Ran across this while researching something else, and thought folks here might be interested. I have never heard of this architect, Vernon Macan; nor have I knowingly played any of his course. But his sentiments regarding golf design and greens, especially those expressed near the end of this article, are remininscent of some of MacKenzie's thoughts. The article was on the
www.shark.com website. The article was too long to post in this forum, so I reluctantly truncated it, and am including the link to the complete original: (
http://www.shark.com/play/golf/go_opinion.cfm?objectid=1728 )
Northwest Passage: Macan's Brilliance
Vernon Macan arrived in Victoria, British Columbia, in May 1912, and was surprised to find he missed the golf season. Canadian winters are kind to this provincial capital along the southern tip of Vancouver Island, and without mechanical mowers, it was far easier to keep fairways and greens playable during the winter months, when grasses are dormant.
...he became a recognized authority in the region on all matters relating to golf, including course architecture, for which he had a true passion.
As early as 1913, Macan’s first 18-hole golf course design was unveiled at Colwood Golf Club on the outskirts of Victoria. During his years on the golf team at Dublin’s Trinity College in the late 1890s, Macan made several trips to St. Andrews, Scotland, out of which sprang a lifelong love affair with the Old Course.
In the spirit of St. Andrews, his Colwood featured wide fairways and large, rolling greens. It was the first course in British Columbia -- perhaps in all the Pacific Northwest -- to be laid out in a strategic style, so as to cater to golfers of all abilities.
“I do not believe super tests of professional golfers’ skills is the answer to golf course development,” Macan wrote years later. “Take care of the man who pays the bills. He is the foundation of our clubs. Any great golf course must supply maximum enjoyment to the mass of a club membership. That’s a fine test of golf.”
Colwood, which was granted an official “Royal” prefix by King George V in 1931, proved to be the first of some 70 layouts designed or remodeled by Macan between 1913 and 1964. His work not only revolutionized the art of golf course design in the Pacific Northwest, but also had a profound impact on the development of the game along the West Coast during the first half of the 20th century.
Following his marriage to Juliet Richard in 1911, Macan went to work for his father-in-law at the Richard Law Firm in Dublin. Within a year, his lack of interest in the profession was obvious, and Mr. Richard presented him with an ultimatum: Practice law or go practice your golf.
Macan chose the latter. And when he left for Victoria the following spring, without his pregnant wife in tow, there was speculation Macan was a “remittance man”—one who had accepted financial incentive from his family to leave Ireland and never return. This speculation has never been confirmed.
Macan laid out one more course at Qualicum Beach on Vancouver Island prior to the outbreak of the First World War. By that time, Julia and his newborn daughter had joined him in Victoria.
Although he was 33 years old with a professional designation that could have exempted him from active military service, Macan voluntarily enlisted with the 88th Victoria Fusiliers in January 1916. He was trained as a machine-gunner and, on April 10, 1917, participated in the Allied assault on Vimy Ridge in France.
During the early hours of that legendary battle, Macan was struck in the foot with an exploded shell casing and was immediately evacuated to London. He remained in a critical state for nearly a month, and the severity of his wounds eventually resulted in the amputation of his left leg from the knee down.
Throughout his recovery in Ireland, Macan read and re-read all the literature on course design and construction he could get his hands on, including John L. Low’s landmark book, “Concerning Golf,” published in 1904. Low had been the first to codify a set of principles for golf architecture. His writings were a major influence on the master architects of the so-called Golden Age of Golf Design between the wars, Macan included.
On Oct. 11, 1919, Macan returned with his family to British Columbia. The next day, despite the loss of his left leg, he won the Bostock Cup competition at Victoria. Macan’s golfing skill did not decline following the war: His handicap rose by only two strokes—from 4 to 6.
In 1922, Colwood hosted the Pacific Northwest Golf Association championships. It was the largest field that had ever assembled for the event and nearly all in attendance were enamored with the golf course.
Shortly thereafter, Macan was juggling a plethora of proposals to design new courses and remodel old ones. Between 1922 and ’25 he was the busiest course designer in the Pacific Northwest, with projects in British Columbia, Washington, Oregon and California.
Later in his life, Macan claimed to have worked for every club in Portland with the exception of Portland Golf Club. It was a proud personal moment when his 1924 layout at Portland’s Alderwood Country Club was selected to host the 1937 U.S. Amateur, the first USGA event ever staged in the Pacific Northwest. In the end, Macan was satisfied with the champion: Johnny Goodman, winner of the 1933 U.S. Open, defeated Ray Billows 1-up in the final.
Macan had considered Alderwood, which no longer exists, to be his finest work. Then he completed Vancouver’s Shaughnessy in 1960. Laid out on a spacious, rolling tract of land along the Fraser River, Shaughnessy benefited from the free hand and generous budget provided to its designer.
Macan boldly peppered wide fairways with centrally located bunkers to create an array of optional routes. And he built large greens, some of which featured massive interior contours and others that retreated from the line of approach. Pitching greens from front to back was a common scheme employed by Macan to promote an earth-bound game.
“I design some of my greens to suit the run-up type of shot,” he told Harry Young, the long-time golf columnist for Victoria’s Daily Colonist, in 1963. “This is one of the great shots in golf, but very few of today’s top players can execute it. That is why they criticize my work.”
During the 1966 Canadian Open, won by Don Massengale, the professionals indeed criticized Macan’s work at Shaughnessy. Many of the pros, Jack Nicklaus included, were perplexed when their lofty approach shots would pitch on the front portion of a green and carom over the back. Macan, who passed away in 1964 at the age of 82, was not there to defend his design ideals, but he had explained his thoughts on green design to a group of Shaughnessy members who, years earlier, had voiced similar complaints.
“Today, the uninformed believe a green should be constructed with the slope from back to front, so that it will retain the ball,” he said. “In brief, this suggests the shot should be a mechanical operation and the result a mathematical certainty. This is not the game of golf.
Golf was not conceived as a mechanical operation but rather full of fun and adventure. Many things could happen to the ball after it pitched on the green. The ill-happenings were not regarded as ill-fortune or ill-luck, but part of the adventure, and the more skilled found methods to overcome the risks of ill-fortune.
“I personally could ask for no better compliment than for a course I have designed to be criticized as calling for a maximum of golfing brain power,” he vehemently added. Unfortunately, Macan’s work at Shaughnessy has been significantly altered, leaving little more than his original routing intact today.
Robert Trent Jones Sr., who many modern pundits consider to be the most successful golf course designer in history, described Macan as a man ahead of his own time, particularly with regard to green design. Speaking with Riste about Macan’s work in 1990, Trent Jones said, “Today, the professionals have become so proficient at playing shots from 150 yards and less that the greens must be designed to make this shot more difficult.”
Trent Jones speculated that had Macan set up shop on the East Coast, he would be as revered today as his most respected contemporaries, including Donald Ross and A.W. Tillinghast. Macan’s brilliant work was so regional in scope that his celebrity remains confined to a small number of clubs in the Pacific Northwest. Though he had arrived there a season off-schedule, he would prove to be a man ahead of his time.