Dr Mac Questions

[Sean_A]

Sean
In one advert we know of he was even claiming 400 courses!
I suspect to get anywhere close to these sort of numbers he must have counted every single course he was ever contacted by regardless of how much work he did for them. I don't have an exact count of the courses he was involved in, both new and remodelling, but it is only around half the above figure if I recall. Either there are quite a few courses he advised that we don't know of, or he was guilty of telling promotional "porky pies".

Tommy Mac - cheers.

Neil

In your opinion:

1. How many courses was Dr Mac involved with that we can honestly call Dr Macs?

2. How many of these courses survive today as "Dr Mac's"?

3. How many of these courses are in England?

4. Is the Doak list in the back of his book accurate?  What are the exceptions to this list?

Ciao

[Neil_Crafter]

Sean
Your questions are not easily answered but I'll have a go:

Neil

In your opinion:

1. How many courses was Dr Mac involved with that we can honestly call Dr Macs?
You would need to come up with a definition of what is a "Dr Mac course" before I could even attempt to answer this one.

2. How many of these courses survive today as "Dr Mac's"?
See answer to No 1 above!!

3. How many of these courses are in England?
Off the top of my head I reckon about 70% of his courses were in the UK and Ireland.

4. Is the Doak list in the back of his book accurate?  What are the exceptions to this list?
There are 3 main lists of Mackenzie courses - Cornish & Whitten "The Architects of Golf", Fred Hawtree "Colt & Co" and Doak et al "The Life & Work of Dr Alister Mackenzie". The list in Doak et al is the most recent and the most complete. I think the list is generally very accurate with only a couple of minor errors that I know of, however, there are a number of courses that our research has revealed have a confirmed Mackenzie involvement (naturally most of these are existing courses that Mackenzie had a hand in redesigning) that are not included. Off the top of my head I think we have identified at least 40 or 50 courses that were not listed in any of the three lists mentioned above. So if there are sins, they are sins of omission. The goal of our little research group is to try and prepare a comprehensive listing of courses that he was involved with, ranging from those of his famous new courses, through to those projects where his name was linked as the designer but the project never went ahead. Who knows if Mac counted these in getting to 400 courses!? We are well on our way and adding new things with some regularity. Just the other day Niall Carlton found a piece in a Glasgow newspaper (by time consuming slogging through microfilm in a library mind you) that indicated Mackenzie was working on two Scottish projects at Duddingston and Oban that we did not know about. The use of new searchable digitised newspaper archives has helped reveal quite a bit of information that would not have been available to Tom D when he was researching for the book.

[Sean_A]

Sean
Your questions are not easily answered but I'll have a go:

Neil

In your opinion:

1. How many courses was Dr Mac involved with that we can honestly call Dr Macs?
You would need to come up with a definition of what is a "Dr Mac course" before I could even attempt to answer this one.

2. How many of these courses survive today as "Dr Mac's"?
See answer to No 1 above!!

3. How many of these courses are in England?
Off the top of my head I reckon about 70% of his courses were in the UK and Ireland.

4. Is the Doak list in the back of his book accurate?  What are the exceptions to this list?
There are 3 main lists of Mackenzie courses - Cornish & Whitten "The Architects of Golf", Fred Hawtree "Colt & Co" and Doak et al "The Life & Work of Dr Alister Mackenzie". The list in Doak et al is the most recent and the most complete. I think the list is generally very accurate with only a couple of minor errors that I know of, however, there are a number of courses that our research has revealed have a confirmed Mackenzie involvement (naturally most of these are existing courses that Mackenzie had a hand in redesigning) that are not included. Off the top of my head I think we have identified at least 40 or 50 courses that were not listed in any of the three lists mentioned above. So if there are sins, they are sins of omission. The goal of our little research group is to try and prepare a comprehensive listing of courses that he was involved with, ranging from those of his famous new courses, through to those projects where his name was linked as the designer but the project never went ahead. Who knows if Mac counted these in getting to 400 courses!? We are well on our way and adding new things with some regularity. Just the other day Niall Carlton found a piece in a Glasgow newspaper (by time consuming slogging through microfilm in a library mind you) that indicated Mackenzie was working on two Scottish projects at Duddingston and Oban that we did not know about. The use of new searchable digitised newspaper archives has helped reveal quite a bit of information that would not have been available to Tom D when he was researching for the book.

Neil

To me a course which is credited to one main designer has to be at least 50% his especially if there are two, three or perhaps four others who have contributed significantly in some way.  Burnham & Berrrow is a perfect case in point for this scenario.  I would call B&B a Colt with significant contributions from Alison and additional contributions from Taylor, Pennink, Hawtree(s), Gibson and Fowler.  However, it is clear that Colt's vision brought the disperate elements together to form what we now know as B&B. 

If there is only one other person involved I think the routing needs to be clearly delineated at the very least or its really a joint project.  Of course, I always give the benefit of the doubt to the owner and of the firm.  This is what confused me about the Max/Mac partnership.  To me, when someone is brought in as a partner, they share the glory and blame - that is the difference between partner and associate. 

Ciao

[Mark Bourgeois]

I would add the concept of intellectual property, which seems to get short shrift when we discuss who "designed" many old courses.

Mark - would you mind expanding on this please. (I won't ask for more of what Szilard told you at the Metropole, or why you were there in the first place).

Are there Mackenzie type sites, one that lend themselves to a MacKenzie type vision? Does a stong-willed architect "stamp" his vision on a possible course even before, but certainly by, the routing stage? Is everything else just bells and whistles?

Peter

Peter

I think it is subtler than what your questions suggest but no less legitimate for that subtlety.  Supposing a song by Bobby Womack is covered famously by the Rolling Stones then by the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Rod Stewart, Waylon Jennings and even Molly Hatchet, who's song is it?

The first time I heard the DDBD play this song, they so made it their own I didn't realize it was a cover, much less a Stones cover.  Does that make it theirs?  Where do we draw the line?

Mark

[Jim Nugent]

To me a course which is credited to one main designer has to be at least 50% his especially if there are two, three or perhaps four others who have contributed significantly in some way. 

What does 50% mean?  Half the routing? Half the placement of hazards?   Half of shaping, greens complexes?

I don't disagree with your idea.  Wondering how it works in practice.     

[Sean_A]

To me a course which is credited to one main designer has to be at least 50% his especially if there are two, three or perhaps four others who have contributed significantly in some way. 

What does 50% mean?  Half the routing? Half the placement of hazards?   Half of shaping, greens complexes?

I don't disagree with your idea.  Wondering how it works in practice.     

Jim

I spose it depends on how you break down the importance of architectural elements.  Assuming we are not including the choice of land as part of the architect's remit, routing has to be the most important element of a design - and I would include the identification of green sites as part of the routing.  Everything else pales in comparison.  So like many believe, I think if a routing is intact as identifiably someone in particular's, then that archie is the archie of record.  Unfortunately, many of the older courses aren't nearly so neatly compartmentalized hence one of the reasons for the all the "debating" around here.  In these cases you have to use your nose or more likely accept that there is no answer, thus the reason for listing several archies as an equal billing - which is really saying I am not sure.

I gave the example of Burnham and I think it a good one for how I approach these things.  Colt is certainly the main man, but others deserve a mention.  But I think Colt is the main man not only for what he did, but for what he didn't do.  He was smart enough to leave aspects of the course intact that he probably didn't care for.  I think Colt was very, very good in how he did redesigns and this may be where he shined brightest.     

Ciao 

[Jim Nugent]

Sean, routing seems to me the heart and soul of a course. 

Pick on Jack time: on his best-known collaborations, my sense is he has not done the routing.  Muirfield Village, Sebonack, Harbor Town.  If so, I always wondered if/why he deserves co-billing on these courses. 

[Sean_A]

I have never understood why Bobby Jones is given co-design credit for ANGC.

Bob

Do you spose there is an creedence to the unusual aspects of ANGC to Jones having some considerable influence on the design?  For instance, the course was 6700 (quite long) when opened and it only had 23 bunkers (very few for Dr Mac). 

Ciao 

[David Stamm]

I have never understood why Bobby Jones is given co-design credit for ANGC.

Bob

Do you spose there is an creedence to the unusual aspects of ANGC to Jones having some considerable influence on the design?  For instance, the course was 6700 (quite long) when opened and it only had 23 bunkers (very few for Dr Mac). 

Ciao 

If memory serves, there were few bunkers because of cost concerns. Also, I believe the intent was in the future to add more where appropriate.

[Neil_Crafter]

By the time of Augusta Mackenzie was in the latter phase of his career (I guess he may not have thought that at the time) where he was designing with far fewer bunkers - eg the public course at Bayside had a similarly low number of bunkers, as did the two courses he did at the Jockey Club and the design for El Boqueron. I'm sure this had something to do with economics given that we are talking about the depression and its aftermath, but I also think this was a challenge to Mackenzie to design strategically without relying on large bunker numbers.

[Tom_Doak]

Sean, routing seems to me the heart and soul of a course. 

Pick on Jack time: on his best-known collaborations, my sense is he has not done the routing.  Muirfield Village, Sebonack, Harbor Town.  If so, I always wondered if/why he deserves co-billing on these courses. 

Jim:

Did you know that George Cobb actually did the routing for Harbour Town?  It had been done several years earlier as part of the Sea Pines land plan.  I only learned this when I asked Mr. Dye how much credit Mr. Nicklaus really deserved for Harbour Town.

Routing is a bigger part of the equation on some sites than on others.  I do feel that Bob Jones deserves co-design credit for Augusta -- perhaps not equal billing, but it was Jones who influenced Dr. MacKenzie to build a course with fewer bunkers and to make the slopes in the fairways a major part of the design.  And no, David, there was not a plan to add more bunkers to Augusta later ... MacKenzie wrote in The Spirit of St. Andrews that they had planned 36 bunkers but in the end decided only 23 of them really added to the strategy.

[Tim Liddy]

Tom,

To further elaborate, I believe Mr. Dye changed the last two golf holes of the routing to make the golf course finish on the Calibogue Sound (this explains why 18 does not finish at the clubhouse).

Also, I played Crystal Downs over the past holiday. Did I read somewhere that you discovered Maxwell changed the routing of the last 2 holes?  Where did Maxwell have them?

[Tom_Doak]

Tim:

You should've called me if you were up here ... bad form, dude.

The professional at Crystal Downs told me years ago that he had heard an old story that MacKenzie's routing of the last two holes was different, so that #17 green would have been somewhere along the bluff, which is all homes now.  But that's where the back road goes out of the club now, and I've driven that a hundred times, and I have no idea where he could have routed a hole through there.  [Of course, it took a lot of imagination for anyone to find the existing 17th.]

The MacKenzie Society was just here playing in their annual inter-club event.  I spoke at the historian's meeting on Wednesday afternoon, and the historian from CD said they had confirmed that Dr. MacKenzie was on site a total of ten days, to figure out the routing and draw sketches of greens and bunkers [which no one has ever seen a copy of].  Meanwhile Perry Maxwell spent the bulk of three summers in Frankfort.

[Jim Nugent]

Routing is a bigger part of the equation on some sites than on others. 

Can you give some examples of each?  A guess: on real flat land, routing plays a lesser role. 

[Tom_Doak]

Jim:

Yes, that's what I was getting at.  Routing certainly plays less of a role somewhere like Pine Tree, or The Rawls Course.  All you can really do with the routing for those is make interesting changes of direction and good transitions; you have to create the golf features.

But if a land has a lot of good golf features -- whether there's as little elevation as St. Andrews or as much as Pasatiempo -- then figuring out the best way to make use of those features is a HUGE part of the equation.

[Tim Liddy]

My bad, will call you next time. Also, it was complicated (wife, guest, etc.)

On CD #17 I can almost hear MacKenzie saying: “As long as you hit down from the tee and back up to the green the hole will work”.  Maxwell being on site for 3 summers explains why the front seems to have much more MacKenzie than the back. Pure speculation, but it looks like there might have been a few MacKenzie construction guys on the front (bunkers), but they did not work on the back.

CD has to be one of the top three MacKenzie golf courses –with Cypress Point and Royal Melbourne.

[Jim Nugent]

CD has to be one of the top three MacKenzie golf courses –with Cypress Point and Royal Melbourne.

Remarkable that an architect could design ANGC, yet not have it among the top 3 his portfolio.   

Without all the trees they added -- minus the rough -- would you put ANGC in with those other three?

[Tim Liddy]

I do not consider ANGC a MacKenzie course anymore.

[Jim Nugent]

When did it stop being one? 

[Tim Liddy]

Routing changed, greens changed, bunkers changed. I think you can correctly call it a MacKenzie, Jones, Nicklaus and Fazio design.

[Neil_Crafter]

Tim, and don't forget Perry Maxwell who redid a number a greens in the 1930s, including moving the 10th green back. At least he had the grace to retain Mackenzie's old greenside bunker on that hole.