What would MacKenzie have done ?

[Tom_Doak]

Niall -

Tom Doak has the details and can correct me if need be, but SofSA was written over the first couple of years of the 1930's. Indeed, it's opening chapter recounts an argument MacK had with Joshua Crane in 1929 at St Andrews about, among other things, Crane's ideas about improving to the Old Course. Need I note that MacK wasn't buying?

All through the book there are references to events, golf courses and people from the early 1930's. Notably for purposes of this thread, the book is larded with talk about the importance of both contouring in golf architecture and fluke and luck as essential aspects of the game.

Bob 

Bob:

Parts of THE SPIRIT OF ST. ANDREWS are brand new, and other large parts of it are verbatim from MacKenzie's 1920 book, GOLF ARCHITECTURE -- in fact, the actual manuscript was a copy of the older book with lots of liner notes on its pages.

But, clearly, Dr. MacKenzie went through the entire manuscript and made detailed notes about what thoughts he meant to change.  Niall's assertion that he might have changed his views on greens or on St. Andrews is pure speculation by someone who isn't particularly qualified to make those speculations.  Sort of like Peter Dawson dismissing our criticisms as "hysterical" and assuring people that if he walked us around and explained the changes, we would be fine with them.

[Bradley Anderson]

My conjecture, and its only that, is that as his career progressed, his green designs became softer with Sitwell Park perhaps being the best demonstration of that. If you agree that his green designs did become softer (feel free to disagree) then ask yourself why. Was their some philosophical reason or was it soemthing more practical like increased greenspeeds ?

Niall, These photos depict that he built a variety of putting greens. He didn't progress from building 18 wild greens for a period of time until eventually moderating to 18 average greens. He always had some wild greens in the mix and, unless I am very mistaken, he followed that paradigm for his entire career.

[Sven Nilsen]

My conjecture, and its only that, is that as his career progressed, his green designs became softer with Sitwell Park perhaps being the best demonstration of that. If you agree that his green designs did become softer (feel free to disagree) then ask yourself why. Was their some philosophical reason or was it soemthing more practical like increased greenspeeds ?

Niall

I'd venture (also only conjecture) that Mackenzie was pretty sick and tired of seeing green committee's come in and destroy the contours he built or incorporated into a course.  He wrote about this point with a good bit of derision in Golf Architecture.  Perhaps, as the man aged, he started compromising his work a bit to the point where he no longer took the risks that he knew would be controversial to the committee man (a "know your client" concept)

If you follow this line of thought through to its natural conclusion, I think Mackenzie would have abhorred the recent "committee" decisions with respect to St. Andrews, and probably would have had some major issues with many of the changes that have taken place at Augusta over the years.

Sven

[Neil_Crafter]

Sven
As Tom correctly points out some of his more contoured greens came right at the end of his career. I think he took risks all the way through his career. Take the 5th green on the West course at Royal Melbourne. He wrote that he built this green while he was still in Melbourne and it is one of the most sloping greens on the course. A pretty frightening green today. So he didn't go all tentative in the middle of his career either. Here's a green that he did at Morecambe in England from around 1922-23. Not exactly timid.

Brad
I know you have posted those photos before but I couldn't find them when I went looking. Harrogate and Moortown?

[Sven Nilsen]

Neil:

I've played the 5th at RMW and would agree that it is not a timid green. 

I think he was very aware of how his work would be perceived by the layman, and maybe he just got a bit more savvy in the way he included features like the extreme back to front slope of that green.  Then again, perhaps as he aged his willingness to cowtow to the committee went out the window.  Who knows, it is all conjecture after all.

All the best,

Sven

[Neil_Crafter]

Cheers Sven
After all, all we have to guide us in this are his writings and the evidence, both photographic and on the ground.

[Niall C]

Sven
As Tom correctly points out some of his more contoured greens came right at the end of his career. I think he took risks all the way through his career. Take the 5th green on the West course at Royal Melbourne. He wrote that he built this green while he was still in Melbourne and it is one of the most sloping greens on the course. A pretty frightening green today. So he didn't go all tentative in the middle of his career either. Here's a green that he did at Morecambe in England from around 1922-23. Not exactly timid.

Brad
I know you have posted those photos before but I couldn't find them when I went looking. Harrogate and Moortown?

Neil

Nice green but its not exactly Sitwell Park, if you'll excuse the comment from someone not qualified to say so 

Niall

[Niall C]

My conjecture, and its only that, is that as his career progressed, his green designs became softer with Sitwell Park perhaps being the best demonstration of that. If you agree that his green designs did become softer (feel free to disagree) then ask yourself why. Was their some philosophical reason or was it soemthing more practical like increased greenspeeds ?

Niall, These photos depict that he built a variety of putting greens. He didn't progress from building 18 wild greens for a period of time until eventually moderating to 18 average greens. He always had some wild greens in the mix and, unless I am very mistaken, he followed that paradigm for his entire career.

Bradley

Terrific photos. The second one looks like a typical tiered green that he became known for. To my eye its different to the first photo that looks more like Sitwell Park with a lot less flatter pinable area and a lot more movement within the green rather than round the edges. Excuse my ignorance, and clearly I know nothing, but where are those greens and when were they built ?

Niall 

[Niall C]

Ally

I still fail to see where I've even suggested that MacKenzie or anyone would be building flat greens. Even at todays greenspeeds their is plenty of contour. As I said in my previous post its no longer the limit of what we can do agronomically that determines the upper limit on greenspeeds but the wind factor. However the point remains that from 1907 when he designed his first course to January 1934 when he died, greenspeeds got faster with improvements in greenkeeping. I say that as an accepted fact and with no empirical evidence to hand but if you think I'm wrong in stating that I'd be interested to hear why.

My conjecture, and its only that, is that as his career progressed, his green designs became softer with Sitwell Park perhaps being the best demonstration of that. If you agree that his green designs did become softer (feel free to disagree) then ask yourself why. Was their some philosophical reason or was it soemthing more practical like increased greenspeeds ?

Niall

I've no idea if his greens became softer over time. In fact, I'd be pretty sure there wasn't a huge material difference given that Alwoodley and Moortown are two of his earliest designs I'm familiar with and they have less contouring than many of his later ones e.g. Augusta.

Though Dr. MacKenzie's most severe greens ever were at Sitwell Park, I would say that some of his other most severe sets of greens were among his last ... Pasatiempo and Augusta National in particular.  Of course, they were hilly properties, so that makes practical sense.  The Jockey Club was another late MacKenzie course where the greens were not as severe, but that was a really flat site.

Tom

You really will have to excuse my ignorance, for I've never been to any of those coursews, but how do the greens there compare to Dunfermline and Duff House Royal, both of which date from the early to mid 1920's ?

Niall

[Niall C]

My conjecture, and its only that, is that as his career progressed, his green designs became softer with Sitwell Park perhaps being the best demonstration of that. If you agree that his green designs did become softer (feel free to disagree) then ask yourself why. Was their some philosophical reason or was it soemthing more practical like increased greenspeeds ?

Niall

I'd venture (also only conjecture) that Mackenzie was pretty sick and tired of seeing green committee's come in and destroy the contours he built or incorporated into a course.  He wrote about this point with a good bit of derision in Golf Architecture.  Perhaps, as the man aged, he started compromising his work a bit to the point where he no longer took the risks that he knew would be controversial to the committee man (a "know your client" concept)

If you follow this line of thought through to its natural conclusion, I think Mackenzie would have abhorred the recent "committee" decisions with respect to St. Andrews, and probably would have had some major issues with many of the changes that have taken place at Augusta over the years.

Sven

Sven

Thats a fair point about Committee's. I can imagine that MacKenzie being the man he was, would have been hugely frustrated by any of his designs being made over. I'm not sure he would have compromised as such but I suspect that his design ideas changed over time. Ally made a good point about Alwoodley and the lack of movement in the greens there in comparison to later designs. Likewise bunkering really isn't used to any great extent to define strategy at Alwoodley. So clearly his ideas weren't fully formed at day 1 which is only natural. I would suspect also that as he got more experienced and learned what worked and what didn't work then he might have refined his ideas. All conjecture.

With regards to TOC, he might very well have been part of the Committee !

Niall

[Neil_Crafter]

Niall
Of course I know that the Morecambe green is not exactly Sitwell Park  , but it is on a flat site and not a hillside and still has decent undulations.

[Tom_Doak]

Tom

You really will have to excuse my ignorance, for I've never been to any of those coursews, but how do the greens there compare to Dunfermline and Duff House Royal, both of which date from the early to mid 1920's ?

Niall

Niall:

You've got the wrong MacKenzie.  It was his brother Charles who was very concerned about getting nice letters of recommendation from the client, and it was Charles' construction company that built many of Alister's work in the UK in the early 1920's.  There is scant evidence that Alister ever cared to tone down his greens because of criticism. 

I've always thought that the nature of MacKenzie's greens had a lot to do with which of his associates was actually on site to build them.  None of his courses in Australia had very severe greens, but then again nearly all of those greens were built by Morcom and Russell after MacKenzie left, and neither of them ever saw Sitwell Park or Pasatiempo.  Crystal Downs' greens are severe [and that was another of MacKenzie's last courses], but then everything Perry Maxwell built had severe greens.  All the California courses have some fairly severe greens, especially Pasatiempo and that is the one MacKenzie was around the most ... but it's also the hilliest.  Augusta is the one course that doesn't fit this pattern very well, unless you ascribe the severity of those greens to MacKenzie himself, or to Bobby Jones.

In fact, the severity of his greens from course to course probably had most to do with which were hilly sites.  I've never been to Sitwell Park, but from the photo thread it seems that it's quite hilly generally, and not just by the one ridge where MacKenzie located those severe greens.  Pasatiempo and Augusta National are very hilly, and Crystal Downs is pretty up and down, and so are their respective greens.

[Jon Wiggett]

Certainly there was a certain amount of dirt moved during the building of Moortown and to a lesser extent Alwoodley. The charm of Alwoodley is not the bunkering, greens or shape of hole that make the course stand out. It is an excellent routing and the course as a whole experience which make it a pleasure to play.

Certainly, many of the courses boasting Mack. pedigree around the Yorkshire area are shadows of their former selves. As TD says, I also believe he built his greens as a mixture of types but always had a few wild ones in there. He was a great believer in if the course was controversial he had done a good job.

Jon