El Boqueron Update

[MClutterbuck]

I think you have it. Good work. This is away from the original location posted here and more into the foothills of Sierra de los Padres. It does have a gentle slope.


Think about getting this course built here, close to Mar del Plata Golf Club. Would be a nice golf destination.

[Peter Flory]

It looks like a total elevation change from the clubhouse to the 3rd tee of about 120 feet (clubhouse is high and 3rd tee is low). 

I adjusted the overlay just slightly to get to the original aspect ratio of Mackenzie's drawing.  I had the original a fraction too tall for the given width.  With the corrected aspect ratio, the 8th/ 10th green sits just below a rounded boundary in the field.  It looks logical the way that it sits now.  That field above it was probably someone else's or was put to use somehow and Mackenzie routed around it. 



Calculations for hole lengths and elevation changes:
1) 307  -19
2) 347  -60
3) 324  +26
4) 214  -13
5) 136  +25
6) 307  +15
7) 157  -4
8. 369  +8
9) 385  +41
2,546

10) 359  -33
11) 352  +4
12) 155  +14
13) 366  -20
14) 153  -30
15) 244  +10
16) 270  -17
17) 376  +68
18) 331  +19
2,606

TOT 5,152, Par 67

There looks like lots of room for lengthening if so desired. 

[Thomas Dai]

Very glad I bumped this old thread.
It highlights nicely how modern technology if coupled appropriately with research can enhance the way history is recorded and information shared.
And El-B is a reversible course. Presumably an idea that MacKenzie had been mulling over for some time while waiting for a site where such a layout would work.
Atb

[Peter Flory]

Dai just sent me some really great info to upload here (sent to him by Neil Crafter in Adelaide). 

- Golf Illustrated article dated March 28th, 1930 by Henry Cotton about traveling to and playing the actual course that was built at El Boqueron (in the next post, I show the text, so don't strain too hard to read this).  It was built in the exact footprint where the Mackenzie course was planned.  He played with Aubrey Boomer, who was the brother of Percy Boomer.  Aubrey was a great player.  Percy was more known as a teacher and was an early adopter of stop-action photography for instruction. 
- Historical aerial showing the Percy Boomer designed course that was actually built there
- Historical aerial with lines drawn in to highlight the routing of the holes
I took the historic aerials and un-skewed them over google earth, so I'll attach some transparencies to show how it locked into the land and the differences between actual and the Mackenzie plan. 









Looking from the right side of the course up toward the Estancia


Actual course vs Mackenzie plans


And here is the Mackenzie routing with topo lines (10 foot increments with the clubhouse being high and everything going downhill from there.

[Peter Flory]

Here is the text from the article in case it is too difficult to read:

I hardly expect to be believed when I say that Aubrey Boomer and I left our hotel at 4:45 this morning to go out to play golf, but that is actually what happened.  I think perhaps I had better explain how it all happened.  Mr. Enrique Anchorena, one of the biggest "estancio" owners in the country, asked us to play over his private nine holes course at a place called Boqueron, about twenty miles away.  Our time sheet for lessons was as usual full up, and in consequence we had to make an early morning call for the round of golf.  Juan Dentone, the local professional, fixed up the match, and drove us over to the course.  As usual the road was a dirt track, something like a ploughed field.  We had very little time to spare, because we had to be back at the club to resume our routine duties by nine o'clock, and before that had to do the journey and play a match.  Whenever I start to write a story it seems that I have to mention our journeys, but these are the most exciting incidents in life, and I beg to be permitted to once more talk about this thing that gives us the biggest thrills. 

Dentone drove his Ford car, I thought it looked rather ominous when he explained that he would not take his Chrysler over the rough roads, and it was as interesting as I expected.  Dentone is a good driver, but he is also an interesting conversationalist.  We in the back seat of the car became almost silent after a while, because Dentone insists upon looking at his passengers when he talks to them, and the road needed a good deal of a driver's interest.  We saw on the way a tremendous cart.  It was the biggest thing of the kind I have ever encountered.  Its wheels are fully ten feet in diameter, and the size of the cart may be imagined when one realises that the load of twelve tons of grain is carried in one of them, and that they are drawn by teams of horses numbering anything up to twenty-eight.  This particular one had twenty horses attached to it.  The carts carry mostly grain from the interior to the ports, and the journeys occupy many days, the drivers camping beneath the carts at night.  The road was not a particularly pleasant one.  One sees carcasses of dead horses lying just where they fell, sometimes in the middle of the road, where they remain until eaten by some flies and birds.  The bleaching skeletons make a none too pleasant sight. 

I realise that so far I have not talked much about golf, but I feel sure a few details will help to give an accurate impression of the surroundings of the course on which we played.  As I have mentioned, the Argentine is flat and practically void of trees, but Boqueron reminded me of an English forest, as indeed it might, because Mr. Anchorena has planted nearly one million trees during the last twenty years, and there are so many drives through this little forest that one may easily get lost.  Boqueron lies on a small range of hills, and in that respect is also different from the surrounding country.  The drive from the gates through these wonderful avenues of fir trees took quite ten minutes.  Percy Boomer laid out the course about three years ago, but I should think he would be a little surprised at the interpretation of his ideas, because some of the greens have been made rather impossible.  The course is laid out on a little hillside, which is covered with a kind of sage bush of a very prickly nature, and as practically all the holes run between clumps of this growth it is very easy to lose balls, because they are difficult to retrieve even if their whereabouts are known.  The greens are small, and as there are no bunkers around them judging distance is an extremely difficult matter.  Mr. Anchorena has engaged Juan Dentone to reconstruct some of the greens, and when the work is finished the course will be one of the most interesting over here.  On the centre of the course is a well 75 feet deep and cut out of solid rock.  The rock was used to build the club house, which is a good deal better than many of the club houses in England.  There is also an elaborate pumphouse, which provides an ample pressure of water for all the greens, as well as for the popular swimming pool. 

Four men, a tractor, and a triple mower are regularly employed, and are sufficient to keep the course in excellent order. Some of the holes are long, and the last, an uphill hole of 470 yards, requires two of the longest shots anyone can hit to reach the green.   It is great to have a golf course in the garden, as this is.  All the members of the Anchorena family are ardent golfers, and spend a great deal of their time playing.  We played with some of them that morning, and after breakfast drove back to Mar del Plana, with the consolation that we had done something for British golf, because we both played so well that we left behind a good impression of our abilities.  The roads in the grounds are grass and look like fairways, almost too good to drive over, but nevertheless we had a puncture, but arrived back late for our appointments at nine o'clock.  Dentone tried to make up time on the drive back, and we suffered a number of unnecessary skids, slips and jolts.  That ended a memorable morning.  We are playing an exhibition match, the first of a series here, this week-end.  Boomer and Bertolini, an 18-year-old assistant from Palmero, against Fred Robertson and me.  Robertson, who has been out here for about three years, was, it will be remembered, one of the most promising young Lancashire golfers before he left England.  In some ways it is rather a pity that he came out here when he did, because although he is one of the great players in this part of the country, I am sure he would have been even a better golfer with more competitive experience.  There are few players who can give him a keen match here. 

[Peter Flory]

Enrique Justino Pascual Anchorena Castellanos was the Estancia owner who commissioned the course.  He lived from 1879 to 1951.  His son, Enrique Anchorena Cabral Hunter, lived from 1907 to 2006- 99 years!  He is the one who lived in the clubhouse and kept the plans above the mantle because giving it to his nephew- Jaime Zuberbuhler. 

I wonder if anyone ever asked Enrique Achorena Jr. if he knew the story about Mackenzie's involvement or why his plan wasn't implemented. 

One discrepancy that I notice is that Dentone is mentioned as the architect for the 9-hole Boqueron course in the Travel and Leisure article, but Henry Cotton clearly gives credit to Percy Boomer and mentioned that Dentone arranged the match and even drove them there.  [edit: He also mentions that Dentone was hired to re-do the greens.  So, original architect was Boomer and renovating architect was Dentone.]

[Tom Dunne]

Peter Flory,

Great work on a number of fronts here. It's very cool to see how Dentone's work aligned with the MacKenzie routing.

But I was especially interested to read the Cotton article. I did not encounter this piece during my reporting, and was amused to note that, roughly 75 years apart, he and I both devoted a fair amount of words to the mad adventure of simply driving around Argentina. Some things never change! [size=78%] [/size]

[Neil_Crafter]

Tom
Just to clarify, a 9 hole course, built in 1927 to the design of Percy Boomer, was already there when Mackenzie visited in March 1930. As stated by henry Cotton. Before Anchorena knew that Mackenzie was available he had asked Dentone to remodel some greens, whether he did this is not known. So its really a case of Mackenzie's design aligning itself with Boomer's routing rather than Dentone's work aligning with the Mackenzie routing. Cheers Neil

[Alfonso Erhardt]

I attach a couple of photos from Arana's trip to El Boqueron in 1940:


 - Clubhouse with signage from hole 1
 - View of hole 2

[Peter Flory]

Tom
Just to clarify, a 9 hole course, built in 1927 to the design of Percy Boomer, was already there when Mackenzie visited in March 1930. As stated by henry Cotton. Before Anchorena knew that Mackenzie was available he had asked Dentone to remodel some greens, whether he did this is not known. So its really a case of Mackenzie's design aligning itself with Boomer's routing rather than Dentone's work aligning with the Mackenzie routing. Cheers Neil

Thanks for pointing that out.  That makes way more sense than Anchorena passing on Mackenzie's plan in favor of the one that was built. 

[Neil_Crafter]

I attach a couple of photos from Arana's trip to El Boqueron in 1940:


 - Clubhouse with signage from hole 1
 - View of hole 2

Alfonso, I am unable to see the photos unfortunately, can anyone else see them?

[Thomas Dai]

I attach a couple of photos from Arana's trip to El Boqueron in 1940:
 - Clubhouse with signage from hole 1
 - View of hole 2
Alfonso, I am unable to see the photos unfortunately, can anyone else see them?

I can’t view them either ..... but I could and did view them yesterday. Bizarre.
Atb

[Alfonso Erhardt]

Neil,


Modified the link to the photos. Should work now, or at least it does for me. Now in proper size.

[Neil_Crafter]

Neil,


Modified the link to the photos. Should work now, or at least it does for me. Now in proper size.

Thanks Alfonso, works fine now :-)

[Peter Flory]

Incredible pics!  Are there more from that trip, or are the only ones that survived. 


Looks like a very relaxing setting. 

[Peter Flory]

Here are the previous photos colorized:

[Mike_DeVries]

I haven't been on GCA for quite some time, so found the new info on the last page very interesting.  Thanks for the continued research!