Dunn, Thomas Jr and Mackenzie at Pismo Beach

[Neil_Crafter]

This is a possible involvement for Mackenzie in California, but it seems like a cast of thousands and I've not seen anything further as a follow up as to whether Mackenzie did help in any way, or even make the trip to Pismo Beach on the way from SF to LA or vice versa. Not too far to pop down from Monterey peninsula either. Have this listed as a 'possible but unlikely' in our list of Mackenzie courses.

Tom MacWood first alerted me about this a little while back, referring to a very brief mention in Golf Monthly (1927 Annual) that, "Dr. MacKenzie has been in Australia and is returning via California and it to collaborate in designing Cave Landing, a show links out there, with JD Dunn and two amateurs." Tom thought the course was on Catalina Island but that does not tally with this report that places the course near Pismo Beach.

I had nothing further on this until I found this LA Times article while looking for Dana Point stuff. So its nice to get a corroborating report. The Golf Monthly reference fails to mention that one of the "amateurs" is none other than George C. Thomas!

Interestingly, for those using newspaper archive search functions, this article does not come up under a search using the name 'Mackenzie' as the name is split over two lines in the article, which is a real bummer, and a not uncommon occurrence in newspaper columns. I found it by searching 'golf architect'. I wonder if any GCA contributors know anything further about this project? I hope so. I am assuming that this course was never built, it would have been pretty spectacular if it was, from what I have seen of the Pismo Beach oceanfront on the web.

[Jeff_Brauer]

MacKenzie laid out Muirfield?

[Neil_Crafter]

Jeff
I noticed that too and was wondering who would pick up on that first - and you win the prize! (not that there is one)
As Colt re-designed Muirfield, and Mackenzie was in partnership with Colt from 1919 - ca1923, there is only one degree of separation from reality, which is probably not bad for some newspaper articles! Hope the rest of the article is slightly more accurate.

[Tom Naccarato]

Neil,
Geoff had come across a prospectus of the Cave Landing course, in fact there is something thats in PCG & MM of the entire thing.

MacKenzie was not mentioned in that prospectus, no doubt still feeling a bit slighted after the visit to Fox Hills and Riviera during construction. I'm still not 100% sure if MacKenzie was down here thinking he was going to design Rivera and Fox Hills, or if his mindset was to bring Thomas in as a design partner ala H. Chandler Egan, Perry Maxwell, Alex Russell, etc. The Good Doctor was undoubtedly trying to have a hand in all of it.

[Neil_Crafter]

Tommy
Thats an interesting find of Geoff's, do you mean Pacific Coast Golfer magazine with your abbreviation? Would be interested to see the article if anyone has it.

Think there is a real interesting story in that whole Mackenzie / Thomas relationship thing after Mack apparently thought that he would be involved in Riviera and Fox Hills only to find out he was there more for promotion than anything. He later bagged Thomas' short course at Riviera in Spirit of St Andrews so appears he had a long memory. Perhaps once Dunn explained to him that Thomas was to be involved in the Cave Landing course he politely declined. Who knows though?

[Tom Naccarato]

Yes, Pacific Coast Golf & Motor Magazine/Pacific Coast Golfer/Country Club Magazine. (eventually one in the same.)

I have the Caves Valley thing around somewhere, I have to look for it.

[Adam Clayman]

If the reference to Muirfield is found to be bogus, the peice reads like a marketing piece. Surely the land in Scotland, where the great courses are located, look nothing like the central coast. Subduction V. alluvial 

[Jeff_Brauer]

Adam,

I had the same thought.  It felt like the developer thought he had a good pub op and brought in the local reporter who knew a little but not a lot and got whatever Mac did at Muirfield (or maybe TOC?) wrong in the article, leaving us to wonder what else is wrong in there.

[Neil_Crafter]

I've done some further searching of the LA Times and could only find a further 3 articles about Cave Landing's golf course, the first of which is from Nov 14 1926 announcing the new club. Says they had a mile and a half of oceanfront. Guess that's houses now.



Then comes an article that goes someway to answering the Muirfield question from the other article. Here the article states that the new course is "expected to be an exact duplicate of the famous Muirfield course at Scotland." Good luck with that one.



The last of these is from Feb 6 1927 and talks about some of the key board members who would be collaborating in the design of the course with Thomas Jr and JD Dunn. No mention of Mackenzie.
After this the trail goes cold rather abruptly, no more mentions after this one that I could find. Safe to assume it wasn't built.

[Jeff_Brauer]

The first article only says that they will ask Mac to design the course later in the year when he arrives.  Maybe with Thomas on board he declined.  Or, Thomas had the connections and was by then well enough known that they didn't need a paid consultant in the form of AM. 

They may have just been using AM's good name for promotion. Its a problem that JN and others face today - they get named gca early for promotional purposes and never see a dime.  AM was used for marketing here, perhaps without his knowledge!

Another interesting aspect is the idea among the developers of a replica course!  Nothing new under the sun, I guess.

[Sean_Tully]

Cave's Landing

Interesting that MacKenzie was also shown this site while on his visit to SoCal. I have a couple of mentions from the Fairway Magazines about the proposed course, but no mention of MacKenzie. Sounds to me more like a site visit by MacKenzie through Dunn, who would have had some previous friendship with AM.

The names that are also mentioned in the article are
Dunn, Thomas, and Byrce are the same ones given in the Fairway mags as the men behind the design of the course.


On another note...

One question that needs to be asked of Thomas, was his ability to design courses w/o a fee an issue with other architects that were pursuing the same jobs?


Did Thomas ever take a payment for any of his work?

Tully

[Thomas MacWood]

There were at least a couple of cases when MacKenzie mistakenly thought he was being invited to collaborate and it didn't turn out that way, both cases in SoCal. Was he confused or was he misled?

[Thomas MacWood]

Was Peter Bryce actively involved in golf architecture?

[TEPaul]

"On another note...
One question that needs to be asked of Thomas, was his ability to design courses w/o a fee an issue with other architects that were pursuing the same jobs?
Did Thomas ever take a payment for any of his work?
Tully"


Sean:

I don't believe he ever did. Perhaps one of the reasons for that is he really never had to for fairly obvious reasons.

Was the fact that Thomas and perhaps a few others never took a fee an issue with some architects (the professionals)? I think of course it was and I've seen that reflected in some letters here and there, particularly in the 1920s.

But I think we have to understand and appreciate that in the early 1920s the USGA instituted the "architect" exception to the amateur status rule and all those who probably never took a fee for that reason were finally released from that burden and constraint. But some seemingly refused to ever consider architecture for pay and there's no question Macdonald said he never would, but by that time his active career in architecture was essentially over with perhaps a few exceptions like Yale.

Others like Thomas, still in good health, just walked away from it after a while never having taken a fee. Wilson died in 1925 never having taken a fee.

I'm totally fascinated by that era of the "amateur/sportsman" designer who never got paid and why they did so much good long term work in a particular era but never started another of their longterm projects after say WW1.

Before that I think they understood they were filling a vacuum that after WW1 really didn't exist anymore as the professionals became far more organized and dedicated to spending their careers solely involved in the business of golf architecture without having to get back to some club as a basic jack-of-all-trades or a guy not completely respected in the entire world of golf and architecture.

A guy like H.H. Barker went home at the beginning of WW1 in Europe (around 1915) feeling disrespected over here. If that doesn't tell us something important in that era before WW1 about the world of professional architecture over here at that time and before it I can't imagine what could.

In my opinion, this is one of the most interesting "transition" times in the entire history and evolution of golf architecture and I'm just afraid that very few truly understand all the underlying dynamics that were extant and behind it at that time!

[Neil_Crafter]

Sean
But we have no evidence of an actual site visit by Mackenzie, just the mention of a possible one floated by Dunn, do we? I don't know enough about Thomas to answer your question, but I suspect it might have. If the professional architect still got paid then perhaps not.

Tom
Yes, I believe those cases were Riviera and Fox Hills, and my suspicion is that it was a combination of being misled slightly and Mackenzie believing what he wanted to believe. Mackenzie and Thomas had been in contact before as Mackenzie provided Thomas with a number of illustrations for his book. So its fair to assume Thomas invited him out of interest to cast an eye over their work, while Mackenzie thought he was being called into a collaboration. Seems also that the LAAC directors may have invited him too, according to newspaper reports - here are the relevant LA Times articles.

[Rich Goodale]

Vis a vis that "...noted surgeon and physician of Leeds, England...." is that not an example of the murky arts of public relations rather than the more transparent art of truth?

[Neil_Crafter]

Rich
It is a newspaper after all!
Never let the facts get in the way of a true story.

He was a surgeon and physician, just not 'noted'.

[Thomas MacWood]

Actually he was noted too, just not as a surgeon and physician.

[Thomas MacWood]

Did Thomas ever take a payment for any of his work?

Thats a good question. Certainly his partner Bell was getting paid, and by that time Emmet, Travis, Lockwood and some other prominant amateurs were being paid.

[wsmorrison]

Sean,

I have an article somewhere or perhaps it was a letter in the USGA Green Section files where Behr was incensed that Thomas got a CA commission after he thought it was his.  Behr mentioned that Thomas doing the job for free was a factor.  I'll try to find it for you and post it here.

[SB]

Here is a link to the location.

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=35.176264,-120.714512&spn=0.011681,0.021672&t=h&z=16

I went to college near here and the site is pretty cool.  The peninsula is very high, maybe 100' up, and has the aforementioned cave.  I seem to remember some pretty steep slopes all around, and it may have been difficult to route.

[SB]

Some outstanding land to the west of that peninsula, but this land is not links land.  More like Pebble Beach.

[Neil_Crafter]

Thanks for the Google link SBusch.
I'm quite surprised to see how undeveloped the site still is 80 years on. Still enough land to route a 2008 version of the Dunn/Thomas/Mackenzie collaboration.

[Tom Naccarato]

Neil,
The course to the north of it is Avila Beach, which was Desmond Muirhead's.

[Neil_Crafter]

Thanks Tommy
I saw the course and its name, but did not realize it was one of Desmond's.