLETELY interpretational, like a Picasso.

How does this apply to GCA?

To me it means that instead of trying to create a representation of that which is good, like Macdonald may have, you would try to create an interpretation of it... that may or may not look like the real thing.

IMHO, it's a variation of Picasso's "Good artists copy, great artists steal."

Ken
Over time, the guy in the ideal position derives an advantage, and delivering him further  advantage is not worth making the rest of the players suffer at the expense of fun, variety, and ultimately cost -- Jeff Warne, 12-08-2010

TEPaul

Re:When Mackenzie lost it..
« Reply #163 on: October 03, 2007, 09:58:01 AM »
Wayne:

Again, the use of sand bunkers by Mackenzie on some of the last holes at Cypress, particularly #15, #16 and #17 are very curious indeed if one is looking at those landforms and holes from a complete "Naturist's" eye.

What I mean by that is sand bunkering, even those so-called "artificial sand dunes" that he created on and around #13 and obviously a number of other holes before the end really do fit in with that environment that had so much natural sand before the course.

But there is no natural sand up on that rocky, craggy coastline area that forms #15-#17 or even #18, so what did he put those glaring sand bunkers there for? To a true naturalist's eye they just look completely out of place, while on the holes that precede that area they most certainly don't look out of place.

Then Mackenzie went totally nuts on #17 and actually put sand bunkers right in front of some cypress trees. If that was not outrageous enough he actually put sand bunkers amongst a grove of trees on the right on #18.

I mean really, even in the artist's "interpretative" eye this is taking things from the sublme to the ridiculous!

The only possible explanation I can find is like Tillinghast, Mackenzie was a drinker and he must have designed those bunkers on #17 and #18 pretty late in the day when his flask was pretty much drained.  ;)

I believe "flask" architecture can be both good and imaginative (and I've even sent a few of them to some architect friends of mine) but only in the morning or perhaps around noon or the early pm. It can be imagination inducing and such and very creative, particularly when one gets the mix right. The first order of business with flask architecture, particularly in the early a.m. is simply to take the pevish edge off the morning-after effects of the tank job one did on oneself the night before after everyone is home from the course site. I mean you should see some of the holes Tillinghast did in the early morning. They're just awful---eg peevish and petty and really unimaginative.

But if you totally abuse it and keep imbibing late into the day and drain the damn flask dry one can unfortunately think he's become a whole helluva lot smarter than he really is.  ;)

This is without question what happened with Mackenzie on Cypress's last few holes.

I realize he may've been extremely pissed at that point, and got totally tanked on the flask when Sam Morse took his back tee on #18 and his highly imaginative suspension bridge to and from it away from him----but I mean, come on Alister (or can I call you Al?) get a damn grip on yourself, will ya?

« Last Edit: October 03, 2007, 10:09:54 AM by TEPaul »

paul cowley

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re:When Mackenzie lost it..
« Reply #164 on: October 03, 2007, 10:00:09 AM »
Tom...."Golf Architecture (or even art) should not be a representation but an interpretation?"

I don't see this as either or, but instead that GCA or Art is all about representing interpretations.......and that some representations are better than others.
« Last Edit: October 03, 2007, 10:00:30 AM by paul cowley »
paul cowley...golf course architect/asgca

JESII

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re:When Mackenzie lost it..
« Reply #165 on: October 03, 2007, 10:04:32 AM »
Re: CPc #15...I have not been there so will not speak from experience and cannot really argue what anyone says about it, but I can suggest that maybe AM was trying to "hide in a crowd". In other words, there are more than one types of camoflage...a chameleon assumes the color of whatever surface it is on and blends in by not moving. Another method is similar but different...you can blend into a moving crowd by assuming its personality (ie: walking down the street or watching a football game) we've all looked for someone on a busy street and not been able to see them. As soon as they stop walking, or stop cheering for the game as everyone else is, they stand out undeniably.

I think this plays on our minds ability to become overstimulated.

This also connects to what many people percieve in top players as the ability to totally tune out all features and just find the target and go.

For those of you that have played many MacKenzie courses, is there a real spread, or distinction in how difficult the course plays for an average (say 12 - 15 handicap) versus a scratch amateur or better player...In other words, do scratch players score well on his courses? And do 15 handicappers struggle in relation to their handicap?

paul cowley

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re:When Mackenzie lost it..
« Reply #166 on: October 03, 2007, 10:09:16 AM »
Wayne .....I prefer your toned down version.

I would even like to try a bunkerless version...conceptually of course....maybe a little waste sand added on a fringe if it would tie in with the rocks.

....or maybe we could throw up a little giant kelp in some of the rocky trenches for an interesting new kind of natural hazard....or maybe build a Martello Tower cornering the scene as a back drop, but also as an in play feature......which would be much more functional and appropriate than a big windmill found at another top 10 course.
paul cowley...golf course architect/asgca

TEPaul

Re:When Mackenzie lost it..
« Reply #167 on: October 03, 2007, 10:16:23 AM »
"I don't see this as either or, but instead that GCA or Art is all about representing interpretations.......and that some representations are better than others."

Come on, Paul, lay off that stuff, will you?

I'm not smart enough to handle the original quote much less some melded together interpretatin of it. Or would that be a representation of it?

Wait til I get to Newark. I'm going to ask Maurice if what he's doing is representation or interpretation or maybe some representative interpretation.

I'm betting he'll just look at me and spit out his toothpick in exasperation, maybe even representative and interpretative exasperation.

JESII

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re:When Mackenzie lost it..
« Reply #168 on: October 03, 2007, 10:25:45 AM »
Tommy,

Representation[/i] leaves ownership of the concept with the original...Interpretation[/i] makes it your own.

In that sense...and with GCA...take ideas from what you see out in the world, but filter them through your own mind before putting them in the ground.

David Stamm

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re:When Mackenzie lost it..
« Reply #169 on: October 03, 2007, 10:50:11 AM »
Here's are some of my thoughts (for whatever it's worth) on the bunkering style on 15.


  Perhaps AM bunkered the hole in this way for consistency of style throughout the course. Are there too much or they too much in terms of presentation? I suppose I could see that. However, the hole is very short. This is just guess work, but perhaps he didn't want to bring in the front cliifs into play because of concerns of erosion. In recent years there has been quite a bit of shoring up in that spot for that very reason. So if he had to set the green back, how does he defend the green for such a short shot? In his book there is photo's of the site before he built the green and it was pretty flat. Another thought, perhaps AM was trying to tie in lines, as TEP brought out, between the scruffy, craggy lines of the cliffs up front with the look of the bunkers he presented. An aerial here shows how the bunkers almost look like little reefs, perhaps an attempt by AM to copy the look of the lines found around the cliff's edge. Are they natural relative to the immediate terrain? No. However, as Tom brought out, I believe he was attempting to frame the hole as well as defend the green. I personally love the hole.


"The object of golf architecture is to give an intelligent purpose to the striking of a golf ball."- Max Behr

Brent Hutto

Re:When Mackenzie lost it..
« Reply #170 on: October 03, 2007, 11:04:49 AM »
Representation[/i] leaves ownership of the concept with the original...Interpretation[/i] makes it your own.

Geez, we've got a philosopher in our midst. That's a great explanation. Anyway, regarding your earlier post about MacKenzie courses I'll give you the bogey-golfer's take on the matter having now seen a handful of them. In italics I've put my speculations about what a scratch player might have experienced differently than myself.

Except for a brief meltdown on the thirteenth and fourteenth I played well under my handicap at Cypress Point Club, heck I was probably near net par even with triple/quad on those two. In the absence of any serious wind (the day I played it was maybe a club of breeze inland and a bit more on the oceanfront holes) that course is about as 20-handicapper-friendly as any great course could be. I thought the required shots were very well framed and the room for error on tee shots was quite generous. A bit less forgiving on many of the approaches although if you have confidence in your sand game (either bunkers or sandy rough areas) the penalties were not extreme. I suppose it's possible that a strong player might be attempting some of the more daring lines and shots on offer and therefore have the potential to find trouble lurking in places that weren't really in play for me.

Two days earlier at Pasatiempo I found the shots required to be more demanding, mostly due to changes in elevation. However, the thing most daunting to this high handicapper was the narrowness of some corridors of play with houses on one side and trees on the other. I find that narrowness of that kind is much more distracting than flashy bunkering or distant ocean views. Would it be safe to assume that better golfers are able to focus on the desired landing area and tune out looming lateral disasters?

My other MacKenzies were at the late Buda matches. I found Alwoodley to be sort of all-or-nothing in that regard. From the yellow tees there were very few blind shots and as such there was little intimidation or distraction other than the wind to be dealt with. But for one round we were back on the white tees and I find obliquely-angled tee shots to fairways flanked by heather to be doubly or triply difficult when my view of the target (and especially my view of the heather that I know is lurking) is obscured. I felt that as the longest marker in the group moving back to those tees was a huge competitive disadvantage. True or not, it's my impression that single-digit players who are good ball strikers can shrug off that sort of fretfulness as long as they know the proper aiming line and have a mental image of the required shot and distance.

I won't say much about Moortown because I only played holes 1-8, 16-18 and that was in the rain where the only real challenge was making decent contact in the wet. I had the impression that it's a kind of course that I'm used to with generous fairways (not oppressively narrow like the front nine at Pasa) framed by trees which make aiming and focusing almost a no-brainer. I always have a bit of adjustment trouble in a target-poor links or heathland environment where you have to really concentrate on some specific target amont those wide-open spaces. IIRC, a lot of greens at Moortown had a basic back-to-front tilt that would generally be high-handicapper friendly.

Finally, I played at Seaton Carew. On the holes lacking long rough closely lateral to the line of play it was a lot like Alwoodley except with more interesting (or at least most challenging) green complexes and sites. However, the holes with thicker rough tended to have it in places where I needed to be able to take one side of the hole completely out of play. Isn't that a skill that better golfers tend to have unlike weaker players? Eliminate one side, choose a safe line and then trust the line you've chosen...that's not my strong suit right now. Also, there was a definite challenge in keeping the ball from rolling off the back or side of the green into bunkers (much moreso than at Alwoodley where the greenside bunkers were easier to avoid) which presumably would be countered by a stronger player's ballflight and trajectory/spin control at least when the wind is modest.

Let me make one more observation about Seaton Carew in the context of the discussion of MacKenzie's bunkering at CPC and elsewhere. In a few cases, he gives the golfer an obvious and scary set of sand traps to avoid and then provides a less obvious but more penal bunker or two or three that will come in to play if you give the visible ones too wide a berth. The hole known as The Doctor is an obvious example but there were others. I'd be interested to hear of other uses of this approach in MacKenzie courses as well as speculation as to its effect on stronger and weaker players.

TEPaul

Re:When Mackenzie lost it..
« Reply #171 on: October 03, 2007, 11:06:02 AM »
Sully:

Thanks for that. Good stuff. That post and explanation is printoutable.

Rich Goodale

Re:When Mackenzie lost it..
« Reply #172 on: October 03, 2007, 11:17:44 AM »
Wayne

I would prefer a non-bunkered interpretation of the land form at 15 CPC for the same reason that I prefer Caravaggio to Raphael.  The latter stylized the human condition, and added in superflous putti which took many of his paintings over the top of art and into eye candy; the latter interpreted what he saw with all its natural imperfections included.

15 CPC, as interpreted by Mackenzie, could be any course in Myrtle Beach or the Costa del Sol, if you take away the Pacific Ocean.  By spraying bunkers all over a pristine piece of golfing ground, he was just adding superfluous golf-putti for no reason other than vanity.  Shame on him.

Rich

TEPaul

Re:When Mackenzie lost it..
« Reply #173 on: October 03, 2007, 11:22:10 AM »
David:

With some of the shapes and edges and look of some of the bunkers originally done at Cypress it has been said that what they may've gotten into is to simply copy or mimic some of the shapes of passing clouds.

I have no idea if that is true or not but what I do know is a few of those bunker-makers that were part of that amazing "American Construction Company" that did the work there were some real creative people on bunkering. I used to know some of their names and have them around here somewhere.

Most of them were Irish guys that Mackenzie apparently got over here. I think it was the same crew that did those beautiful "artificial sand dunes" on Pebble too. The best example of them were those bunkers around #7 and #17 at Pebble Beach.

Apparently the American Construction Company ended up being run by Robert Hunter and/or his son.

In my opinion, those bunkers and their shapes that were part of that Monterrey School look were the most "artistic" bunkers ever done in and around that time and perhaps ever.

But I really do stress the word "artistic" and, in my opinion, that inherently gets somewhat away from what some of us call the "natural" look.  ;)

Paul_Turner

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re:When Mackenzie lost it..
« Reply #174 on: October 03, 2007, 11:23:25 AM »
That's beautiful aerial of the 15th...it shows how Mackenzie's bunkers mimic the rocks.

What the current maintenance needs is less GREEN rough and let the bunkers scruff a bit.

Mackenzie's courses have survived pretty well (comparable to his contemporaries).  Obviously the exception is ANGC but then no other course hosts a Major tournament every year.
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