MacKenzie Courses

[Sean_A]

I am trying to find information/opinions about a few MacKenzie courses/redesigns.  If anyone has ideas, info, opinions, please, do tell all.

1. Cork G.C.-Little Island
2. Douglas G.C.-Isle of Man
3. Sutton Coldfield G.C.-West Midlands
4. Walsall G.C.-Staffordshire
5. Worcester G.C.-Worcestershire
6. Weston-Super-Mare G.C.

Ciao

Sean

[Jay Cox]

A cousin of mine is a member at Sutton Coldfield.  It is a solid (but not more) heathland course.  MacKenzie redesigned it in the mid-1920s, but it has been changed a number of times since.  There were two holes I really liked: # 13 is a fairly short par 4 with a blind tee shot and a tricky approach dominated by a pot bunker right front, and # 15 is a 190 yard par 3 with a severe false front and a very severe flanking bunker on the left, a bit like an Eden hole.  Otherwise, I thought the majority of the greens were pretty pedestrian.  I'd give it a 4 on the Doak scale.

[Bill_McBride]

Mark Rowlinson will be your guy with the full details on the UK MacKenzie courses.  Some of them have most likely been included in his voluminous report on many UK courses on this site.  Those threads should be incorporated into an "In My Opinion" article with an index of links.  It is an incredible resource!  Thanks to Mark for all his efforts.

[Michael Wharton-Palmer]

Sean,
While I aws living in the Midlands, I played all three of the Mackenzie's you mentioned.
Sutton Coldfield was the best of the three, but none are really the best that Dr Mc has to offer.
I am sure they have all been nipped ant tucked over the years almsot beyond their original form, but you can tell that SColdfield has some Mckenzie in it.
The bunkering has been somewhat maintained in its original form, and a few of the greens resemble the undulating form you would expect from the great man.

[Paul_Turner]

Worcester at one time showed some of the Mackenzie flair, but it has all been changed because of safety issues.  I have some grainy old pics of the course when it was Dr Mack's

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Paul, I'd love to see your pictures of Worcester.  I played it with my father about 1968 and remember very little about it.  Word has it that the resident pro redesigned some of it since then.  M.

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Bill,  You flatter me!  I left the West Midlands in the late 60s when I went up to university and (thankfully) never returned.  I played some of these back then but don't remember enough to be reliable, though I have fond memories of Sutton Coldfield.  I drove past it about a year ago and it looked as I remembered - lots of scrub and gorse amidst narrow fairways of trees.  I don't suppose there were too many trees in Mack's day.

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Sean,

The Midlands have some merits.  

Wolverhampton in the 1960s had two.  1] I had the most brilliant Director of Music at school there.  2] You could get out of the place very quickly into the miraculously unspoiled Shropshire countryside.  

Seriously, there weren't many significant courses because the underlying soil was not conducive to good all-year-round golf.  That said, Paul Turner's recent postings of photos of West Midland golf courses show architectural aspects of which I was either totally ignorant or have chosen to forget.  As compiler of a book that claims to represent the best of what we have at a variety of different levels I ought to make it a priority to revisit these.  I'd welcome your opinion ( and Paul's) of those which should be taken into serious consideration.

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Tell me more about Worcestershire at Malvern.  Again, I haven't been there since the 60s.  I have musical reasons to love the place simply because the composer, Sir Edward Elgar, was a member.  I cannot travel in that region without hearing the music of his symphonies, oratorios, concertos and all the other pieces from the Organ Sonata to part-songs in my head.  I am probably a little biased.  

I have to say that I lived in Droitwich as a child in the 50s and my parents would drive round the country lanes of that part in their Ford Popular of a summer evening and we passed Powick mental assylum (where Elgar taught as a young man) many a time.  These things are very influential in a boy's life.  I can never drive down the road past Simond's Yat without singing that glorious tune from the Introduction and Allegro.  It's a good job I did not grow up in Vienna!

[Lou_Duran]

Mark,

Which are the most authentic MacKenzie courses in the UK?

[Paul_Turner]

Grainly old pics of Worcester.  Looks like the Malvern Hills peaking through in one pic.

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Sean,

Many thanks for the info.

Lou,

Authentic Mackenzie is surprisingly thin on the ground in the UK.  Alwoodley is pretty close to Mackenzie's map of it in 1910 and it was his first course.  Of the Mackenzie courses I know it is easily the most authentic.  Of the other Leeds courses Moortown is substantially altered from Mack, Sand Moor even more so and Moor Allerton is now a housing estate having sold up and moved to an RTJ course in the country.

I don't know how much Cavendish has deviated from his rebuild there in the early 1920s but the greens and approaches remind me very much of his work at Pasatiempo.  It's a hilly site and he did not have need for much in the way of bunkering so there are few.  Sitwell Park is the most notable example of de-Mackenzifying but it also happened at Bramall Park.  Two local Mackenzie courses, Didsbury and Hazel Grove, were forced to abandon much Mackenzie work by road construction.  

[Michael Wharton-Palmer]

Great to read about the Midlands, courses I grew up playing.
I agree 100% on Notts and Beau Desert, especially Notts.
Blackwell is a personal local favourite of mine.
It used to host the Midland Boys Championship, which I was fortunate enough to win one year.
I think I mentioned I used to be  member at both Fulford Heath and Copt Heath.
Intersting story..
Kings Norton was staging an event in the late seventies and Fulford Heath was the qualifying site..two guys playing that day were Mark James and a youngster making his pro debut Nick Faldo.
As the junior champ of the club at the time, I got my pick of bags to loop for the day..I picked Faldo..so I caddied for the great man on his first pro round...useless info..but kind of fun.

[Paul_Turner]

None of these are Mack's courses, they're Colt's.  But since we have expanded onto West Midlands courses (which are generally little known), I thought I'd post some I've seen.  Posted these before, but sometime ago and I think before Sean and Michael were on GCA.
 

Moseley 10,1 and 11


Harborne 13


Harborne 2.

Sean, I do have the hole numbers for Worcester somewhere.  I'm almost certain it's Worcester, not Worcestershire.

[BCrosby]

Paul -

Just a note to say your pics of Worcester are amazing.

What's even more amazing is that those MacKenzie's greens probably seem more radical to us today than they did to MacK's contemporaries.

Bob

[Michael Wharton-Palmer]

Sandwell Park.....I remember playing some West Midland amateur or something there back in about 1980 and lost to david gilford...but I remember nothing about the course at all...I dont know if that is a reflection on the course or just the way I used to think back then!!!

Copt Heath was a fun time, Peter McEvoy was the best amateur in Britain at the time and we had a hell of a good scratch team.
If I remember at one Warwicks county match we had half the team from  The Heath..the course was always chalenging, two great opening par fours, they could kill you before you got started.
I forget some of the routing, but I think #3 was a tough par 3 of about 200 yards to a fairly severe green.
Before I joined, they sold some of the course to developers, but I cannot remeber if this altered the layout or not.
#17 is a great little par 4, much in the Weiskopf mold of today, and Colts bunkering to the right of #18 is fantastic.

Good to see the pictures of Moseley and Harbone, I remember them well.One of my adversaries from junior golf, Mike Reynard was a member of Moseley.

It may not have any great courses, but the West Midlands does have some enjoyable courses to play.

[Michael Wharton-Palmer]

Sean,
The time I played Blackwell, they had the fastest greens anywhere around, is that still the case?
Now that course had some great holes as I remember, the only problem is I cannot remember the numbers for them.
I do remember a par 3 hole that came close to the clubhouse, it could even be #9 a great elevated green..awesome hole

[Steve Mann]

sean-
i played cork golf club/little island last fall.  was over there for a pro-am at old head and made a point to check out cork gc. great little course.  some really wonderful holes in a quarry and 2/3 holes on the water/lake on the front nine also.  the putting surfaces were terrific and chipping and pitching areas around the greens were worth noting.  some major elevation changes on parts of the course.  all in all a solid members golf course.  one that could be played everyday and enjoyed.  if you have the opportunity to play do not pass on it, you will enjoy the routing.  
steve

[Bill_McBride]

It's amazing how much those pictures of Worcestershire remind one of the MacKenzie bunkering at Pasatiempo and Cypress Point in sheer scale and wildness!  While it is one of the loveliest places on earth, the bunkering at the Valley Club is much less over the top.  It makes you wonder what the original bunkering at Augusta National must have looked like given the severity of the slopes there.

[Sean_A]

Paul T

I recognize the fourth grainy photo as the 8th.  The back drop threw me off.  Behind this hole, to the left and to the right are the three new holes the just retired pro designed.  

I can only think the 2nd photo is the 18th - it looks like ducks on the water.  Though the hole looks very different now if this is the 18th.

The first photo may be the 6th viewing from the side of this par 3.  

I am really confused by the 4th photo.  Perhaps the hole no longer exists.

I would appreciate it if you dug up the hole numbers and reported back.

Ah, I think the penny just dropped on the 4th photo.  I think this is the 2nd hole (a very good hole indeed).  Coincidentally, the bunkering shown on this hole looks like the bunkering for the entire course now.  There are no longer bunkers with frilly capes etc.  

Cheers

Ciao

Sean

[Tom_Doak]

Sean:

I did review Cork GC in The Confidential Guide.  MacKenzie changed it from nine to eighteen holes by laying out new holes in and around an old quarry, an early predecessor to Black Diamond.  There are a couple of exceptional holes down there, so the course is definitely worth checking out, but the older holes around the clubhouse are pretty tame.

[Tony_Muldoon]

A few pictures of the 3 consecutive par 5’s at Sutton Coldfield. A dogleg right, another left and the long diagonal bunker.









Unfortunately I don’t have the great par 3 ( I also liked the simple short par 5 that precedes it.) The bunkers look nothing like the Mac look that you can see above. In the club history it is a bit vague (deliberately?) about the design and it maybe that not all his ideas were carried out. If I recall correctly the work was done by his brother but not all in one go.

The book also says that in the early days they had two green keepers who fell out with each other. The clubs solution was to have them each maintain 9 holes. This may account for the fact that the greens near the start and finish tend to be round in shape and the others have more variety!


It’s a modest course on springy heath land in a big park with a lovely wild feeling to it, yet it’s only a few miles from B’ham city centre.