.......well seeing he wasn't buried that is unlikely, considering that his ashes topdressed Pasatiempo - but the changes proposed and now underway on the Old Course, especially the Eden, would have raised his ire.
Mackenzie wrote extensively on TOC in Spirit of St Andrews which most of us here on GCA are familiar with. But there are some rather more obscure writings that I thought I would share and I am indebted to Bob Crosby for the following.
In March of 1926 "The Field" magazine published an article written by Charles Ambrose entitled 'St Andrews and the Golf Architects'. Ambrose asked three architects, Colt, Mackenzie and Abercromby to redesign the 1st and 18th holes on TOC as if they had a free hand.
Originally Mackenzie declined to take up the opportunity, saying that:
"I do not think anyone has studied the Old Course at St Andrews more than I have, and the more I reflect the less inclined I am to alter any of the holes, and particularly the 1st and 18th"
Colt too was opposed to any changes to TOC.
Mackenzie eventually relented and drew a plan while on board ship crossing the Atlantic, but on the proviso that the two holes in question were theoretical holes not at St Andrews. He then said:
"I commenced my golfing career by wanting to remodel every hole I saw, and made many mental pictures of what I thought would be ideal holes.I deplored the fact that not even on a seaside course could I find anything like my ideal. Then, at last, I visited St Andrews and, to my great surprise, found my ideals in existence.
The Old Course is in a class by itself. Everything else comes a very bad second. If you once begin tinkering with it you will spoil it. It is as good today as it was in the days of the 'guttie'."