http://golfclubatlas.com/feature-interview/feature-interview-with-richard-macafee/When I was with Matthew Mollica last year, he suggested what a fine move it would be to conduct a Feature Interview with Richard Macafee. The more I learned, the more suspicious I became because Richard is that hateful combination of a great player and a great guy.
We have done some Feature Interviews with god-like players like Tom Watson and Jack Nicklaus but Richard's +3 handicap at Kingston Heath is - sadly - a mythical, unfathomable mark for me. So are his eleven club championships!
One of the many things that comes across in the Interview is the faster the conditions, the happier Richard is. Surrounded by homes, some of the famed Melbourne sandbelt courses have resorted to slower running fairway grasses. Slower conditions are anathema to Richard, much preferring his swift native Couch fairways at Kingston Heath as they don't slow down a wayward ball running toward trouble.
Many of his Kingston Heath observations remind me of Pinehurst No.2 in the Sand Hills of North Carolina in the sense that both courses today reflect their natural sandy environs so much better than they did only a decade ago and how playing angles have been re-introduced. Richard played a big role in that at the Heath and the club as a whole should be congratulated for the manner in which it has returned the course to a more raw, organic state, as evidenced in the photographs that accompany his tight prose. As Richard notes,
'The whole strategy and subtlety of Kingston Heath simply doesn't work without the playing conditions suiting the design.'
He beautifully writes,
'One of the most underappreciated aspects of playing Kingston Heath is the fairway undulations, something acknowledged by MacKenzie on his visit, but it's Soutar and Morcom that deserve great credit for this. For what is really a flat site, it is rare to get a flat lie on your approach shot due to the rolling and subtle undulations. The scale of the movement is not always obvious, and isn't so great to create 'collection areas'. However they are just enough to make you adjust you stance and swing and give an advantage to those who can control their golf ball over more one dimensional ball strikers.’ Put another way, the volume doesn't have to be turned up to 11 for superlative golf. Like Hoylake where Richard competed in the British Amateur, swales and one and two foot humps and bumps take on added significance when conditions are firm and bouncey-bounce.
A golf homer can be a terrible bore and Richard is the opposite. He plainly acknowledges that,
'We certainly lack the physical land features of many golf courses’ before going onto say with pride,
‘.... but the original designers and construction team did a phenomenal job and over the years the club has done nearly as well as it could have to bring out the best in what we have. Re-invigorating the native vegetation is the latest part of that, and it's really exciting.' My good friend Jeff Lewis (GOLF Magazine world top 100 panelist who has seen them all) concurs. After revisiting the Heath last February, Jeff maintains it is his favorite/ best course in Australia even though other courses (Barnbougle, RM) are blessed with more of nature's bounty (especially regarding topography). When a design is firing on all cylinders like Kingston Heath is now, it is hard not to clap like a seal. This Interview helps put the spotlight on the series of relentlessly right decisions that the club has made, especially this century.
I played with Jeff Loh and Ben Hovermale this past Saturday at Dormie, relaying a few snippets from this Feature Interview. Ben turned and said,
'Why do the Australians get it more than we do?' A very good question - read this Feature Interview for some answers! It caps off a blazing start to the Feature Interview section this year, as we have bounced from Cape Cod to Musselburgh and now to Melbourne's sandbelt.
Best,