[Kalen Braley]

MacKenzie was born 5 years after the death of Abraham Lincoln. Do you really believe that how we and who spend our recreational hours hasn’t changed in that time?

John,


I wasn't saying we haven't changed how we spend our time, only making the argument that as people we haven't digressed or otherwise fundamentally changed who we are as humans, we just have a far greater set of tools at our disposal.  Its a pretty important distinction IMO...

[John Kavanaugh]

I’ll just have to assume you’ve never read The Refuge.

[Peter Pallotta]

It's simple:
most golfers back then sucked, just like most golfers today suck. But they didn't mind so much back then, 'cause if they thought of it at all they considered themselves 'sportsmen' who needed a daily walk/constitutional, while today we like to pretend we're 'athletes' who love/crave competition. President William Taft was a terrible golfer, but that wasn't the point; meanwhile President Trump is probably a pretty good golfer, yet critics suggest he's fudging his handicap. So the result: the MacKenzie-type courses being built today play like his original golden age classics did back then -- but only IF we were playing them with all the advantages of modern equipment.

[John Kavanaugh]

The modern experience that most meets all of the MacKenzie writings is Top Golf.

[Matthew Mollica]

Prior to designing the course for Royal Melbourne, MacKenzie requested a list of members’ ages and handicaps. He did this in 1926 and completed writing Spirit of St Andrews in 1932.


Having spent some time reading his words over the years, I think he was quite egaliatian in perspective. I can’t speak to the demographics of the cities he visited during his design career but his writings certainly don’t contain any overt sense of elitism.

[Jeff Schley]

Prior to designing the course for Royal Melbourne, MacKenzie requested a list of members’ ages and handicaps. He did this in 1926 and completed writing Spirit of St Andrews in 1932.

Matthew that is most interesting and curious was it with the intention of matching the difficulty he had in mind to the members ability? Do we know if this was a common request for MacKenzie or any other architect for that matter? Good insight and appreciated.

[Matthew Mollica]

Jeff I would be surprised if he did not do this at any other Club. It is described in the Club history as one way of helping to ensure the course was suitable for members as well as Championships.

[Colin Macqueen]

Gentlemen,
Yer welcome!


Expert is needed to Design Golf Courses.

One of the last articles by the late Dr. Alister Mackenzie, internationally famed golf architecture is of timely interest locally, in view of the fact that in a few months the Tomahawk Lake golf course will be opened for play to a large number of eager Black Hills golfers who will have their first opportunity to test their skill on a course of challenging calibre. Dr. Mackenzie’s views on golf course design follows:
The more I know of golf and golf courses the more convinced I am of its influence on the health, the happiness and, owing to the effect on mental as well as physical fitness, the property of the community.
One of the many advantages of capitalism is that under this system the luxuries Of the rich today become the necessities of the poor tomorrow. This has been proved in regards to most things which at one time wreathe monopoly of the rich such as tea, coffee, sugar, automobiles, telephones, electric light, radios and even stockings, but golf and golf courses have fallen far behind other luxuries in this respect.
In olden days golf was the sport of kings, the Royal and Ancient game, but in Scotland in my youth, ?? to the lessening in cost of clubs and balls, it became so popular that it was well within the reach of the artisan.
At the Braid Hills municipal course in Edinburgh and on many other municipal courses golf could be played for as little as three pence a round, and at St. Andrews the rate-payers and their families enjoy the game free of all cost.
In the United States often those in authority rarely appreciate the value of a golf course not only for the health-giving properties but also in providing wide open spaces free from buildings which are a permanent at the fringes of the city and in the second place they fail to realise that a golf course which is well designed and constructed, invariably pays, and is not such a burden to the community in the form of taxes.
The natural conditions of soil and climate in Americaare not so suitable for providing golf courses at a low cost as in the home of golf, Scotland.
The chief cause of the comparatively high cost of golf, however, in the United States is due to the fact that the  municipalities that begin constructing a course rarely realise that the construction of a golf course is an extremely difficult art and if it is to attain its ? of popularity at a low cost of maintenance and construction it must be designed by an expert.

Right for ??
Records show that a first class golf architect designs a golf course at half the cost of construction charges and a saving of at least 10 per cent in maintenance charges under figures of an inferior architect. Moreover the course is twice as popular if computed in terms of green fees. This estimate of courses based on similar conditions of accessibility, nature of terrains, and so on.

With the exception of cities like San Francisco and Sacramento that are blessed with park communities and city managers of exceptional ability, cities are inclined to figure that if they get 9 or 18 holes of golf course they have handled the job properly. There never has and never will be an outstanding municipal golf course constructed on these lines. The false economy of saving one or two thousand dollars in expert advice frequently leads to the loss of hundreds of thousands in increased cost of construction and maintenance and in decreased popularity as estimated in terms of green fees.

This may appear to be an exaggerated statement but I do not think that it is. I haven mind two public golf courses in the same city. One of them is less accessible and more unsuitable ground for golf than the other but designed by an expert, whereas the other was designed by a man of extremely limited architectural experience. The one designed by the first class architect has not cost half as much to construct and maintain yet it gets $50,000a year more in green fees than the other. Multiply this by the life of a golf course which may be 20 to 100 years ( the old St. Andrews course, which is a municipal course, is over 100 years old ) and the loss for lack of expertise may conceivably run into a million dollars or more.
There are few general principles which apply to public courses even more than to private ones. It is of even greater importance than usual that the soil, climatic conditions and and the nature of the water used for irrigation be carefully studied so as to select the most suitable seed and fertilisers to provide turf of hard wearing qualities.

A Civic Jewel
Beauty is of paramount importance. A municipal designed by an architect who is an artist in constructing hillocks, hollows, sand bunkers and the grouping of trees of a natural appearance is almost invariably the beauty spot of the city. The most important thing of all in the designing and maintenance of a municipal course is the realisation by everyone concerned that golf is played for fun, and that unless a golf course provides the maximum amount of pleasure for everyone, including the beginner who rarely gets ball off the ground, it is not a complete success.
There should be no long grass or other hazard on a public course necessitating the annoyance and irritation of searching for lost balls, and there should be a minimum(?) of sand bunkers.
On the other hand the course should be full of interesting features such as closely mown hillocks, hollows and swales creating fascinating strategic problems and making every hole of such a character that there is such infinite variety stimulating players to improve their games. Then the character of the course grows and grows and grows so that the golf never becomes stale.
The Old Course at St. Andrews in Scotland is an ideal public course in this respect. There is a constant stream of men, women and children playing on it all year round from sunrise to sunset and yet it is such an excellent test of golf for a good player that Bobby Jones says he gets more pleasure playing it than on a hundred other courses.
The course I made for Bobby Jones, the Augusta National, is similar to St. Andrews. There are only 23(?) sand-traps on it. It is easy for the man who is content with fives and sixes and the occasional par, but is extremely difficult for the golfer who is striving for sub-par figures. It is a private club but it would have made an ideal public course.

There is an old adage “Penny wise and pound foolish” which applies as much to the laying-out and designing of golf courses as to anything else, but it requires men of vision to realise this. Records show it however, and history has proved it. Beauty and finality (?) must be provided for at the beginning or the life of the course will be that of a cripple staggering along on crutches.

[Matthew Mollica]

Interesting link here from Lee Patterson - MacKenzie writing in 1925.


https://golfchronicle.wordpress.com/2019/10/23/municipal-golf-by-dr-a-mackenzie/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

[archie_struthers]

 


MacKenzie was certainly prescient . I would argue that architects and course builders charge be only to create the appropriate course they were asked to.

[Mike_Young]

I don't think MacKenzie analyzed his writing nearly as deeply as we do ( some of us).
The biggest difference today vs. how those guys saw golf is THE GOLF INDUSTRY
We've all been suckered by the machine that uses the 14000 golf course here and others around the world to enhance their bottom lines and not worry about the actual courses themselves.  Do you think MacKenzie would hav ever imagined a concrete bottomed bunker?  or 1/4 HOC tees and could go on and on...those guys played golf to play golf.  So many of the dudes today play to tell you where they played...try playing just to play..much more fun...

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