On another thread JC Jones posed the question of whether Mackenzie was over rated as an architect. Amongst the discussion on the tone of the question and how much time he actually might have spent on his projects, there seems to be some sort of consensus (my interpretation) that he wasn't over rated but was indeed an extremely talented gca.
Whether he was better or not than Colt or Fowler or whoever I am happy to leave for another thread but what I would like to discuss is what were his strengths that made him a great architect and equally what blind spots did he have.
Personally I get the impression that he was perhaps more accomplished at finding individual holes in a landscape and utilising natural features to make those holes, than he was in planning his overall routings. For instance in the Doak, Haddock book there's an example of a hole that he designed at Cavendish where he used a hog-back as a landing area, then an approach to a green with a swale/carry in front. I think the book (don't have it in front of me so going on my dodgy memory) also refers to a similar hole at Pasatiempo or Crystal Downs. There is certainly a similar hole at Pitreavie. I've only played Pitreavie and its a fantastic hole.
Similarly there is one corner of the Pitreavie course with a bank of trees with a burn running round it which if it weren't for the weather and the vegetation, you could mistake for Augusta (if anyone doubts that statement, speak to FBD
). Mackenzie fitted 3 greens and tees into that area to use the feature of natural greensites to the max.
At Duff House Royal, IMO what he did with a flat site is an object lesson on how to create interest/strategy and a great course without shifting huge volumes of dirt and changing the character of the site. The orientation and shaping of the green complexes allied to minimal fairway bunkering, much of which impinged on the line of play in contrast to the more popular scientific approach of flanking bunkers adopted by other gca's of the time, dictate startegy in a gentle way. The contours on the greens are a lot softer than you might imagine a Mackenzie course would be but they provide bags of interesting putts none the less.
Where I think he fell down was that some of his routings would obviously fail modern safety standards. Perhaps a bit harsh to judge by todays standards but I suspect even then some of his designs might have presented issues. I note he had a tendency to have holes that ran in opposite directions where he had the dog-leg playing into each other almost as though he were trying to create a TOC type of double fairway. That perhaps works where the dog-leg angles are fairly oblique and there is room to set back the tees of required however in the instance of his redesign of the 5th and 6th at Erskine that is not the case and now there is a bank of pine trees to the rear of the landing area on the 5th (sharp dog-leg left) to screen/protect players on the 6th fairway and green. With no land available to set back the 5th tee, the average golfer is forced to use a long iron or fairway wood off the tee.
I can't help thinking that at times his eye for the individual hole took precedence over the weakness that incorporating that hole in the routing might bring to the overall design.
Thoughts ?
Niall