Courses considered great with fewest bunkers...

[TEPaul]

"TE
What are some examples of MacKenzie going with minimal bunkers based upon the site - prior to the Depression?"

Tom MacWood:

Good question, but see post #30.

I think we can add George Thomas to this philosophy of the economics of less bunkering vs more bunkering. Frankly, the second half of his treatise on "half strokes" for putts bears directly on this problem of the cost of bunkering. It's in Thomas' book that was written at least 3-4 years before the depression.

Frankly, even Hugh Wilson and Piper and Oakley were getting into the area of applied economics in golf course architecture, construction costs and maintenance costs as early as second half of the teens.
 
 
 

[TEPaul]

"PS: I'm not convinced MacKenzie designed Crystal Downs."

So, who do you think designed Crystal Downs---Macdonald and Whigam? 

[Mark Bourgeois]

A couple of points.

Tom MacW: often it is pointed out that MacKenzie spent little time on a course and therefore should not qualify as the designer.  For me it comes down to intellectual capital not time spent: did the architect of record supply the concepts, the ideas? If so, wouldn't you say that time on site is less important?

If Maxwell supplied the ideas and the work, then that's a different matter, I guess.

MacKenzie supervised the redesign of Castletown Golf Links -- and apparently it was a redesign on a scale that rendered the original course unrecognizable -- without stepping foot on the property once construction began.  He had photographs taken weekly and shipped across the Irish Sea to him.  He made comments / suggestions as necessary based on what he saw in the pictures.

The point of the story is, you never know!

Just to follow up on an earlier post, here's MacKenzie in "Golf Architecture" (1920):

On many courses there are far too many bunkers: the sides of the fairways are riddled with them, and many of these courses would be equally interesting if half of the bunkers were turfed over as grassy hollows.

It is often possible to make a hole sufficiently interesting with one or two bunkers at the most.

The photographic record of MacKenzie's English courses seems spotty; it's hard to know how bunkered they were.

And so many of his Australian courses were built on sand that bunkering would have fit neatly into his belief that local features should be utilized fully.

Even there, it seems like the record can be sketchy.  Thinking about Pasatiempo makes me wonder what the original plans were for New South Wales.  But according to the club history, these plans did not survive and are not known. (I'm not sure what Neil Crafter has turned up...)

Fascinatingly, there is a 1930 aerial photo in the NSW club history which shows MacKenzie's original layout.  It is unclear -- because no map or plans have survived -- whether the bunkering represents MacKenzie's recommendations fully implemented; however, although a number of large, sandy areas (seemingly unmaintained) appear, very few "formal" bunkers are seen.

I count possibly fewer than 40 (it's hard to tell), certainly less than 50.  But, again, many of these are so large they stretch across a number of holes.

It should be noted the club history references the Depression as a barrier to full implementation of MacKenzie's plans...

Mark

[Mark Bourgeois]

Peter

I sure am not the right person to answer that question!

Bob

Good word choice of "antecedent." I used to think of ANGC as culmination or perfecting of MacKenzie's ideas but now think he got a set of themes (or "principles") into his head early on and like an artist in the grip of an idee fixe just hammered away at them again and again.  You can see them starting at Alwoodley and all the way through the first courses he designed on three other continents: Royal Melbourne, Meadow Club, Jockey Club.

So I have no idea of the impact, although:
1924 Lakeside opens
1926 MacKenzie in Oz
1927 Meadow Club opens

Perhaps Lakeside influenced MacKenzie -- except Mac's ideas predated 1924, and furthermore many seem to predate his meeting Behr.  (For example I think MacKenzie wrote of the importance of "finality" in design as early as 1913.)  The idee fixe was The Old Course and you can see that course embodied in his principles and pre-1924 designs, right back to Alwoodley and Moortown.

Probably all of this was more a meeting of the minds, with each mind perhaps offering subtly different interpretations of commonly-held principles.

Sorry can't be more helpful,
Mark

Mark

I always thought of AGNC as somewhat of a radical change of direction in design for Dr Mac - maybe signaling a different approach for the future.  He used very few bunkers and the property strikes me as about the hilliest (in terms of quick up and downs) he worked on compared to other well known courses of his.  I can see the relationship between the OZ courses and the California courses, but ANGC seems to stand alone.  However, its probably fair to say Dr Mac would have used his experience from early years with building courses on hilly sites for ANGC. 

I would like somebody to explain to me how ANGC is meant to be the American embodiment of TOC.  I have never quite understood this as the two courses don't strike me as being similar.  I know folks site the idea of width, but I wouldn't have thought this to be an unusual design characteristic back in the day. 

To answer the question, I think there are plenty of great courses with very few bunkers.  However, nearly all of them rely on a dynamic piece of land.  The one exception I can think of of-hand is Huntercombe.  Many will likely debate if Huntercombe is a great course, but of this I have no doubt.  For a fairly flat site, Huntercombe has the most interesting interplay between the hollows, lay of the land, the odd bunker and the sloping of greens.  It really is a sight to behold how so much was accomplished in such a low key manner.

Ciao

Sean

Here's a sentence MacKenzie wrote (in "Golf Architecture") that implies width actually may not have been all that common back in the day:

"There is no defined line between the fairways in the great schools of golf like St. Andrews or Hoylake."

This is 1920; BTW Meadow Club's shared fairways (pre redwood trees) should factor into MacKenzie's implementation of TOC ideas (width).

Mark

[Peter Pallotta]

Mark - you wrote:

"It should be noted the club history references the Depression as a barrier to full implementation of MacKenzie's plans..."

This is what I was trying to get at in my few posts here. To me it seems counter-intuitive to assume that, in terms of golf course construction, the effects of an economic depression - The Great Depression, no less - would be limited to a reduction in the number of bunkers.  The Depression was either bad for business or it wasn't; and since it was, I gotta imagine that its impact on golf course construction was more widespread   

I know that Maxwell built PD inexpensively and that this was one of his goals, but if I've understood Chris Clouser's essay on it correctly, Maxwell was thinking a lot more 'wholistically' about how to get there...as I imagine Mackenzie was too

Peter   

[Thomas MacWood]

"TE
What are some examples of MacKenzie going with minimal bunkers based upon the site - prior to the Depression?"

Tom MacWood:

Good question, but see post #30.

I think we can add George Thomas to this philosophy of the economics of less bunkering vs more bunkering. Frankly, the second half of his treatise on "half strokes" for putts bears directly on this problem of the cost of bunkering. It's in Thomas' book that was written at least 3-4 years before the depression.

Frankly, even Hugh Wilson and Piper and Oakley were getting into the area of applied economics in golf course architecture, construction costs and maintenance costs as early as second half of the teens.
 

Te
While post #30 is interesting it doesn't address my question. You site no examples where MacKenzie went with minimal bunkers based on the site.

Mark
I don't believe MacKenzie had anything to do with Castletown. MacKenzie Ross restored it after the war and there was a mistaken attribution to Dr. MacKenzie. Doak confirmed that in his book. Have you found in fact he did redesign the course?

U of Michigan's golf course was clearly designed by Maxwell and I suspect the same with Crystal Downs. The plan for Michigan was drawn and signed by Maxwell. To my knowledge MacKenzie never took credit for CD (and MacKenzie was very good at publicizing his work); CD is remarkably similar to Prairie Dunes. Both Michigan and CD were built by Maxwell's right hand man.

How much did MacKenzie have to do with the 1930 NSW?

[TEPaul]

"Te
While post #30 is interesting it doesn't address my question. You site no examples where MacKenzie went with minimal bunkers based on the site."


Tom MacWood:

In fact I did cite an example. I cited it in post #33. It's ANGC. Bob Crosby cited ANGC too. I think you responded that his design philosophy may've been a change due to economics, and Bob Crosby who probably knows a good deal more about the history of ANGC than you do responded that in his opinion ANGC's very unique original design probably wasn't constrained by economic considerations to the extent that was the reason for its unusually few bunkers (22) but may've been simply a most important design philosophy change involving the purposeful use of far less bunkers, much wider fairways and large greens seemingly reminscient of some of the basic architectural principles of TOC. I don't think the fact that Mackenzie and Jones got together on the ANGC project because of their shared interest in TOC is any architectural secret.

[Matthew Hunt]

...

[Thomas MacWood]

TE
The question was: What are some examples of MacKenzie going with minimal bunkers based upon the site - prior to the Depression? Certainly you must have examples to support your idea - the bulk of his design career was prior to the Depression.

[Mark Bourgeois]

Tom MacW

As of 1930 it seems like MacKenzie would have had a lot to do with NSW, but who knows? It seems to me like the course relative to his plan was "unfinished," for example it may not have contained all the bunkers in the original plan.  Also, Lt-Col Bertram as secretary and Scotty Bissett as greenkeeper were responsible for getting the course built; did they follow his plans or ignore them? If the latter, they wasted 250-pounds Sterling on consultancy fees!

Russell didn't come along until the second half of 1931 and Apperly until Nov 1932.  But MacKenzie's original plan as you must know has been lost, including the number and location of bunkers.  The club history quotes club minutes stating that Russell's visit was "to assess the progress made with MacKenzie's routing and bunkering plans."

The original prospectus contained a 27-hole layout by James Herd Scott and Carnegie Clark (who worked with Dan Soutar), but apparently little or no progress was made, at which point MacK was brought in and by his account "made an entirely new course." The Referee weekly said, "Dr MacKenzie laid out the original course plan. He made a feature of the fairways, none of which is really flat."

On the other hand, the history notes that MacK's routing plan for the stretch of holes 3-8 bear resemblance to Clark and Soutar's (jeez, this is convoluted!) plans for the stretch of holes 7-12.

So it seems 1930 aerial should count on the balance as showing MacKenzie, but that assumes Bertram and Bissett hew to MacK's plan -- and no idea whether the bunkering scheme shown represents the complete implementation of Mac's plan.  I would assume it does not, but who can figure out anything substantive from this mess?!

But Tom to your larger point: he wrote about economy from the very start of his career! He felt the need to justify his design fee and part of that justification was construction costs. (Possibly maintenance too but I'm too lazy to look!)  How can you imply he didn't come by reduced bunkers "honestly," that he sold out his principles to Mammon, when he argued so forcefully for "economy" and "finality" in design?

I don't necessarily disagree with your premise. It's interesting to think he would argue for economy, then in the Roaring Twenties bunker up, perhaps arguing they were appropriate (and therefore cheaper) to the site and / or that he could build bunkers better (= more cheaply) -- only to have the Depression come in and reconceive his definition of "economy."  It certainly helps explain how his courses lack a sameness.

But:
1. Is the record complete?  We might go back to his inland English work in the 1910s and find "minimal bunkering."
2. I can't find an instance where the man sold out his principles for money.  One of the reasons he might have struggled with cash was because he felt strongly things had to be done a certain way, yes?

What about this passage from a 1927 Golf Illustrated piece MacKenzie penned:

On the whole, Australian golf courses are good.  The various club committees have been impressed with the importance of visibility, but they seem so much obsessed with the idea of length that some of the courses are much too long.  On most of them the fairways are too narrow, and at the Royal Sydney and Australian courses I advised them to convert over a hundred bunkers on each course into grassy hollows.  As it was, they were of no interest to anyone; they simply made the game impossible for the old gentleman and cramped the young slashing player.  On the other hand, there was very little strategy about the holes and very little real placing of the tee-shots was necessary.

That sounds like bunkering come by honestly.

Mark

PS Far be it from me to contradict published MacKenzie experts! Castletown has no record of A MacKenzie involvement; however two old newspaper articles say the course was"reconstructed entirely on modern principles" by MacKenzie in 1913-14.  It also sounded, and sounds, like a fantastic site, with a drive created by MacKenzie over a chasm that might have been one of the two most-thrilling he ever designed. (According to the head pro, this drive, in MacKenzie's plan the 15th, became Ross's 17th.)  One of the articles describes how Mac supervised the work via photos, which I find fascinating as a concept which helps explain how MacKenzie gave deep and continual consideration to the problem of ensuring his ideas were communicated, understood and implemented without requiring his physical presence.

PPS Has Neil asked for the Ohio State correspondence? I would love to see it, too!

[Mark Bourgeois]

A few passages from MacKenzie's writings -- fully appreciate the "do as I say, not as I do" angle!

1. "There will be relatively few sand traps, the trees, streams, and mildly rolling fairway surfaces supplying natural hazards." -- "Plans for the Ideal Golf Course," American Golfer, March 1932

2. "Most courses have too many bunkers.  They should be constructed mainly from a strategical and not from a penal point of view." -- "Council Regarding the Course," American Golfer, July 1928

3. "It is not a multiplicity of bunkers that makes a good hole. How often have clubs consulted us because they were losing members and having increased the popularity of their courses and made them much better tests of golf largely by converting the bunkers that have no meaning into grassy hollows.  At Lake Merced for example, where the Winter Match Play Open Championship was held last December, over one hundred bunkers were filled in and this move increased the popularity of the course to such an extent that even in these days of depression forty new members joined the club." -- "The Ideal Short Hole," American Golfer, 1932.

Tom, interesting passage that one! But he is writing in the context of an ideal short hole being playable for all -- this bunker passage could be his attempt to "sweeten," via cost-savings, his main point of playability.

4. "I frequently economize in sand by the method in which I make the bunkers.  Most of the hollows are turfed, but are formed in such a way that a ball gravitates toward the sand which is thrown right up against the face. Bunkers of this description have a much more natural appearance, and the amount of sand needed is also considerably less than usual." -- Christian Science Monitor, August 1914.

5. Tom, I assume you've seen this 1933 MacKenzie article in American Golfer ("Problems in Remodeling Courses"), but in case you haven't it supports your argument! http://www.la84foundation.org/SportsLibrary/AmericanGolfer/1933/ag368q.pdf

The bottom line is, he wrote about economy from the start, and about overbunkering in particular way before the Depression.  I'm not sure we can say therefore that the Depression threw a switch whereby MacKenzie went from heavy bunkering to minimal bunkering. Perhaps at the end he sold this aspect of his designs more heavily, but that's not the same thing as saying he changed his philosophy.

Mark

[Thomas MacWood]

Mark
You are right about Castletown. I do see where he mentions using scrapers there in his lecture to the greenkeepers. Not sure what Castletown has to do with frequency of bunkers however.

According to the article (in Golf Architecture #8) on Eric Apperly, NSW was built in 1928 without bunkers due to financial difficulties. In 1932 Apperly implemented a bunkering plan based upon MacKenzie's plan, although its unclear if anything is known about this plan or if it survives.

Of MacKenzie's comments on bunker frequency all of them are post Oct. 1929 with the exception of one very brief article in 1928. (The 1914 article has to do with style of bunker, not frequency) And based upon the timing of that 1928 article - the recent construction of two of his most heavily bunkered courses - I take it his emphasis was on strategic use of bunkers over penal, and not so much on general frequency, because he was sure loading up on strategic bunkers at that time.

It appears you are trying to make the case that MacKenzie was practicing minimal or moderate use of bunkers prior to 1929-1930. Practicing being the operative word. I don't see any evidence of that and plenty of evidence to the contrary, but I'm willing to be convinced.

[Sean_A]

Tom MacW

As of 1930 it seems like MacKenzie would have had a lot to do with NSW, but who knows? It seems to me like the course relative to his plan was "unfinished," for example it may not have contained all the bunkers in the original plan.  Also, Lt-Col Bertram as secretary and Scotty Bissett as greenkeeper were responsible for getting the course built; did they follow his plans or ignore them? If the latter, they wasted 250-pounds Sterling on consultancy fees!

Russell didn't come along until the second half of 1931 and Apperly until Nov 1932.  But MacKenzie's original plan as you must know has been lost, including the number and location of bunkers.  The club history quotes club minutes stating that Russell's visit was "to assess the progress made with MacKenzie's routing and bunkering plans."

The original prospectus contained a 27-hole layout by James Herd Scott and Carnegie Clark (who worked with Dan Soutar), but apparently little or no progress was made, at which point MacK was brought in and by his account "made an entirely new course." The Referee weekly said, "Dr MacKenzie laid out the original course plan. He made a feature of the fairways, none of which is really flat."

On the other hand, the history notes that MacK's routing plan for the stretch of holes 3-8 bear resemblance to Clark and Soutar's (jeez, this is convoluted!) plans for the stretch of holes 7-12.

So it seems 1930 aerial should count on the balance as showing MacKenzie, but that assumes Bertram and Bissett hew to MacK's plan -- and no idea whether the bunkering scheme shown represents the complete implementation of Mac's plan.  I would assume it does not, but who can figure out anything substantive from this mess?!

But Tom to your larger point: he wrote about economy from the very start of his career! He felt the need to justify his design fee and part of that justification was construction costs. (Possibly maintenance too but I'm too lazy to look!)  How can you imply he didn't come by reduced bunkers "honestly," that he sold out his principles to Mammon, when he argued so forcefully for "economy" and "finality" in design?

I don't necessarily disagree with your premise. It's interesting to think he would argue for economy, then in the Roaring Twenties bunker up, perhaps arguing they were appropriate (and therefore cheaper) to the site and / or that he could build bunkers better (= more cheaply) -- only to have the Depression come in and reconceive his definition of "economy."  It certainly helps explain how his courses lack a sameness.

But:
1. Is the record complete?  We might go back to his inland English work in the 1910s and find "minimal bunkering."
2. I can't find an instance where the man sold out his principles for money.  One of the reasons he might have struggled with cash was because he felt strongly things had to be done a certain way, yes?

What about this passage from a 1927 Golf Illustrated piece MacKenzie penned:

On the whole, Australian golf courses are good.  The various club committees have been impressed with the importance of visibility, but they seem so much obsessed with the idea of length that some of the courses are much too long.  On most of them the fairways are too narrow, and at the Royal Sydney and Australian courses I advised them to convert over a hundred bunkers on each course into grassy hollows.  As it was, they were of no interest to anyone; they simply made the game impossible for the old gentleman and cramped the young slashing player.  On the other hand, there was very little strategy about the holes and very little real placing of the tee-shots was necessary.

That sounds like bunkering come by honestly.

Mark

PS Far be it from me to contradict published MacKenzie experts! Castletown has no record of A MacKenzie involvement; however two old newspaper articles say the course was"reconstructed entirely on modern principles" by MacKenzie in 1913-14.  It also sounded, and sounds, like a fantastic site, with a drive created by MacKenzie over a chasm that might have been one of the two most-thrilling he ever designed. (According to the head pro, this drive, in MacKenzie's plan the 15th, became Ross's 17th.)  One of the articles describes how Mac supervised the work via photos, which I find fascinating as a concept which helps explain how MacKenzie gave deep and continual consideration to the problem of ensuring his ideas were communicated, understood and implemented without requiring his physical presence.

PPS Has Neil asked for the Ohio State correspondence? I would love to see it, too!

Mark

I didn't realize Dr Mac was involved with Castletown.  It really is a lovely course and I have a lot of time for it.  I was stunned by how good it was considering its relatively weak press.  The word is that the owners want to muck about with the course and build a fancy hotel.  It would be a pity to see the old Faulty Towers come down (in fact I think it already has!).  The chasm hole you speak of is ironically, a bit of a fluff hole.  The tee is either too  close to the chasm or the green too far away from the chasm.  Perhaps this hole was changed later.   

Tommy Mac

I wouldn't go so far as to say Maxwell was the sole designer of UofM.  Dr Mac made some significant changes to the original Maxwell plans which included much of the flair UofM currently has. IE holes 3 & 6 plus the green for #14.  Dr Mac also added considerable yardage.  I would call it a co-design which makes sense as they were partners - Maxwell was not Dr Mac's associate.

Ciao

[Thomas MacWood]

I wouldn't go so far as to say Maxwell was the sole designer of UofM.  Dr Mac made some significant changes to the original Maxwell plans which included much of the flair UofM currently has. IE holes 3 & 6 plus the green for #14.  Dr Mac also added considerable yardage.  I would call it a co-design which makes sense as they were partners - Maxwell was not Dr Mac's associate.

Sean
How do you know MacKenzie made significant changes to Maxwell's plan, and when did he make these changes?

[Sean_A]

I wouldn't go so far as to say Maxwell was the sole designer of UofM.  Dr Mac made some significant changes to the original Maxwell plans which included much of the flair UofM currently has. IE holes 3 & 6 plus the green for #14.  Dr Mac also added considerable yardage.  I would call it a co-design which makes sense as they were partners - Maxwell was not Dr Mac's associate.

Sean
How do you know MacKenzie made significant changes to Maxwell's plan, and when did he make these changes?

Tommy Mac

Look at the plan in C Clouser's book then compare it with the plan in Doak's book.  The story is Yost called Dr Mac to the site to add yardage to the course and to accomplish this he re-routed #s 2-5 and made some other changes to a few greens such as 6 & 14.  What is also glaringly different is the bunkering.  The final plan is much more like how Dr Mac was bunkering courses and some of these are far larger than in Maxwell's plan.  There is no question that a radical re-think occurred before Maxwell got to supervising the construction and it looks an awful lot like the hand of Dr Mac.  Still, I think Maxwell deserves the lion's share of credit. 

I have been trying to really compare the differences of UofM with Old Town.  The two really are quite different despite their somewhat similar hilly sites - I think this is because Dr Mac was involved at Michigan.  Of course, Old Town has that lovely creek running through the property which influences a the design of a few holes. 

Ciao

[Thomas MacWood]

Sean
I've compared the two plans. Neither one was drawn by MacKenzie.

The ultimate plan was clearly drawn by Maxwell and signed by him. On a humorous note MacKenzie's name is misspelled on the plan. That leads me to believe MacKenzie had nothing to do with it, and to my knowledge MacKenzie never travelled to Ann Arbor.

I don't see any evidence of MacKenzie's involvement in the design, which may explain why he never listed the course among his designs. In fact Dr.Mac did not list any of the courses that Maxwell was involved with: Michigan, Crystal Downs or Melrose.

[Mark Bourgeois]

But Tom, the passage quoted above from "Golf Architecture" in 1920: that seems a pretty clear denunciation of "overbunkering."  And yes words and deeds are different things but are you saying he violated his principles at places like Royal Melbourne and CPC or that the bunkering at those courses represented the true MacKenzie view?  Isn't it possible for him to be true to his principles and beliefs on bunkers yet have a portfolio consisting both of courses with many bunkers and courses with few?

And why on earth would he write so much across his career about ways he'd saved clubs money if he didn't back that up in the field?

It does appear his last courses had fewer bunkers than many of his 1920s courses, but don't you really need to look across his portfolio of 60-odd new designs to put the famous 1920s courses into the larger context of his career?  My point about Castletown wasn't bunker frequency but rather how sketchy the record is. Castletown sounded like a spectacular site; as no plans or photos exist who knows how many bunkers MacKenzie put in!

What if early in his career his courses were not heavily bunkered, many of which being inland, then he moved to the sandy-soils of California and Australia, bunkered up, kept going with that on the non-sandy California sites, maybe had a little epiphany there, and then finished up with non-sandy sites and went back to applying his principles as he did earlier in his career, when he had worked on similar inland sites?

New South Wales is another example of the sketchiness of the record; a sandy, spectacular site: how many bunkers did MacKenzie want put in? That 1930 aerial seems to show a few bunkers, but also huge sandy waste areas that would have served the purpose of bunkers.  The picture like the GA #8 article are inconclusive, the plans and sketches apparently no longer available to tell us how MacKenzie bunkered the course.

Second, as far as Augusta National and The Jockey Club he writes of the terrain dictating the paucity of bunkering and not the economy. If Bayside and Ohio State The Ohio State University were offered plans minimally bunkered on economic grounds, then that could be a case of MacKenzie pitching a low-cost design.

What did he replace those bunkers with? Mounding.  But he was onto mounding right from the start and it's a feature found fairly consistently across his design career, isn't it? It's not like he had this Depression-driven epiphany where he decides to replace bunkers with mounds.

And to the largest point can you really say reduced bunkering is a departure from his principles, that fewer bunkers represented some sort of architectural "dishonesty"?

I mean he wrote across his entire career about economy, about the value for money of hiring a professional designer and then not letting amateurs (greenkeepers + committees) muck up his ideas. Bayside was built using mechanization but in his earliest lectures he wrote of his strong support for using mechanization to economize.  That's a closed circle; it's not like the Depression sparked a new love of machinery by him.

Mark

[Mark Bourgeois]

Sean

It's just a hunch, but I wonder if MacKenzie's 15th wasn't a par 3 / 3.5 a la CPC 16 -- which if true, would be interesting wouldn't it?

The reason I wonder is, in one article the author writes of "the drive to the fifteenth hole."  Just parsing words probably, but if it were a par 4 would he have written instead of "the drive on / at the fifteenth hole"?

Secondly, the same author makes a single reference to the MacKenzie work at Castletown in an article on Reddish Vale.  He writes, "I saw some time ago a model in clay of an ingeniously designed new green for a new short hole there."

Pure speculation...who knows?

Mark

[Thomas MacWood]

Mark
You've lost me. You appear to be going in a million different directions. I think you're reading too much into my comments.

It sounds like you took offense when I said Simpson and Behr came by their preference to minimal bunkering honestly, so you're now trying to bend over backward to prove MacKenzie held a similar view back when. To prove he didn't sell out. I never said he sold out.

Perhaps if I had phrased it differently we could have avoided all this. I meant no offense to the good doctor. MacKenzie was a practical man, there is no shame in adjusting your style in the face of extraordinary economic conditions (afterall a man has to eat...and drink).

As you rightfully point out MacKenzie always preached economy, and as result he wasn't ashamed to emphasize to his Depression era clients that his new mode was the cutting edge in architecture from a cost standpoint. MacKenzie did not land many jobs during the Depression but he did land some, more than many others, and I believe his new architecture was a factor.

[Sean_A]

Sean
I've compared the two plans. Neither one was drawn by MacKenzie.

The ultimate plan was clearly drawn by Maxwell and signed by him. On a humorous note MacKenzie's name is misspelled on the plan. That leads me to believe MacKenzie had nothing to do with it, and to my knowledge MacKenzie never travelled to Ann Arbor.

I don't see any evidence of MacKenzie's involvement in the design, which may explain why he never listed the course among his designs. In fact Dr.Mac did not list any of the courses that Maxwell was involved with: Michigan, Crystal Downs or Melrose.

Tommy Mac

You won't like it, but the evidence is in the ground.  I don't think the bunkering is Maxwell's.  Also, the similarity of UofM's #6 is strikingly similar to a green at CD.  Also, why was the routing changed to include some very much in character with Dr Mac traits?  Finally, if Dr Mac was at Crystal Downs, it was a very easy trip to make to Ann Arbor, in fact, the train may have been routed through Ann Arbor if he was coming from Chicago or even if he flew to what would have been the Willow Run airport in out near Ypsilanti - some 12 miles from Ann Arbor.   Because you can find no evidence for your timeline is not nearly enough to convince me that Dr Mac wasn't involved - it could have easily happened on a visit to Michigan - remember, your timeline is full of holes.  It sounds harsh, but you need to visit the course and you will understand what I am talking about. 

Mark

The current 17th at Castletown could have been a shorter hole, but then the 18th would have to have been longer or the course ended at a different place - which is a fantastic greensite near the sea and over another wee chasm (which of course could be the hole described as well).

Ciao

[Mark Bourgeois]

Tom

Is going in a million different directions better than going nowhere at all? If so, I will count that as personal progress!

Enjoying this discussion greatly and sorry to come across as offended or belligerent -- not at all the intent. Wish I'd thought of the "new architecture" angle but remain unconvinced the Depression explains all or even most of it. It does sound like you're working off better information, though -- at liberty to share those TOSU letters?

If his last courses had fewer bunkers than his mid to late 1920s courses, I can think of three possible root causes:

1. Economic explanation.  Depression forces new type of design. Progression of design career follows a chronology.

2. Principles explanation.  MacKenzie did whatever he thought the site called for. It doesn't seem helpful to categorize MacKenzie as pro or anti "minimalist."  It seems like he was all sorts of designers across his career.  Sometimes that might have meant lots of bunkers, sometimes not so many.  The apparent "new architecture" really was a product of working hilly, inland sites after a period of working on sand. Or perhaps it represented yet another turn in his lifelong effort to interpret TOC.

3. Zeitgeist explanation.  MacKenzie's architecture reflected the spirit of the times.  In the Jazz Age that meant exuberance, a celebration in sand.  In the Depression a more subdued architecture was called for.

Or it could have been some combination of these.

(Million different directions) comment
#1 makes perfect sense; bunker minimalism is cheaper and his last courses apparently had fewer bunkers.  Clients presumably would have been more receptive to this line of reasoning.  The only problem with it is he apparently didn't refer to it as the modus operandi of building ANGC and Jockey, even though you'd think there would have been a strong reason to do so. Or did he?

Regarding #2, he references St. Andrews as the inspiration for ANGC and Jockey -- as he did for courses designed across his career; doesn't he appear obsessive about St Andrews Old? I mean, it was TOC TOC TOC -- what if he was just like George Rodrigue painting "Blue Dog" everywhere, working out the meaning of TOC again and again, constantly reinterpreting its meaning, almost like trying to work it out of his system.

It was like a bottomless well, a source of ideas and inspiration. Or like a lens through which everything got interpreted.  Maybe he drew on TOC for the lessons of how to design as cheaply as possible. Or maybe this was just business as usual: see site, apply TOC-ian ideas.

Not only that, he was such an iconoclast.  Right from the start he courted controversy; one might get the impression he sought to poke clients in the eye, and he did this even early in his career, when one might risk the most of all: career suicide.*  He wasn't afraid to offer the harshest of criticisms to would-be clients.  The guy must have been a world-class button-pusher...

If he believed a certain amount of bunkers were necessary, would he have been constitutionally capable of holding his tongue and offering something lesser than what his heart told him? Who knows, maybe economic conditions led him to reinterpret his principles, but he just seems more like the type susceptible to the spell of the idee fixe.

Things I guess did get pretty bad for him economically at the end, but he did have a writing career to hold up at least a corner of his finances.  (At some point Ran will post what probably are the last two articles written by MacKenzie, both on the subject of camouflage and one published posthumously.)

Sorry for the ramble -- interesting discussion!
Mark

*How about this zinger to the members at Withington in 1911/2:  "You have hardly a hole on the course of any real interest.  Your short holes, in particular, are all poor ones...."

[Thomas MacWood]

Sean
I assume your talking about the look of the bunkers prior to Arthur Hills. Ironically my suspicions were originally fueled by the fact the bunkering at Crystal Downs and Michigan never had a true MacKenzie look and flair to me. Not that they were unattractive, they just did not have the same aesthetic or sculptural quality. And after playing Prairie Dunes my suspicions were increased. The bunkering style is very similar. Old photos of Melrose (pre-Mac), Oklahoma City (pre-Mac), Old Town (post-Mac) and Southern Hills (post-Mac) show a similar style. (By the way Yost hired Maxwell because he liked Melrose).

It is possible his involvement with AM may have given Maxwell's bunkering a little more irregularity...I have not seen any good photos of his very earliest work to judge. But influencing his style and actually being involved in the design of Michigan are two different things.

PS: I've played Michigan, Crystal Downs, Southern Hills and Prairie Dunes.

Mark
I think the last few pages of the chapter Economy in Golf Course Construction reveal what MacKenzie was thinking and what he was up against during the Depression. A very good discusion agreed, although its gotten too complex for my simple thinking mind.

[Sean_A]

Sean
I assume your talking about the look of the bunkers prior to Arthur Hills. Ironically my suspicions were originally fueled by the fact the bunkering at Crystal Downs and Michigan never had a true MacKenzie look and flair to me. Not that they were unattractive, they just did not have the same aesthetic or sculptural quality. And after playing Prairie Dunes my suspicions were increased. The bunkering style is very similar. Old photos of Melrose (pre-Mac), Oklahoma City (pre-Mac), Old Town (post-Mac) and Southern Hills (post-Mac) show a similar style. (By the way Yost hired Maxwell because he liked Melrose).

It is possible his involvement with AM may have given Maxwell's bunkering a little more irregularity...I have not seen any good photos of his very earliest work to judge. But influencing his style and actually being involved in the design of Michigan are two different things.

PS: I've played Michigan, Crystal Downs, Southern Hills and Prairie Dunes.

Mark
I think the last few pages of the chapter Economy in Golf Course Construction reveal what MacKenzie was thinking and what he was up against during the Depression. A very good discusion agreed, although its gotten too complex for my simple thinking mind.

Tommy Mac

Yes, I am talking about post Hills.  I don't know if the original bunkers had the California flair, in fact I doubt they did (and I think Hills has taken a bad rap for this).  However, some were huge bunkers in the same way of the many California bunkers.  I think on holes such as 5, 12 & 13 the bunkering has been made larger than previously and it matches the final plan much better than before Hills.  Still, Hills fell far short of bringing back what was there.  There were other huge bunkers which have been left a very modest size.  I don't think Maxwell was known for huge bunkers unless they tended to be flatish - in fact bunkering wasn't really one of his strong suits - was it? 

In the end, we will have to agree to disagree.  I think Dr Mac had significant design input to UofM based on what is there and circumstances of the major re-routing of the course, but Maxwell was still the main guy.  We must also consider that Maxwell was in charge of construction so it is easily conceiveable that bunkers were constructed which may have looked like Maxwell jobbies, but that Dr Mac directed their placement.  I have only seen a few old pix of UofM and the bunkering doesn't look impressive, but I have never seen some of the ones which would tell me much.  I also think it would have been dead easy for Dr Mac to visit Ann Arbor so I am not buying the "no evidence of a visit theory" - just too many holes in the timeline for the fall of '29 and we know he was in the Midwest from Ohio to Chicago.  Though to be fair, you could be right, but I thinek its a long shot.

Ciao

[Thomas MacWood]

Sean
Interesting theories I just don't think the facts match the theories.

The placement of the bunkers is unMacKenzie-like IMO. MacKenzie was a fan of the fore bunker off the tee. The kind of bunker (or complex of bunkers) that looks very impressive, is often in the direct line of play or just off, but is usually cleared without much trouble. The maximize the golfer's thrills theory. Maxwell's plan has none of that.

I would disagree there is a California style. MacKenzie's style is very consistant in California, Australia and England. The men who built his California courses worked for him in the UK.

I haven't seen the most recent timeline, but I know it will be significantly different than one under IMO. Even so I'm not sure how you conclude someone was in a city without any direct evidence. I would think if he was in AA or Detroit there would be a record of it somewhere, and I haven't seen it.

Before they remodeled Michigan Hill's associate toured MacKenzie's California courses. There were two problems with that approach, 1) The course was design by Maxwell and built by his main man Dean Wood (I don't think either one of them had ever been to California), 2) Hills wasn't capable of replicating MacK's style even if it wasn't the correct style for UM.

[TEPaul]

"TE
The question was: What are some examples of MacKenzie going with minimal bunkers based upon the site - prior to the Depression? Certainly you must have examples to support your idea - the bulk of his design career was prior to the Depression."

 Tom MacWood:

For the third time the example of minimal bunkering from Mackenzie is ANGC. I'm not talking about the bulk of his career, just the design philosophy change at ANGC of minimal bunkering (22 originally). You might think the minimal amount of bunkers at ANGC was just due to the depression but I think you're wrong about that and so does Bob Crosby who knows a good deal about the history of ANGC and Jones. We think it had more to do with some interesting new strategic ideas with the collaboration of Jones and perhaps even the philosophy of Behr developed in the latter half of the 1920s.