"CB MacDonald goes to St. Andrews/Scotland at a young age, then comes back to America where the golf environment SUCKS! So, he goes on a mission to bring the environment "up to speed". Involved in this mission is his trip to the UK to find the best holes in the world. He develops his template, which he thinks is the magical key to creating great golf courses. Others seem to like it, as is evidenced by him and Seth Raynor getting more golf course design jobs...BUT, they don't seem to think it is the magical key that he does. Other architects don't copy his ideas, they don't overly praise him for his work to the extent that he thinks he believes he is due, and he gets pi$$ed off and essentially secludes himself from golf. Oh yeah, he doesn't get the pull in the USGA that he wants either. And he isn't as good a competitive golfer as he wants to be either. He seems to have been hugely influencial on golf in a contemporary sense and historical sense, but I believe his ego kept him for being even greater.
At least that is my take. Thoughts?"
Mac:
First of all, for a bit more detailed history, when C.B. Macdonald returned to the United States from his school years at St. Andrews the golf environment over here didn't suck; it basically didn't exist at all for about the next twenty years he referred to in his biography as his Dark Age. It was technically not until the Columbia Exposition in Chicago in 1893 when some British golfers came to Chicago that he was able to first get any Americans interested in creating a golf course and playing the game.
After that golf began to explode in popularity and certainly Macdonald said he was hugely disappointed in what he saw being built (even though the famous remark he made about the state of golf architecture in this country---ie “It makes the very soul of golf shriek” was not actually written by him until 1926 leading one to wonder what era of golf architecture in America he really was criticizing so severely). Obviously that inspired him to go abroad just after the turn of the century to study and create templates for excellent classical holes to be built over here in what he felt would be the first really good eighteen-hole course over here, or seemingly anywhere. It is important, at this point, however, to note that Macdonald did say that previous to NGLA even though there were some respected courses and "classical" holes abroad none of even the best courses abroad actually had EIGHTEEN good and respectable golf holes, in his opinion!
Was the latter aspect somewhat of a shock and put-down to the authorities on golf abroad? That's a very good question; it probably was or at least was a revolutionary thought to them. To actually try to copy holes from abroad over here was also sometimes fairly well misunderstood (most apparently thought he intended to copy them far more comprehensively than C.B. himself apparently ever intended to).
So how was his revolutionary ideas with NGLA received over here and over there? I think we can tell that many, probably most, felt it was a remarkable idea and golf course and many felt it truly was the best in this country at that time and perhaps the best in the world.
But did other architects from the teens on into the 1920s totally embrace his essential idea of emulating "classical" holes from abroad into an amalgamation of courses of eighteen great golf holes? I think we can see that a few did but mostly the rest did not for various reasons.
If that is true to say, the question is raised, why not? And the next question is, if others didn't to the extent Macdonald may've hoped and wished how did that make him feel as time went on? Did it in some ways, great or small, contribute to his decision to essentially pull away from what had been a very active participation in not just golf architecture, but the playing of golf and also as a central and important person in the administration and philosophical and practical work of developing golf architecture, agronomy and golf and its administration over here? Or were there some other reasons he chose to drop out? Were there some other problems, perhaps personal, that had little or nothing to do with golf? Did perhaps Macdonald rub too many people and too many important people in golf, the wrong way? And if so, what was that all about? Who were those people and what happened?
Did Macdonald accomplish what he hoped to and wanted to in his career over here with golf and architecture etc? It's a great question. Most I think know him more in the context of golf architecture not completely understanding how close he was to the heartbeat of golf administration over here. For instance, at the very beginning of the USGA, a national governing golf body he recommended and helped create, he was an original vice president and it seems he held that position for a few years and was on the board until 1899 when he got off the board even if he continued to serve on the association’s nominating committee for a time and certainly on their Rules Committee for many more years. It might be instructive to us to understand better some of the resolutions Macdonald apparently wrote for the USGA on such things as Amateur Status, and certainly on the important issue of who should actually be regular member clubs of the USGA.
Why did he not become the president of the USGA? Does anyone really think he didn't want to be that or that he would not have accepted it had it been offered to him? Why wasn't it? Since it apparently wasn't did that begin to disappoint him early on; after-all, at that point, he was in his mid 40s?
Some on here think I'm attempting to criticize Macdonald for even raising these kinds of issues and questions about C.B. Macdonald. I think not. The only reason I do is because to me, with the possible exception of Behr and Mackenzie, Macdonald very well may be the most interesting albeit complex man in golf during these seminal years of the game in this country.
Clearly he was a most complicated man with complex and diverse and perhaps potentially unpopular opinions on a whole array of things to do with golf and architecture and society and the administration of various things to do with it.
Does he deserve to be glorified by us for the things he did and thought in the over-all area of golf in this country? Probably, but if he does, what he really deserves, in my opinion, is that we look at him as he really was, and not in some sanitized or truncated version of how and what he really was.
As for Macdonald's own significant book, "Scotland's Gift Golf," I even think that also needs to be looked at and analyzed by us in some ways we may not have heretofore looked at it and considered and discussed it. For instance, how about the very timing of it? What was going on with him when he finally decided to write it?