Hi Matty:
You’ve started a good thread and it got me thinking about how Mackenzie achieved so much in such a short time span, seemingly, ‘on the run’.
Arrogance:
Mackenzie was the very embodiment of arrogance—a trait not altogether absent in the contemporary maestros—and we’re the beneficiaries of that fact. Mackenzie knew what he stood for, architecturally, what he was doing, and how he was doing it.
Two clearly delineated paths of attack (for golfers):
Many of his design plans (Royal Adelaide and Royal Melbourne, to name two) incorporated two distinct ways to play the hole: one for the scratch golfer; another for the shorter-hitting higher handicap player. This, typically, was demarcated by two lines: one broken line; one solid line. With this dual design consideration lurking in his mind, surely that would eliminate time-wasting on consideration he may have, otherwise, been inclined to try. In short: Mackenzie adopted a time-saving design system.
Trust:
He was fortunate to form fruitful design partnerships. In a broad sense, partners tended to agree with his design principles, given the usual 'argy-bargy'. There is no doubting Mackenzie’s gruffness and single-minded pursuit, but equally so, he placed great trust in his selected design partners. If they happened to be good, and they generally were among the best ... that will save you time.
Mackenzie the Educator:
Shades of Henry the Navigator! What skill and salesmanship he must have possessed, in the manner of educating ground crews to his way of thinking. Hyper-vigilant at this aspect, he must have known, intuitively, that design is only one third of the pie; construction and maintenance being the others. Education is one thing; Mackenzie admired ground staff who could interpret his ideals and implement. In the case of Royal Melbourne, Morcom and Russell applied their own local magic to make the overall product better than Mackenzie, alone, could possibly achieve. "Golf Architecture" (1920) has the air of a sermon about it; I’d suggest this gave him an inner-confidence at the pulpit to educate where needed.
Disdain for shmoozing with committees:
How much time today is wasted on scmoozing pre-job with committees, goodness knows. Even Mackenzie had to spend some time with the enemy, but it wouldn’t have impacted too greatly upon his concept of what was about to be laid-out. Shmoozing with committe: no; great salesmanship: yes.
Well briefed:
Mackenzie was not big on “surprises”. Consequently, he made a habit of being very well briefed: on property; on handicap abilities of club members (in the advent of not starting a club from scratch), and likely handicaps (in the advent of prospectus for a new club).
Personality:
A legendary inability to suffer fools, must have shored-up additional time.
Property traits:
Mackenzie, like other architects, won contracts to work upon less-than-ideal plots of land. A good many projects, however, were situated upon sandy, undulating properties where drainage/engineering issues were less troublesome. That’s a time-saver!
Falling under the spell of St Andrews:
Mackenzie carried a vivid mental image of St Andrews in his works. Its architectural lessons were learnt and transportable to distant lands. Most students of golf-course architecture would be the poorer without Mackenzie’s famous plan of The Old Course hanging in their study. The landforms he worked upon, elsewhere, were seldom like St Andrews, but the lessons were, nevertheless, rock solid. In his era, there really was a ‘wrong’ side of the fairway to approach the green; bunkers did have to be acknowledged and plotted around. The John Daly and Tiger Woods equivalents were unable to ‘blow’ drives clean over the hazards, so the Old Course could be meaningfully studied. Having this links as his working model and, surely ditching design possibilities that didn’t match the ideal of St Andrews, must have saved time.