Club de Golf del Uruguay - designed by Dr. Alister Mackenzie 1930

[Christoph Meister]

Recently I found some pictures of the Club del Golf del Uruguay in an Argentinian Golf magazine from 1932 and I thought that some of you guys out there might be interested to see them - maybe especially Neil Crafter?

There was a topic in 2001 "Golf in South America" where I found a posting by Tom Doak referring to this club and even though the pictures I found are of mediocre quality they might give you an idea what the course and some of the greens looked like before they were renovated some 15-20 years ago - Anyway here is an extract from the post from Tom Doak dating November 2005:


"I have visited The Jockey Club and GC of Uruguay when I was working on the MacKenzie biography.

......

GC del Uruguay was disappointing, though it is right in the city of Montevideo.  I've seen the green sketches to which Ran referred, but unfortunately they rebuilt all of the greens about 15 years ago and took out any severe contouring in the process, now they're just slightly tilted.  The land has a bit of slope to it but there isn't any part of it which I would describe as dramatic, and the bunkers are simple rounded-off shapes ... I didn't see any pictures as to whether it used to be more elaborate, but remember this was Luther Koontz carrying out the doctor's work, not Morcom or Fleming or Perry Maxwell.  Only a 4 or 5."

So maybe the following pictures give an idea, the routing of the holes seems to be unchanged comparing the 1930 layout plan (which is also printed on the current club scorecard) with today's routing:
 

[Christoph Meister]

and here are some more pictures....

[Kirk Gill]

That mounding around the fifth green is really interesting/odd. Is this a Mackenzie feature that has appeared elsewhere?

[Tom MacWood]

Great find Christoph.

If I'm not mistaken Mackenzie redesigned an existing golf course at Montevideo. I believe what you see in these pictures are a combination of old and new features, and I suspect the mounding around that green was an old feature.

In the background of the picture of the 10th you can see large mounding very similar to the mounds at Jockey, Bayside and ANGC.

[Norbert P]

That mounding around the fifth green is really interesting/odd. Is this a Mackenzie feature that has appeared elsewhere?

  Looks like a giant pie crust.

[Christoph Meister]

Great find Christoph.

If I'm not mistaken Mackenzie redesigned an existing golf course at Montevideo. I believe what you see in these pictures are a combination of old and new features, and I suspect the mounding around that green was an old feature.

In the background of the picture of the 10th you can see large mounding very similar to what to the mounds at Jockey, Bayside and ANGC.

Tom,

I had exactly the same thoughts as the mounding around that green reminded me of really old fashioned greens the way they were designed before 1910, but can not give the historical proof yet....

[Norbert P]

The 3rd green looks very ambitious for the times.  Is this perhaps an example of early work done with a crawler dozer?

[Neil_Crafter]

Christoph
This is a wonderful find and appreciate you posting these photographs of the course from 1932. I think I can safely say that the Alister Mackenzie Society have never seen any early photos of this course so it is wonderful to have some now.

As Mackenzie was in Uruguay in early 1930 it is quite possible that when these photos were taken in 1932 that not all the work that Mackenzie had proposed be done to the course had taken place, given that he planned a new nine holes to extend their existing nine hole course, with modifications to that existing nine as well. Clearly by 1932 they had built the new 9, but perhaps not all the modifications to the existing nine had been done, which would explain the obviously non-Mackenzie low mounding at the front of the 5th green. As Tom Mac pointed out this is certainly not a Mackenzie feature and his bold mounding of this period of the Dr's work can be seen in a number of the other photographs.

Was there any text accompanying the photographs Christoph? (apart from the captions on the photos themselves)
cheers Neil

[Christoph Meister]

Neil,

thank you for these additional remarks. Unfortunately there was no text going with with it, but I will mail you scans of the entire magazine pages now anyway....

C.

[ed_getka]

Cristoph,
  Thanks for taking the time to share the pix.