Sean,
Below is an article currently posted on the Irish Independent website. I'm not aware of a book dedicated to Hackett but Jim Finegan's book, Foam Flecked Seas and Emerald Greens, and Road to Ballybunion cover Hackett's work and life.
Mountjoy gates adorn new golf club in Meath
Sunday November 28th 2004
HAILSTONES were falling on a wonderfully Irish summer's day when Mel Flanagan last saw Eddie Hackett. It was at the official opening of Tubbercurry Golf Club in 1991 and, as a frail old man, Eddie had to be helped out on the course by two male members.
After Tubbercurry, Ireland's most prolific golf-course architect still had a lot more work to do before eventually moving to finer fairways in December 1996, aged 86. Now, eight years on, as head of Irish Golf Design, Flanagan would like to believe that he can pick up the baton, in terms of delivering quality work at a relatively modest cost.
Only recently, I had an enquiry from an American golf writer based in Texas, about Hackett and the amazingly low fees he charged. And I recalled how, in July 1991, after visiting The Old Head of Kinsale to examine the feasibility of building a golf-course there, one of the items in his expenses for the trip was two nights' bed and breakfast costing £34.00.
"Oh, Eddie Hackett was a saint, you know," Fr Peter Waldron, secretary of the Connemara GC Ltd, once observed. "He was totally self-effacing and had more integrity than almost anybody I ever came across. And he worked for pennies." When I put this point to the man himself, his response was: "I know I've charged too little all my life, but starting out, I didn't have the confidence in my abilities."
My information is that Hackett generally charged no more than about £200 a visit, when designing a golf course. And that the highest payment he ever received for a project, was probably about £5,000, which appears positively miniscule compared with $2 million these days for a signature course from Jack Nicklaus.
It has taken Flanagan some time to learn his craft, but there is clear evidence of a designer at the peak of his form, in the new Rathcore Golf and Country Club near Enfield. Owned by former Meath All-Ireland full-back Mick Lyons and his brother Austin, it has been in play since last April but will not be fully operational, with a new clubhouse, until next spring.
Rather confused emotions were prompted by the imposing entrance gates and granite pillars, which formerly had a home at Mountjoy Prison. These feelings were replaced, however, by genuine admiration for the owners, on seeing the near-finished, circular clubhouse which, I was informed, is shaped to replicate a rath. And over an open-stone facade, its distinctive copper roof is going to become a familiar sight in the Meath countryside.
But my primary interest was in the golf course and how successfully Flanagan had negotiated the terrain without any serious earthmoving. "My policy is not to move earth unless it is absolutely necessary," said the architect. "Apart from keeping costs down, it shows off the Irish countryside to best advantage."
Hackett would have concurred. "Nature is the best architect," he would say, while following the lie of the land and siting holes wherever "the Good Lord provided."
At Rathcore, the philosophy has delivered very impressive results, especially at the par-three 11th and 16th holes, located side-by-side in opposite directions and separated by wetlands. The same is true of the 311-yard par-four third, which sweeps tantalisingly around to the left, to accommodate an utterly charming ring fort.
In terms of aesthetic appeal, the 387-yard par-four 15th is also beautifully conceived, flanked on the right by one of 12 lakes which are fed by natural springs. There, a family of ducks were taking some exercise, away from the wooden "duck house" constructed for them by the greens superintendent, Peter Casbolt who, though a native of Lockerbie in Scotland, is familiar with Irish terrain from his work at Portmarnock Links and The K Club.
"I admire the work Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus have done at The K Club and Mount Juliet," said Flanagan. "They are stadium-type layouts where a lot of earth was moved so as to make them suitable, tournament venues. But they seem to have sparked an obsession with American-type courses which, in my view, are simply wrong for this country. In certain cases, huge budgets have been a liability.
'Let's get one thing straight: there is no such thing as an inland links. There are only courses that look linksy, just as there are people who look like Elvis'
"As a traditionalist, I am drawn to the work of men like Harry Colt, Alister MacKenzie and Donald Ross in the early decades of the 20th century, when there wasn't the machinery for major earthmoving. And I believe there's a place these days for an indigenous Irish company doing courses here at reasonable prices."
Flanagan, who works with his son Melvin, is not averse, however, to big-money projects. For instance, he is partnering Nick Faldo in the Lough Rhynne development in Leitrim and is working with John Daly at Blarney. "When John Daly visited Blarney, he raved about the beauty of the countryside," said Flanagan. "My hope is that he will hold the same view when the job is completed."
When reflecting on an approach to build what would eventually become the championship links at Connemara, Hackett remarked: "They had no money, you know. So I told them 'if you're that keen on golf, I'll go down and I'll put a stone in for a tee and a pin in for a green and you can pay me when you can'."
In what he describes as "an unbelievable time, a golden age for Irish golf-course development," Flanagan does not aspire to such philanthropy. But he sees a responsibility to deliver courses which will stand the test of time. As he put it: "When you look inside and outside a site, you should see complemenary images."
Declan Branigan, who partners Des Smyth in a leading golf-design business, would endorse that view. But his particular bug-bear at the moment is the notion of so-called inland links courses. "Amazingly, this concept has been swallowed whole by many of our journalists, golfers, soil scientists and course architects, without so much as a whimper of dissent," he informed me.
Warming to the subject, Branigan, who holds a masters degree in soil structure, went on: "Let's get one thing straight: there is no such thing as an inland links. There are only courses that look linksy, just as there are people who look like Elvis.
"The old description of a links as the land between the high-water mark and arable land, is probably a bit simplistic. In reality, linksland is land along the sea which was developed after the glaciers of the last glaciation receded. These are relatively young developments of 12,000 years or less, and have many defining characteristics.
"The sands are unique, being very fine, rounded and light grey in colour, with a high content of shell. They vary in depth from 100 feet or more, where primary dunes are formed of mineral soils, to a depth of a couple of feet at the interface. Compared with the gradual and uniform shapes created by man, the myriad links slopes range from very severe to gently rolling.
"Finally, they possess unique flora, with lyme grass as the first barrier on the seaward side, followed by marram grass running into mainly fescues in the meadows. Where grass is light, tiny violets and pansies can be seen in summer; vetch abound in the higher grasses and all flora survive well in salt-laden winds. This complicated ecosystem cannot be replicated by man and it is the height of nonsense even to think this way."
Images of Branigan capturing prominent amateur championships at Rosses Point and Baltray, sprang to mind as he concluded: "Golfers born to links conditions, revel in the brisk sea breezes carrying the faint scent of salt and seaweed, the cry of the seagulls and the shriek of the oyster catchers. And the ever present sound of the sea."
Spoken like a true romantic.