Mackenzie's Bunkering Plan for Kingston Heath

[Neil_Crafter]

My feeling on this is that the newspaper artist had Mackenzie's bunkering plan at hand to copy and make a version that could reproduce easily in newsprint, so a lot of Mackenzie's fine linework that we see on his Royal Adelaide plan would have been left off the copy. I believe it would be a reasonably accurate depiction of Mackenzie's plan but, alas, we will never know for sure. In any event, I don't think Morcom and Son were all that worried about following the plan to the letter, in fact they informed the club at the start that they would need to vary from the plan in some areas, so it would not surprise me if they took a bit of license to change more than a little. 3 would be interesting with the bunker moved out a bit into the fairway - go for it Clayts!

Neil

[TEPaul]

I'm very interested to see the melding or merging of fairway on various contiguous holes on that plan. It reminds me of that South American plan that was apparently Mackenzie's. It seems from other text sources around this time (late 1920s) that Mackenzie and Behr had been talking about architecture with more fairway area (with bunker and hazard features contained within) and much less rough area.

[BCrosby]

Tom -

Exactly so. MacK's fw corridors were enormous. Many double fw's where each fw on its own would have been very wide. Terrific stuff.

And as you note, virtually all of his bunkers are well inside the fw lines.

Note also the use of topshot bunkers on a couple of holes. Why those kind of bunkers were used by so many architects in the GA remains unclear to me. But they were very common. They seem to have all been removed. I can't imagine a modern architect building them today.

Bob 

 

[Bill_McBride]

Having just trod the sacred double wide fairways last week, I suspect those double fairways at so many MacKenzie courses derive from the Old Course. 

80 yards left?  No problem!

[Neil_Crafter]

TE
I think Bill is spot on with assertion regarding TOC. Here's an extract from Mackenzie's plan for Royal Adelaide where the joined fairways are in profusion. Having joined fairways also achieves his desire for less rough which was a big thing he promoted continuously in interviews and articles during his Australian sojourn. I expect though that in 1926 establishing and maintaining these extensive fairway areas would have been beyond the capabilities of most clubs, and so probably they were never put in. In Kingston Heath's case, the fairways already existed when Mackenzie inspected the course as Morcom had built the course already a year or two earlier to Dan Soutar's design.

I suspect, Bob, that those 'top shot' bunkers you refer to on the plan were simply never put in by the Morcoms, as part of the 'licence to change' they asked for, and presumably received from the club.

cheers Neil

[Bill_McBride]

Tom -

Exactly so. MacK's fw corridors were enormous. Many double fw's where each fw on its own would have been very wide. Terrific stuff.

And as you note, virtually all of his bunkers are well inside the fw lines.

Note also the use of topshot bunkers on a couple of holes. Why those kind of bunkers were used by so many architects in the GA remains unclear to me. But they were very common. They seem to have all been removed. I can't imagine a modern architect building them today.

Bob
 

The Valley Club of Montecito's restoration, just completed by Tom Doak, restored the top shot bunkers only 100 yards in front of the 15th tee (par 5 back to the clubhouse).

I'll bet a lot of the older members there aren't chuckling!