Dan Wexler's Augusta National: Who, What, Where, When and Why is now posted…

[Ran Morrissett]

…under In My Opinion. In it, he compares and contrasts today’s course vs. the course that MacKenzie left behind in 1933.

This isn’t the typical ‘throw Augusta National under the bus’ angle that is vented on this site every year about this time. Dan does what he does best: starts with a fresh slate and let’s the facts take him where they may. For instance, cry all you want about the lost ground game options at the tenth but today’s hole is still a star in world golf. The sixteenth green is not readily confused with one of MacKenzie’s best but it can play fun as I once put my hand through a ceiling in 1986 when a particular golfer nearly followed an eagle at fifteen with an ace at sixteen. Still, when Dan doesn’t like something or feels that the course has been moved in a harmful direction, he clearly states why like in the case of the mongrel seventeenth.

It doesn’t matter who did the work per se;  MacKenzie died one year after Augusta National opened, making it difficult for even Augusta National  to use him going forward. In stepped his friend Perry Maxwell and changes have occurred on a frequent basis for seventy-five years. Crucially, though, bear in mind that Bob Jones was alive until 1971 and numerous changes occurred to MacKenzie’s design with Jones’s blessing/tacit approval. Though Jones shared the Good Doctor’s love of St. Andrews, he clearly was open to other design influences as well.

However, as we start to close in on forty years after Jones’s passing, it is evident to one and all that the pendulum has swung too far away from creativity and drama on a wide open canvas and toward a more mundane, straightforward parkland challenge. Dan walks through the evolution of the holes and how we have arrived here. For many, the optimum balance may be epitomized by a particular Sunday round in 1986 where a man’s full talents where allowed to shine in a back nine charge that in many ways still defines the best the sport has to offer. Even as recently as then, it featured width, playing angles, and lack of clutter. Today, you have to stand in trees to have the best angle into the eleventh  and today’s course is known mostly for its conditioning (yes, for $6m per annum, your faltering private club can have a green, firm and fast course too ).

Anyway, the point is this: as has been proven time and time again, change is always possible at Augusta National. At the end of this 10,000 word piece, Dan gives pointed suggestions on twelve of the holes in an effort to help the course realize its full potential for producing the drama that we – and the sport – yearn for in the second week each April. GolfClubAtlas.com is delighted to have commissioned this piece and can only hope that other such well written articles will help shine the light on what needs to be done next.

As a spring ritual, Augusta National plays a vital role in getting people enthusiastic about the sport – and our beloved but ailing sport desperately needs Augusta National to help show the world why it’s a great game.

Cheers,

[PCCraig]

Thank you very much for this. This is a great essay with a ton of research clearly done.

I think the interesting idea behind all the changes is that while most high profile clubs make changes in order to host major championships every so often, they still keep their member's golf games in the back of their mind while making the changes. While Augusta is a very private club, it is amazing to think all the changes they make to their course in order to better project themselves to the general public and the best golfers of the world each year.

[Jason Topp]

Terrific essay!  Anyone who wants to visualize these descriptions a bit better would do well to purchase a book by an Author nambed Birdy that does not editorialize much but merely documents the changes over time.

[Joe Hancock]

Don't take the lack of response as a direct corrolation to lack of interest.......NO!

I am looking forward to some good reading, thanks to Daniel Wexler. I appreciate the effort and the information.

Thanks, to all.

Joe

[Neil_Crafter]

Yes, agree with other posters that this is an excellent essay and is the ultimate in his Lost Links series! Well done Daniel! Thanks Ran for posting.
Neil

[BCrosby]

Wonderful piece Dan. I'd quibble with a couple of things, but they are only quibbles. Great job.

ANGC is such a good golf course today that we tend to overlook the fact that it was once an even better golf course.

Bob

[Gene Greco]

  MacKenzie died one year after Augusta National opened, making it difficult for even Augusta National  to use him going forward.

    However, Clifford Roberts made an attempt.....

[Mark Bourgeois]

See, Gene, that's my question.  How extensive do the changes need to be for Mackenzie's name to come off the design credits?

[Gene Greco]

Mark:


       That's a good question re how much credit should MacKenzie be accorded 75 years later and one we have given considerable attention here on GCA with no real conclusion.

However, my comment concerned  Ran's tongue in cheek regarding the supernatural powers of Augusta National to summon the dead and Clifford Roberts' purported ability to "walk on water."

             Gene

[Mark Bourgeois]

Here's a thought: what if the club way back when had named Mac "Architect in Perpetuity"?

[Mike Hendren]

Ran, your introduction on this thread is so very well written.  I encourage you to use that talent more frequently on this site and perhaps through commentary in other publications.

Kindest regards,

Mike

[Bill_McBride]

Here's a thought: what if the club way back when had named Mac "Architect in Perpetuity"?

Since he's not responsible for the endless tweaking and tinkering, Dr Mackenzie will always be the architect of Augusta National. 

Were the nines reversed while he was still alive?  Sarazen made the two on #15 when it was playing as #15, so I guess the change was made before 1935.

[Joel_Stewart]

To:  Dan Wexler:

Excellent writing.

I sent the thread to a former Masters winner who is very critical of what Hootie and Fazio and others have done at Augusta.  He also thought it was an excellent piece.

His return email said the following,

"I think the narrowing of  the fairways has taken a primary MacKenzie character trait away from the course" which is important because it's evident in almost every hole. 

Congratualtions.

[Tom Dunne]

A superb piece. The depth of Wexler's research is obvious, and while it can be really easy to lose oneself in minutiae when putting something like this together, I'd say that he avoided that pitfall with ease. A sense of balance and clarity of thought is readily apparent throughout.

Great job, Daniel! And thanks, Ran, for commissioning this--it's a feature that will easily stand the test of time, and as such it's a wonderful use of the site's resources.

[Jim Nugent]

Here's a thought: what if the club way back when had named Mac "Architect in Perpetuity"?

They probably would have had to pay him, then.  Or his estate. 

[Ken Fry]

Outstanding piece and impeccable timing.  The Masters always seems to "begin" the golf season in the cold part of the country.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Dan's piece while also having a copy of Stan Byrdy's book on Augusta open.  Makes it possible to see photographic design attributes of the original course compared to those of the modern course.

Most course changes occurred due to input from various people to "improve" the challenge except one change, the 10th hole.  My understanding is the green was moved due in large part to poor drainage at the base of the hill, even though the new green provided much more challenge.  True?

Ken

[Peter Pallotta]

Daniel - thanks much for that essay, and my compliments: I think you did a terrifc job of melding architectural analysis/history with very good and clear and user-friendly writing. Just excellent!

Now, with all the praise, I hope you don't mind just a little bit of a complaint: I know that it isn't the stated purpose of the essay, but the opening paragraph (i.e. the paradox of Augusta and TOC) was so catchy and interesting that I wished you'd come back to the idea and closed off the circle at the end.  Maybe if you ever write a follow-up essay, delving specficially into that paradox would be very interesting.

Thanks again
Peter     

[TEPaul]

PeterP:

In answer to your concern in that post (mild complaint?), I see no reason not to have that discussion right on this thread and perhaps take that thought at the beginning of Dan's essay full circle with TOC and ANGC.

Here's what Dan said:




"It is a true paradox in the world of golf course design.

Consider the game’s two most famous layouts, the Old Course at St. Andrews and the Augusta National Golf Club.  The former is a product primarily of nature and a timeless, almost mystical evolution – as though whatever cosmic forces govern such things have gently massaged the landscape (with a little help from Alan Robertson) over the course of several centuries.  The latter, conversely, ranks among the most carefully planned layouts of all time, its creators – the legendary Bobby Jones and Dr. Alister MacKenzie – building it as the embodiment of a clearly articulated set of cutting-edge design principles.  Yet as the game has changed immeasurably over the last 110 years, St. Andrews, a golf course “built” with virtually no plan whatsoever, has remained largely constant.  Augusta, on the other hand, a layout based on the strictest of concepts, has been altered nearly beyond description."



Perhaps the very first thing for us to concentrate on is-----what is that 'strictest of concepts' that Dan claims ANGC's layout was essentially based on, and what about that "strictest of concepts" is also primarily found on TOC or has basically been its unique hallmark?

I have a pretty good idea what it is or was, mostly because at the very beginning of ANGC and the planning for the project Bob Jones articulated it in writing pretty well. Perhaps we should just let Bob Jones' own words speak for themselves in this vein.

How about you? What do you think that similar "strictest of concepts" of the two courses withall entailed and why?

[Peter Pallotta]

TE -

What struck me about Dan's opening, and especially the last line you quote, was how clearly and starkly he described the paradox.  TOC built over time with/on virtually no plan, Augusta carefully designed to honour the principles and characteristics that Jones-Mackenzie saw there - i.e. both courses (to paraphrase Mackenzie's own words) offering a constant source of pleasure to the greatest possible number of players; both requiring strategy in the playing as well as skill, so as to continue to hold the golfer's interest; both giving the average player a fair chance, and at the same time requiring the utmost from the expert who tries for sub-par scores; and both always trying to preserve natural beauty - with natural hazards being utilized and artificiality minimized.  Yet the first, created over time and not consciously upon the strictest of concepts survives virtually intact, while the other, designed by the great MacKenzie's along those very same lines/concepts is almost immediately and almost continualy altered.  Why? I can't convince myself that the main reason/difference lies in the fact that one holds a Major every year while the other doesn't; or in the fact that one has always been private, while the other is public and open to the world.  If I were to take a guess, I'd say it might have to do with the turf. On the one hand, the great linksland turf that (I assume) shaped the architecture of TOC, and kept it virtually in tact over the decades just as the turf itself maintained its traditional characteristics; while on the other, the turf/soil conditions at Augusta, perhaps changing over time, lusher, allowing for or encouraging an aerial game and, as it changed, allowing for or encouraging related changes to the architecture. But I don't think I answered your question, TE - and I'm not sure I can. It's just what I found myself thinking re: the paradox.

Peter

[Richard Choi]

A big thanks to Dan for a very thought provoking essay. This is why I love coming here, I learn something new every day.

[Bill_McBride]

I just have one question: 

Has Billy Payne seen this? 

The total change to #7, from short par 4 with appropriate challenge to long par 4 with unreasonable challenge, is the most egregious change to me.  Even the rebuilding the green while maintaining the character of the hole was okay.

Most of the rest of it is just noise, tweakings in the name over time of protecting par.  I guess #8 was pretty bad too.

[TEPaul]

PeterP:

Maybe Dan Wexler meant to say that the paradox of TOC compared to ANGC is just that one has basically remained so much the same for so long while the other is so often changed and that is the essence of the paradox since both are considered to be two of the most famous courses in the world.

I can certainly just call him up and ask him exactly what he meant to say in this vein, but perhaps for starters he also meant that ANGC was carefully designed to reflect that very "strictest of concepts" that is basically the essence of the overall concept of TOC.

I notice that Dan also said in his essay that one of the forgotten points of creating ANGC was to essentially recreate the fundamental architectural concept of TOC in a fruit orchard in Georgia. Right away to most observers that would probably seem either contradictory or counter-intuitive.

But was it really? I don't think so if one truly realizes what both Jones and Mackenzie may've thought to be that thing that Dan Wexler calls "the strictest of concepts."

So who knows what he meant by describing this course and TOC and how they've fared over the years as a paradox.

I think by comparing the two today and what the point of ANGC was originally intended to be that he may mean there are a number of paradoxes involved here.

My particular interest though, is in his remark "the strictest of concepts." This is what I think Jones and Mackenzie felt the original concept for ANGC shared with what they thought should be its basic conceptual prototype-----TOC.

Again, it would be instructive to determine what that strictest of concepts at either TOC or the original ANGC meant to them. Personally, I don't think that's very hard to determine because Jones wrote pretty clearly what it was.

The far more complicated question about ANGC to me is if Jones changed his mind over the years about what ANGC should be at any time? And more complicated still, if he did change his mind, why did he change his mind? I think the answers to those kinds of questions probably involve a whole lot more than just the subject of golf course architecture at ANGC. For starters I think they very much involve Clifford Roberts and Jones' relationship with him on ANGC at any particular point in time. I understand their relationship in the context of ANGC was complex, to say the least.

What most seem not to know is that Jones lent some time and his name to ANGC but Clifford Roberts put his money (he damn near went broke over it) and pretty near his actual life into ANGC!

I think Dan Wexler did a very good job of presenting, and hole by hole, the way ANGC was originally or at any particular time to the way it is now for our architectural and analystical consideration. But if anyone is really interested in how ANGC changed over the years and why I don't think they should be looking to Jones and Mackenzie for all or even most of the answers---they should be looking directly at Clifford Roberts. 

It seems to me it is Roberts's ideas and modus operandi all those years for ANGC that the club has been following since he's been gone, not Jones's or Mackenzie's, even if the club has never really admitted that or attempted to make it look that way! And who knows, perhaps that too is just another of the paradoxes.

[Joel_Stewart]

Some photos would have made this piece fantastic.

7th hole which is the most discussed.

[TEPaul]

It is just remarkably to me how much that green end and particularly its bunker arrangment (even today) looks like Maxwell's #8 at my club, GMGC. The bunker scheme surrounding the green is virtually identical. The notable thing to me is our #8 by Maxwell preceded his work redesigning ANGC's #7 green and green-end.

[Sean_A]

It is just remarkably to me how much that green end and particularly its bunker arrangment (even today) looks like Maxwell's #8 at my club, GMGC. The bunker scheme surrounding the green is virtually identical. The notable thing to me is our #8 by Maxwell preceded his work redesigning ANGC's #7 green and green-end.

Tommy P

Is a green-end anything like a fag-end?  Its time to get down to business and that means dropping the Philly (or foozler) lingo. 

Joel

I agree with you.  This piece could be so much better with photos to illustrate the points.  I have only seen the course in person once and that was more than was quite some time ago.  A little prod here and there is good for the digestion.

Ciao