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Sean_A

  • Karma: +0/-0
How Scrupulous was Dr Mac?
« on: August 04, 2008, 10:07:28 AM »
I know there are loads of fans of Dr Mac on this site.  In your opinions, did Dr Mac try to oversell himself?  I look at a partial list like the one below and have to wonder what exactly did Dr Mac do.  He himself talks of advising for some 300 clubs!  I spose this would not necessarily mean that all the clubs took his advice. 


I also ask because I see Burnham listed.  It has long been rumoured that Dr Mac may have been involved with Burnham and the club history states that Dr Mac submitted a report in 1922, but I can find no specific mention of it anywhere else or what was in the report.  Now Burnham pops up on a Dr Mac ad.  Some folks surmise that the 16th is a Dr Mac green - probably because of the two tier design. 

In any case, what do folks think?  Was Dr Mac as prolific as he seems to suggest?

Ciao
New plays planned for 2024: Nothing

Thomas MacWood

Re: How Scrupulous was Dr Mac?
« Reply #1 on: August 04, 2008, 12:01:24 PM »
Sean
From my research I'd say he was very scrupulous. I've not known him to take credit for something he did not do. There does not appear to be any Colt designs on the list, which may have been tempting. As far Burnham is concerned if they paid him for a report in 1922, I have no problem with him listing the course in 1923 in anticipation of that report being acted upon.

wsmorrison

Re: How Scrupulous was Dr Mac?
« Reply #2 on: August 04, 2008, 12:18:37 PM »
Lido GC (in America), by plans and correspondence?  What's that all about?

Sean_A

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: How Scrupulous was Dr Mac?
« Reply #3 on: August 04, 2008, 12:26:01 PM »
Tommy Mac

I honestly don't know - thats why I asked.  Don't you think 300 courses sounds high though?  I know we are talking about an advisory role as well, but jeepers thats sounds a load. 

The strange thing about Burnham is that Dr Mac may have still been in a loose agreement with Colt in 1922 or perhaps it was just coming to close and Dr Mac was looking for business.  It seems wierd to have a report from Dr Mac in 1922 when the 1913 Colt Plan was essentially just being completed unless perhaps all were not completely happy with Colt's ideas.  It makes me wonder if there wasn't a bit of argie bargie going on in the ranks and that Burnham settled on Colt for the 1925 Plan especially knowing that Alison would more than likely be available to oversee the new project and and make alterations as needed.  Though, Fowler also put in a report, so maybe there was just a lot of disagreement within the club as to the best way forward. 

Thinking of it all though, there must have been some very tough decisions to take especially knowing that the site was getting larger due to the estuary withdrawing.  I know that today I walk around the course and gaze at wonder at all the prime dunes left unused or use by the newish Channel Course.  Any club would give an arm and a leg for that land and yet there it sits.   

Ciao
New plays planned for 2024: Nothing

Tom_Doak

  • Karma: +3/-1
Re: How Scrupulous was Dr Mac?
« Reply #4 on: August 04, 2008, 12:26:34 PM »
Wayne:

He designed the 18th hole in that Country Life contest, didn't he?

I don't think Dr. MacKenzie was unscrupulous, he just included EVERYWHERE he had made a consulting report, probably including some places they never built any of it.  The reason he did it that way is because most of his early clients in England never paid him to go back and supervise building any of his recommendations -- they just did the work themselves to the extent they saw fit, and MacKenzie probably didn't even know what some of them had or hadn't done.

Lloyd_Cole

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: How Scrupulous was Dr Mac?
« Reply #5 on: August 04, 2008, 12:56:37 PM »
Lido GC (in America), by plans and correspondence?  What's that all about?
Wouldn't that be the competition he won?

Thomas MacWood

Re: How Scrupulous was Dr Mac?
« Reply #6 on: August 04, 2008, 01:25:56 PM »
It sure would be interesting to find those correcspondence.

Jim Nugent

Re: How Scrupulous was Dr Mac?
« Reply #7 on: August 04, 2008, 01:52:36 PM »
Apparently, if you asked that question about Bobby Jones and Cliff Roberts, the answer might be "not very."

Bill_McBride

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: How Scrupulous was Dr Mac?
« Reply #8 on: August 04, 2008, 02:03:40 PM »
I was not aware of any consulting he might have done at Royal Portrush, and wonder if the good Dr included work done by Colt and / or Allison while they three were in partnership.

The Lido contribution has got to be the prize winning par 4. Otherwise the MacDonald diehards are going to have hemorrhages!  ;D

Neil_Crafter

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: How Scrupulous was Dr Mac?
« Reply #9 on: August 04, 2008, 07:02:23 PM »
Sean
I have embarked upon a task of checking out this very list and for the most part it seems to be checking out and I'd tend to agree with Tom MacW and Tom D that he claimed jobs where he had given them advice or a report at the very least. With Lido, he just didn't mention that it was one hole!

Burnham certainly mention some work he did for them so I don't think its inappropriate for him to put Burnham on this list, and remember the wording "has advised", doesn't mean he is necessarily claiming he designed the entire course, only that he advised them at some point, and that advice may or may not have been taken up.

Portrush is a bit of a mystery to me as I thought this was only Colt, and similarly, Newcastle (Northen Ireland) where he lists County Down and the Ladies Course I have not been able to find anything in a quick look.

With the London courses on the list, London Country (London Flying Club) now checks out nicely (see my current thread on my little discovery). Tooting Bec no longer exists I believe and have not been able to find anything at all about Northwick Park or the Wanstead Club, all the others check out for some Mackenzie involvement.

My view is that this list is pretty accurate but as far as the 300 courses, or the 400 courses that it had grown to by the time he put out the next version of this advert in 1929, I think it may be a slight exaggeration. I'm pretty confident it is well over 200 at the least.
Neil

Bill_McBride

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: How Scrupulous was Dr Mac?
« Reply #10 on: August 04, 2008, 07:07:34 PM »
Sean
I have embarked upon a task of checking out this very list and for the most part it seems to be checking out and I'd tend to agree with Tom MacW and Tom D that he claimed jobs where he had given them advice or a report at the very least. With Lido, he just didn't mention that it was one hole!

Burnham certainly mention some work he did for them so I don't think its inappropriate for him to put Burnham on this list, and remember the wording "has advised", doesn't mean he is necessarily claiming he designed the entire course, only that he advised them at some point, and that advice may or may not have been taken up.

Portrush is a bit of a mystery to me as I thought this was only Colt, and similarly, Newcastle (Northen Ireland) where he lists County Down and the Ladies Course I have not been able to find anything in a quick look.

With the London courses on the list, London Country (London Flying Club) now checks out nicely (see my current thread on my little discovery). Tooting Bec no longer exists I believe and have not been able to find anything at all about Northwick Park or the Wanstead Club, all the others check out for some Mackenzie involvement.

My view is that this list is pretty accurate but as far as the 300 courses, or the 400 courses that it had grown to by the time he put out the next version of this advert in 1929, I think it may be a slight exaggeration. I'm pretty confident it is well over 200 at the least.
Neil

Newcastle is, I believe, just Old Tom Morris and Harry Colt.  I was there September 2007 at the Walker Cup and saw nothing in the club literature mentioning Dr Mackenzie.   Since every club where he ever at least visited calls themself "An Alister Mackenzie Classic," I suspect that might be a bit of resume padding by the good Doctor.

Having said that, most of the 200 you mention are all wonderful courses!

Sean_A

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: How Scrupulous was Dr Mac?
« Reply #11 on: August 04, 2008, 07:12:22 PM »
Sean
I have embarked upon a task of checking out this very list and for the most part it seems to be checking out and I'd tend to agree with Tom MacW and Tom D that he claimed jobs where he had given them advice or a report at the very least. With Lido, he just didn't mention that it was one hole!

Burnham certainly mention some work he did for them so I don't think its inappropriate for him to put Burnham on this list, and remember the wording "has advised", doesn't mean he is necessarily claiming he designed the entire course, only that he advised them at some point, and that advice may or may not have been taken up.

Portrush is a bit of a mystery to me as I thought this was only Colt, and similarly, Newcastle (Northen Ireland) where he lists County Down and the Ladies Course I have not been able to find anything in a quick look.

With the London courses on the list, London Country (London Flying Club) now checks out nicely (see my current thread on my little discovery). Tooting Bec no longer exists I believe and have not been able to find anything at all about Northwick Park or the Wanstead Club, all the others check out for some Mackenzie involvement.

My view is that this list is pretty accurate but as far as the 300 courses, or the 400 courses that it had grown to by the time he put out the next version of this advert in 1929, I think it may be a slight exaggeration. I'm pretty confident it is well over 200 at the least.
Neil

Neil

I can accept that the ad is on about "advice", but what exactly dos this mean in many cases?  Have you been able to uncover what he did do or what was done off a plan of Mac's at many of the courses?  It just seems like Dr Mac was zipping around an awful lot and it makes me wonder what can be attributed to him.  Just saying he offered advice doesn't say a whole lot unless you are trying to sell yourself.

Bill - Burnham doesn't feel it is a Dr Mac course.  In fact, the archies aren't given a lot of attention by the club at all.

I just question the wisdom of listing a bunch of clubs that may or may not be associated with Dr Mac unless there is more proof.  Its no different than folks questioning Ross attributions.  Mistakes are made even if we are often only talking about "advice". 

It wasn't until the past few years that I found out Maxwell is at least as responsible (and I believe much more) as Dr Mac for Michigan.  Old attributions are hard to kill no matter how inaccurate they can be.   

Ciao

« Last Edit: August 04, 2008, 07:21:57 PM by Sean Arble »
New plays planned for 2024: Nothing

Neil_Crafter

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: How Scrupulous was Dr Mac?
« Reply #12 on: August 04, 2008, 08:00:03 PM »
Sean
Us amateur researchers undertaking the timeline project for the AM Society - Sean Tully, Nick Leefe, myself, Mark Bourgeois (and previously Bob Beck) are also looking into his courses as a natural extension of finding out information for the timeline. Sean T started a spreadsheet on a list of his courses and what I have done is further extended this by adding all the listings from DSH, C&W and Hawtree (Colt&Co) which are the the three main lists of Mackenzie's work. Some courses are on one list and not on another and vice versa. And then I have added all the courses I could find from Mackenzie's 1923 and 1929 adverts, many of which were not in the three lists.

I have then put these into a few different categories - confirmed, question marks (where we have some info but have not been able to fully check it out yet), misattributed, courses where he gave advice or did a design that was not implemented (eg El Boqueron), and another category for wildly improbable but a mention somewhere. As we go along and learn more, there will be shake ups in these provisional categories and some will go up into confirmed and others will go into misattributed etc etc.

But this is more than just a list as in a comments column we are endeavouring to summarise just what AM did on each of these projects, whether it was advice that wasn't taken up, whether he advised them on a new course pre-WW1 which stopped everything and the restarted again after the war - and there are many of these, or whether the whole course design can be attributed to him. Every one case is different as you would appreciate and I don't think its worth talking in generalities.

Many many of these clubs have proof and some just don't know it. I'll give you an example - Crowborough Beacon. I recently came across an old Darwin handbook for the club and in it was a mention of the 7th hole being out of commission as it was being reconstructed by Dr Mackenzie. No mention of AM on the club's website or history book, but Darwin was rarely ever (if ever) wrong about matters of architectural attribution so I contacted the club and explained this to them and they went back into their records and sure enough they found documentary evidence in minutes and annual reports confirming Mackenzie's involvement. It seems it got glossed over as there was one member of the committee around the time who was Dr such and such and another who was named Mackenzie and so the references were missed! So there's a serendipitous find that was on no-one's list.

Certainly old attributions are hard to kill as you say but detailed digging in partnership with these clubs seems the only way to go to sieve the myth from reality.

Bill
That's what I thought about Newcastle too, perhaps he included it because of the Colt connection, but apart from Portrush and this one, the others pretty much all seem genuine Mackenzies. However, based on the advert its worth a follow up with the club I would say on the off chance that he did give them some advice.

Neil

Tom_Doak

  • Karma: +3/-1
Re: How Scrupulous was Dr Mac?
« Reply #13 on: August 04, 2008, 08:54:38 PM »
I honestly don't know why Dr. MacKenzie would have listed Newcastle and Portrush unless he had been there and made some suggestions, considering 95% of the other attributions are accurate.  I have no idea when he might have been there or what suggestions he made, though, and I never looked at anything on either of the courses and wondered if it might be MacKenzie's work.

Thomas MacWood

Re: How Scrupulous was Dr Mac?
« Reply #14 on: August 04, 2008, 09:02:50 PM »
Richard Latham who wrote the excellent RCD history discovered that MacKenzie advised the club on expanding their short course. I think it was in 1919 or 1920.

Rich Goodale

Re: How Scrupulous was Dr Mac?
« Reply #15 on: August 05, 2008, 03:38:11 AM »
Vis a vis Portrush, Colt had his first consultation with the Club in 1923, 9 years before the work was finally done.  Maybe Mackenzie was involved in those early stages since he was still at least nominally working with Colt then.

Neil_Crafter

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: How Scrupulous was Dr Mac?
« Reply #16 on: August 05, 2008, 04:07:54 AM »
Tom Mac
Is the Mackenzie info in Latham's history of RCD? I might try and contact him. I can't say I am surprised by this news, as Tom D says, Mackenzie would have no reason to say he had advised them if he hadn't. And he does specifically mention the Ladies' Course which presumably was the short course. By 1923 the split with Colt and Alison was pretty much done and thats why you find Mackenzie advertising on his own. I can't see he would have wanted to include Colt courses unless he had some specific involvement in them.

Rich
As Tom Mac says Mackenzie was at Newcastle around 1919 or 20, so its more than likely that if he did any work at Portrush that it would have been on the same trip or trips. So far there is no evidence in the AM timeline that has him in Northern Ireland but that may soon change if we can get some details about RCD.

Sean_A

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: How Scrupulous was Dr Mac?
« Reply #17 on: August 05, 2008, 04:57:44 AM »
Sean
Us amateur researchers undertaking the timeline project for the AM Society - Sean Tully, Nick Leefe, myself, Mark Bourgeois (and previously Bob Beck) are also looking into his courses as a natural extension of finding out information for the timeline. Sean T started a spreadsheet on a list of his courses and what I have done is further extended this by adding all the listings from DSH, C&W and Hawtree (Colt&Co) which are the the three main lists of Mackenzie's work. Some courses are on one list and not on another and vice versa. And then I have added all the courses I could find from Mackenzie's 1923 and 1929 adverts, many of which were not in the three lists.

I have then put these into a few different categories - confirmed, question marks (where we have some info but have not been able to fully check it out yet), misattributed, courses where he gave advice or did a design that was not implemented (eg El Boqueron), and another category for wildly improbable but a mention somewhere. As we go along and learn more, there will be shake ups in these provisional categories and some will go up into confirmed and others will go into misattributed etc etc.

But this is more than just a list as in a comments column we are endeavouring to summarise just what AM did on each of these projects, whether it was advice that wasn't taken up, whether he advised them on a new course pre-WW1 which stopped everything and the restarted again after the war - and there are many of these, or whether the whole course design can be attributed to him. Every one case is different as you would appreciate and I don't think its worth talking in generalities.

Many many of these clubs have proof and some just don't know it. I'll give you an example - Crowborough Beacon. I recently came across an old Darwin handbook for the club and in it was a mention of the 7th hole being out of commission as it was being reconstructed by Dr Mackenzie. No mention of AM on the club's website or history book, but Darwin was rarely ever (if ever) wrong about matters of architectural attribution so I contacted the club and explained this to them and they went back into their records and sure enough they found documentary evidence in minutes and annual reports confirming Mackenzie's involvement. It seems it got glossed over as there was one member of the committee around the time who was Dr such and such and another who was named Mackenzie and so the references were missed! So there's a serendipitous find that was on no-one's list.

Certainly old attributions are hard to kill as you say but detailed digging in partnership with these clubs seems the only way to go to sieve the myth from reality.

Bill
That's what I thought about Newcastle too, perhaps he included it because of the Colt connection, but apart from Portrush and this one, the others pretty much all seem genuine Mackenzies. However, based on the advert its worth a follow up with the club I would say on the off chance that he did give them some advice.

Neil

Neil

Thanks.  It sounds like a labour of love!  I spose from my perspective it doesn't much matter if Dr Mac built a 7th hole somewhere or if he advised on other minor stuff where the big picture is concerned.  I am more interested in what we can properly call Dr Mac courses as these are the projects which really give us a flavour of his work.  I guess that is the reason I am not a Dr MacHead!

Ciao
New plays planned for 2024: Nothing

Neil_Crafter

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: How Scrupulous was Dr Mac?
« Reply #18 on: August 05, 2008, 05:31:34 AM »
Of course Sean, I understand what you are saying.
And I never thought of myself as a Dr MacHead before!
Although I have been called a similar name that ends in .....head.

Thomas MacWood

Re: How Scrupulous was Dr Mac?
« Reply #19 on: August 05, 2008, 07:17:32 AM »
Neil
I do believe Latham does mention it in the book.

wsmorrison

Re: How Scrupulous was Dr Mac?
« Reply #20 on: August 05, 2008, 08:57:45 AM »
While MacKenzie won the prize resulting in the par 4 18th hole, I thought Macdonald modified the design on his own.  So while I wasn't surprised by MacKenzie mentioning a plan, but he mentions plans and also correspondence.  Was he involved in more than just the 18th hole?  Sounds like a Long Island Syndrome is at work  ;)  My gosh, these syndromes are everywhere  ;D

Mike Hendren

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: How Scrupulous was Dr Mac?
« Reply #21 on: August 05, 2008, 09:05:56 AM »
Apparently, if you asked that question about Bobby Jones and Cliff Roberts, the answer might be "not very."

Interesting.  I was under the impression that Mackenzie was the screwee.  Please elaborate.  Thanks.

Mike
Two Corinthians walk into a bar ....

Jim Nugent

Re: How Scrupulous was Dr Mac?
« Reply #22 on: August 05, 2008, 09:12:21 AM »
Apparently, if you asked that question about Bobby Jones and Cliff Roberts, the answer might be "not very."

Interesting.  I was under the impression that Mackenzie was the screwee.  Please elaborate.  Thanks.

Mike

I only know what I've read several times on this website.  Which is that Mac never got paid for his work on ANGC. 

Bill_McBride

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: How Scrupulous was Dr Mac?
« Reply #23 on: August 05, 2008, 09:41:52 AM »
Apparently, if you asked that question about Bobby Jones and Cliff Roberts, the answer might be "not very."

Interesting.  I was under the impression that Mackenzie was the screwee.  Please elaborate.  Thanks.

Mike

I only know what I've read several times on this website.  Which is that Mac never got paid for his work on ANGC. 

Why does Jones and Roberts' failure to pay for the design of ANGC create the impression that
Dr Mackenzie was unscrupulous?  I don't follow.  As I have heard the story, the club got into financial difficulty because of the collapse of the economy [reminiscent of today?] and bills weren't paid.  By the time the club became solvent, Mackenzie was dead and buried at Pasatiempo.  The estate was never paid.  The letters Mackenzie wrote asking for payment are pretty sad to read.

Craig Van Egmond

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: How Scrupulous was Dr Mac?
« Reply #24 on: August 05, 2008, 09:47:07 AM »

I think Jim was implying that Bobby Jones and Cliff Roberts may have been lacking in scruples, not MacKenzie.