That's an interesting article. It throws Locke under the bus.
The Locke design style at Lake Merced, often referred to as “penal” rewarded straight golf shots and offered few options after poor ones. Many bunkers penalized shots that were considerably off line and recovery from these spots would have been difficult even without the presence of bunkers.
I guess one could say its no surprise that Locke's work was denigrated, as its obvious which name the club would rather put forth. But I think there's more to it than that.
There's an interesting discussion that could take place on Locke's influence in the Bay Area. He had a hand in the Cal Club, SFGC and Lake Merced as well as a number of other well known courses. But he kind of disappeared from the radar in the late 1920's. I don't know enough about him to say why this happened.
There was a theme in some of his courses, where Locke would be responsible for the primary layout and other architects coming in later to put in the finishing touches. It happened at the Cal Club with Macan and later MacKenzie, at SFGC with Tillinghast and at Lake Merced with MacKenzie again.
If I had to guess, I'd say Locke was one of a very small number of guys in the Bay Area that had any kind of construction expertise. When the big boom in construction occurred starting after WWI, he was well situated to be the go to guy. Watson was very much a Southern California guy, although he did venture north every once in a while. Fowler, Raynor and others had their forays into the region, but neither was there to stay. A few years later Sam Whiting would take on a role similar to what Locke had been doing, but he wasn't at the level until well into the 20's.
Was there a dearth of golf architects in Northern California in the early 1920's? Was this a contributing factor to someone like Robert Hunter being able to entice MacKenzie to make the area his home? MacKenzie probably could have picked anywhere in the country to set up shop, but he chose this area. And the number of projects he and Hunter took on in the very short time following his arrival indicate it was a good choice.
Looking at the differences in how Locke and MacKenzie planned their bunker schemes at Lake Merced probably amounts to an exercise in examining how golf architecture was changing during the early years. I don't know enough about Locke to know his influences, but we certainly know MacKenzie's. It would appear that MacKenzie's ideas focused on the strategic placement of a few bunkers, while Locke was less judicious in his placement. Perhaps the difference highlights the concept of scientific bunkering that had become the accepted practice a number of years earlier.
What really strikes me about the two men's styles is the sizes of the greens. Locke's seemed expansive, while MacKenzie seemingly suggested smaller targets. From the club minutes posted in the link, it appears that one concern MacKenzie was to address was the maintenance costs associated with Locke's large greens.
We don't know what MacKenzie would have done if given more free reign at Lake Merced. Would he have blown up the routing entirely and started over, or did he think what was there only needed the fine tuning he was hired to produce. Whatever the case, what the club is going back to is the result of the work of both of these two men.