New Mackenzie Course

[Stan Dodd]

Has anyone heard about recently found drawings by The Good Doctor or a never built course that may get constructed.  The story I heard from someone who may be involved, the drawings were found in Buenos Aires and were of a course "El Diablo" perhaps to be built in Texas.
Any truth...?

[Pete_Pittock]

Stan,
An article appeared in the Nov/Dec T&L magazine. Geoff Shackelford has a link and it has been discussed in a couple of threads.

[Tom Dunne]

It's worth pointing out here that the MacKenzie routing plan for El Boqueron is in the print version of the magazine, but not on the website. And that's what you've really got to see....

[Brian_Ewen]

http://www.travelandleisure.com/tlgolf/articles/golf-the-lost-mackenzie/print

[David Stamm]

[Ally Mcintosh]

health and safety be damned...  

[Neil_Crafter]

If that image posted by David is the original "Mackenzie" plan supposedly found in Argentina, then it looks like no other Mackenzie original I have seen. Not a solitary fairway bunker. Looks rather bogus to me. I wonder if it has been authenticated by anyone with knowledge of Mackenzie's plans - eg Tom Doak. Tom - if you are reading this - I wonder what your thoughts are?
Neil

[David Stamm]

Neil, FWIW, I failed to include in the scan AM's signature that is on the lower right hand side.

[wsmorrison]

The drawing doesn't look all that dissimilar from the Club de Golf in Uruguay.  That drawing is found on page 158 of Doak's book on MacKenzie.  However, that drawing does include fairway bunkers.  By the way, the flags look quite a bit alike.

In any case, this drawing would only be helpful to create a conceptual version of the course.  Unless there are detailed construction instructions and hole by hole drawings that show the bunkering and greens in more detail, there's not a lot to go on.  The double greens look problematic.  It might make a nice estate course.

The Flynn plans for Boca Raton South would make a wonderful course if built today.  While the course was built and operated for a time, it hasn't been in play in more than 60 years.  It would be considered a world top-100 quality course if it was resurrected somewhere.

[Neil_Crafter]

Wayne
Yes there appear to be similarities with the Club de Golf plan but, if the plan is not genuine, that could be that whoever 'made' the plan used the Club de Golf plan as a guide. The proportions of the green complexes appear out of scale to me and seem somewhat of a caricature of his work - they do not look like they were drawn by Mackenzie, that's all I'll say. Wouldn't be hard to forge AM's signature as there are planty of examples out there.
Agree with all your other comments. Why the big bother to try and build this course somewhere? The lack of fairway bunkers to me is extremely puzzling and a clue that something perhaps is not right with this.
I've included an extract from Mackenzie's plan for Royal Adelaide for comparison.
cheers Neil

[Tom_Doak]

Neil:

I will probably get to have a look at the real document next month when I'm out in Oregon.  But, the story sounds pretty authentic so I would hope the plan is, too.

I do agree it's unusual for the plan to have NO fairway bunkers and plenty of greenside bunkers.  But by 1930 the Doctor was thinking more about drastically reducing the amount of bunkering on his courses -- witness Augusta National and Bayside in New York.

[Neil_Crafter]

Tom
That would be wonderful if you get the chance to look at the plan next month in Oregon and authenticate it. The story does seem likely as you say and hopefully the plan stands up to scrutiny as well. Will be interested to hear your report in due course!
cheers Neil

[Tom Dunne]

Tom Doak,

Your silence was deafening there for a few minutes. I'd be lying if I  said I wasn't clicking refresh about every sixty seconds!

Neil Crafter,

You're not wrong to be asking these types of questions (I know you know that, I just wanted to say it). The burden of proof is on others to build a case for its authenticity. I don't claim to be a MacKenzie expert. My mission was to report on the experience, outline the personalities of the characters involved, and try to place what I was seeing in context both in terms of the golf and in terms of Argentine society and history.

That said, besides the document itself, there are other pieces of pretty solid evidence that place Dr. MacKenzie in the Mar del Plata region during the spring of 1930 and at the Boqueron itself. Some of these are objects in David Edel's possession, others are part of the historical record. To name just one item, the family kept a guest book of visitors to the estancia. They were one of the richest families in Argentina at a time when Argentina was one of the richest countries in the world, so they had their share of famous guests--Jorge Luis Borges (which I checked), Henry Cotton, Aubrey Boomer--and MacKenzie is in that book. So it's not just his signature you'd have to forge, but that of a dozen other people, mixed in at random with the Argentine aristocracy of the time, whose John Hancocks would be historically verifiable. If that's indeed what happened, my hat's off to 'em.

I'm going to speculate a bit now, but my sense is that MacKenzie's Argentine experience made an indelible mark somehow. (Luther Koontz, too, for that matter, who I'm not sure ever returned from SA...I'd love to know if he did, if anyone's got any information) I only say this because MacKenzie's writing about the Jockey Club in "Spirit of St. Andrews" is so ecstatic about the project's success, both from the point of view of engineering innovation and strategic merit that he deemed nothing less than Old Course-esque. I don't have the book in front of me, but as Tom Doak points out, MacKenzie was turning a corner in terms of his thinking about bunkering around this time, saying something about the Jockey along the lines of (horrible paraphrase alert): "the course was great the way it was, but to throw the guys a little something extra I decided to add a few bunkers here and there."

El Boqueron was, as Wayne points out, designed as an estate course--in the vein of a Pocantico Hills, not an Ellerston--so from a maintenance standpoint it does make sense. The brief was clearly not to design a Royal Melbourne, or even a Golf Club of Uruguay.

Thanks for the interest, look forward to hearing other thoughts.

td

[Sean_Tully]

Tom

Any word on the routing map?

Coming out with a new Mackenzie time line soon with a lot of new info, and wanted to see if I needed to put this on the list!

Tully

[Tom_Doak]

Sean T:

I'll be out in Oregon next week.  I don't know how seeing the map would affect the MacKenzie timeline, anyway -- I think you've got his one visit to South America accounted for, and El Boqueron never did get built.

Tom Dunne:

"I only say this because MacKenzie's writing about the Jockey Club in "Spirit of St. Andrews" is so ecstatic about the project's success, both from the point of view of engineering innovation and strategic merit that he deemed nothing less than Old Course-esque."

Personally, I wouldn't read too much into that.  MacKenzie LOVED to promote his own work, and other than the California courses, The Jockey Club was the ONLY course he'd done in the past few years about which he had any feedback.  You're right that his style was changing a bit at that point -- interestingly, he never did a sparsely-bunkered course in California, so I guess the change in thinking was sparked by the Depression.  But he never saw The Jockey Club in finished form, so ecstatic might be too strong a word.

[TEPaul]

This thing got passed around at a meeting at the USGA in the beginning of last month. Unfortunately, there was enough going on that I don't think any of us took much time to really look at it carefully or study it.

BobC:

I do see some potential significance in that kind of design with what was going on in and around that debate with Crane and Behr/Mackenzie/Jones et al, don't you?

The timing sure is right as are those similar characteristics to TOC with all those double greens and such. Looks like it sort of plays into Behr's standard idea of maximum width with most of the defense at and around greens too.

I don't know whether it's a coincidence or not but those holes don't seem to have any fairway lines either. Perhaps the intention was to just meld them together ala TOC.

[David Stamm]

Bump. Does anyone know of the status of this project and if Mr Edel has made any progress?

[BCrosby]

So Jorge Luis Borges , Henry Cotton and Aubrey Boomer teed it up in Argentina?

If true, it would rank as one of the most literary rounds of golf ever, behind only the rounds that James Joyce and Samuel Beckett played together in the '30's, Faulkner played in Oxford, and Fitzgerald played in LA. And maybe Updike at Myopia.

I would love to think that Borges played golf before he lost his sight.

TEP -

Yes, I had exactly the same thought.

Bob   

[KBanks]

The portion of the El Boqueron map that appears in this thread is somewhat reminiscent of an early MacKenzie map of ANGC which resides at Bobby Jones' old law firm in Atlanta.

Ken

[Bill_McBride]

Can anyone post the course plan again?  What a great story!

The broad plain with clubhouse above is very reminiscent of the Valley Club, where holes #1, 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18 are all laid out on similar terrain below the clubhouse.

Here's Mike Miller's painting of #18 (and #16 fairway and #15 green off to the right) of Valley Club, from the Art & Architecture section of this website:

[BCrosby]

As Ken notes above and I forgot to mention, the sketch of the Argentina course is very close in style to one of the early sketches MacK did of ANGC. That sketch hangs (or it did a couple of years ago) in a conference room at Alston & Bird in Atlanta, the successor to Jones' old law firm.

From where I sit, it looks authentic to me.

Bob

[David Stamm]

Can anyone post the course plan again?  What a great story!

The broad plain with clubhouse above is very reminiscent of the Valley Club, where holes #1, 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18 are all laid out on similar terrain below the clubhouse.

Here's Mike Miller's painting of #18 (and #16 fairway and #15 green off to the right) of Valley Club, from the Art & Architecture section of this website:

Bill, this painting is wonderful!

[Bill_McBride]

David, check out the Art & Architecture section to your left.  There are several - as I recall - great paintings of Valley Club.  I bought a print of the 18th for my SB friends, it is even better 2' x 3' hanging on the wall.

Yes, Mike Miller sells those beautiful paintings, both the originals and prints.

[Mike_DeVries]

Hi All,
I have seen the print and I firmly believe it is the real deal -- character of the sketching, numbering, signature, and style is very consistent with other work by MacKenzie.  In particular, the drawing of the 36 holes at Ohio State is very similar.  Minimal color, basically watercolor, at the greens for the drawing. 

Concept and routing is very cool, with 9 double greens providing lots of options for play and variability to the golf.  The compact design is very intimate and would be a blast to play and easy to manage, although its small acreage would not lend itself to a public golf course for 18 holes. 

The notes about the lack of fairway bunkers is not totally without unjust, but due to the times and classification as an estate course, I don't think that disregards it as a true MacKenzie.  In fact, it is so bold and the whole concept so bold, that it makes perfect sense.  Also, remember that the "curros" were often in the line of play and sound like they would be far worse than a bunker for recovery or playability, so pick your poison.

This is a very cool project and I think the concept of a golf club with the pure golf esthetic they espouse would be one that all GCA members would embrace whole-heartedly, especially since it is the resurrection of an ingenious plan by the great Alister MacKenzie!

Cheers,
Mike

[Ed Oden]

Can anyone post the course plan again?

Like Bill, I too would like to see the course plan re-posted.  It shows as deleted on my screen.