- In the spring of 1932 Augusta National was apparently having cash-flow problems significant enough that they went to the Water Department and requested that they be allowed to pay a flat rate ($100) for all their water needs from then until mid February of 1933. The reason was that while they had "just about been able to balance [their] budget so far, they did not expect to bring in any money for memberships until January and February.
- Tom Doak wrote that Augusta did not provide MacKenzie his advance as promised. Was this information incorrect?
- He also that Augusta National was close to bankruptcy in 1933. Was this information not correct?
It hardly sounds like money was no object. How could it have been? This was 1932!
If money was no object then what does it matter that Augusta's bunkers were more expensive to build? They could have built 80 - 100 bunkers, many very large, like MacKenzie had done at some of his other excellent courses. Let's assume that building 22 cost as much as building 100 on better soil. So what? What does the cost of a bunker have to do with whether or not the course was "ideal?"
If it was not the depression, then why was Mackenzie suddenly building courses with far less bunkers than before the depression?
If economic efficiency had nothing to do with Mackenzie's change in approach, then why was he touting economic efficiency in his ads and in his book? In his book he brags about having done a "better and more economical" job at ANGC than at Bayside.
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David,
Money was not being thrown out the window.
Plans for a second course, new clubhouse, etc. were canceled.
But, TWICE the going rate for labor was paid by the club.
Very large and very costly bunkers were built with sand imported from the Atlantic beach.
Very wide fairways, expensive to seed, water, maintain, and then overseed were built.
Very large greens, with a good bit of contouring, expensive to seed, water, and maintain were built.
They build a 19th hole as a 'bye' hole.
A state of the art sprinkler system was installed.
I never said they were not economical.
You are implying the design of ANGC was somehow affected, and you have said maybe positively affected, by the lack of money, by the Depression, by a limited number of bunkers.
My contention is Jones/MacKenzie built the course they dreamed of and desired.
And the limited number of bunkers is explained in part by Bobby Jones' quote.
The number of bunkers were few, but the bunkers built were very large as mentioned, and which you can see from the photographs. Any number of the bunkers far exceed any dimension associated with economics. Most can see that from the one photo posted of the 14th, but many other photos in many different books show the same for the many bunkers previously mentioned.
And the newspaper writer, John D, forget to mention the size and extent of the bunkers they did build, and by the way, forgot to mention about the economical
use of very large greens, very large fairways, ship sand from the coast, modern sprinkler system, a 19th hole, and so on.
Despite Tom Mac desription of MacKenzie's design CD work, there was a great course built with many more bunkers than ANGC and in the depression.