David
I know that Tommy had disproved their notion that Mackenzie had designed the Tijuana course originally, so now they are saying that 5 years after Bell had designed it they got Mackenzie down to remodel it in 1932? I wasn't aware that they had changed their tune on this.
That seems pretty unlikely to me, not because of any timeline issues, but simply because of the quality of Bell's design work - what could have been the imperative to redesign the course again in what was the aftermath of the Great Depression?
If you look at the timeline there are certainly enough gaps where he could have easily gone down to Mexico for a week or two, even longer. Plenty of time in Summer and Fall 1932 to do that. Personally I don't think the timeline precludes it, but I just can't see the logic or need to have Mackenzie redesign the course. Are there any other instances where any of Bell's courses were redesigned by other architects so shortly after?
If the club can produce evidence that Mackenzie did indeed do what they are claiming then I'd be delighted to see it. If he did redesign the course there must be some contemporary reference to it in a newspaper or magazine and the club themselves should have correspondence, reports etc. Are you in contact with them David? Can you see if they have any corroborating evidence?
On one website I found an article that said Mackenzie collaborated with Bell to do the course:
"Post-round, we sat down with golf director Ernesto Perez Acosta. The name might sound familiar: Acosta won the 1971 and ’76 Mexican Opens and represented Mexico on eight World Cup teams.
Acosta told us that MacKenzie came to Tijuana in the late 1920s and teamed with William P. Bell to design the course. Those were Tijuana’s halcyon days: It had legalized gambling, drinking, horse and dog tracks, bullfighting and fishing. People came in droves, including professional golfers lured by big purses. Acosta told us that when Gene Sarazen won the first tournament held at TCC, first prize was 5,000 silver dollars in a wheelbarrow."
Other references I have seen on the internet suggest that Mackenzie designed 9 holes of the course.
So who knows, until someone turns up some contemporaneous evidence, all of this is conjecture and rumour. Hope you can get to the bottom of it David!