Clayton gets his 1st MacKenzie

[Terry Thornton]

Congratulations to Michael Clayton Golf Course Design who have been engaged to prepare a master plan for Royal Adelaide Golf Course.
After recently playing the new Royal Queensland I eagerly await his vision for RA

[Jason McNamara]

Mike, congrats.  This is ripper or bonzer or whatever the locally appropriate adjective is.   

Are there any aspects you can publicly address?

[Pat Burke]

Congrats Clayts
Great course, great opportunity

[Mike_Clayton]

Jason,

Probably not too much at this point - but it is a fantastic course.
One interesting thing is MacKenzie's original map and whilst some of his suggestions were adopted some were not.

There are some principles and intentions that can be gleaned from his drawings and they are always worth investigating.

[Brett Morris]

Well done Mike.  I'm sure it will go well for you.

[David_Elvins]

Fantastic news.

THe course should be a lot better  than it is and is definitly at the cross roads. 

Clayton and team have has much chance of getting it back in the right direction as anyone. 

[Mark Bourgeois]

Congratulations, Mike. With luck the master plan will include "undoing things done to the course by later designers." Mark

[Jay Flemma]

Outstanding!  Good onya, mike!

[David Stamm]

Congrats, Mike. Handle w/ care, as I'm sure you will.

[Chris Kane]

Mike, when you told me at golf last week that you'd got the job, I'm not sure I congratulated you, so I'll do so here!

[Matthew Mollica]

This is wonderful news for Royal Adelaide. As David suggested, the course is clearly at the crossroads. Work done to it over the last decade had detracted from the quality of the layout significantly IHMO.

Congratulations Mike. I'm sure your care and respect for the course, and your familiarity and wish to embrace MacKenzie's philosophies, will be clear for all to see, leading to an improvement in the course.

One quick qn - how much do you think your work at nearby The Grange played in securing the position at RA? Would it be fair to say the RA committee were pleased with the vegetation changes, green work, and overall improvement you delivered at The Grange, and that this gave them more confident to appoint you?

MM

[Andrew Summerell]

Well done, Mike.

I can't wait to see some of those spupid mounds dissappear. I think we all know which ones need to go.

[Mike_Clayton]

Matt.

I'm not sure how much Royal Adelaide looked at the Grange but I think we did a pretty good job there. Its a much better course than it was. The question for Grange was why was the west not close to the top 20 in the country when a course around the corner rated as one of the top four of five.
The land was probably better at Royal Adelaide but the answer to the question was 'the architecture' - the greens, the bunkers and the trees - and we were fortunate the club were prepared to seriously address the issues.
It will be interesting to see how both courses - RA and The Grange -  play in the Eisenhower Trophy in October.

[Bob_Huntley]

Mike,

Congratulations and a well deserved choice indeed.

However, I do hope you draw the plans whilst sitting down, it's the only way to a gold medal.

Bob

 

[Kevin Pallier]

Mike

Can you get a gig at The Australian ?

Look forward to seeing what you do with RA

[Mike_Clayton]

Kevin.

I would have thought The Australian will look exactly the same as it does now in fifty years.
We are instead doing The Lakes !!
I think it will be amazing when its finished and much closer to what those courses looked like when they were built.
Freeways going through the middle of great courses don't help.

[Andrew Bertram]

Congratulations Mike

Good luck with what will be an amazing journey with RA for you.

Andrew

[Richard Chamberlain]

Nice gig Clayts.
I can't wait to see what you do with those new "wetlands".