Alister Mackenzie

Mark Fine

Walter Travis

Alister MacKenzie

Hiram F. Flynn

Rees Jones

George Crump

There is no one greatest architect living or dead. Just as there is no one "greatest course."

There are probably 10 architects and 20 courses that qualify for the best group of architects and best group of courses. And the land plays an enormous role here.

When someone asks me what my favorite course is, I always answer that I have no favorite, because I have so many favorites.

There probably are ten great architects living or dead but Alexander Mackenzie is still the greatest of them all. Frankly, I was toying with naming George C. Thomas but passed him up because I just can NOT understand how the greatest architect living or dead could just give it all up and go back to breeding world class roses. Not only that but having the lack of discretion to name all those world class roses after all his girlfriends and then displaying such lack of sense as to actually get caught by his wife with a whole estate of world class roses named after his mistresses at which point Mrs Thomas ripped all those world class roses out of the ground and trashed them. George then immediately decided to die which apparently he chose to do as the better alternative to explaining things to Mrs. Thomas. That's bad enough for one man's name and legacy but just look what some rich Japanese gentleman, Tom Fazio and the USGA did to his flagship, Riviera C.C. last year!! George Thomas probably should be named the greatest architect living or dead but that's just way too much Murphy's Law for me to be able to name him! I've been trying to keep up with current events in SoCal but I don't dare ask about Riviera because knowing George's luck I'm afraid something really terrible may have happened to it in the last few days.

Bill Coore.

Mr. Paul -

Who is this "Alexander" MacKenzie you keep talking about?

Mr. Moore;

He was a Scotsman who was born near Leeds England and became a medical doctor for a time before going into golf architecture. He was christened Alexander but his parents, Mr. & Mrs William Scobie MacKenzie, later chose to use the Gaelic form of his first name which is "Alister". Early in his life he was known as "Little Al", later as a teen and later still when he served as a young doctor in the Boer War he was known as "Ally" but when he gave up the medical profession and entered the golf architecture profession full-time he insisted on being called Dr. Mackenzie. Some say he did that in hopes of garnering US Open preparatory redesign work but as far as I can tell that never really worked out. But nevertheless, he somehow managed to become the greatest architect, living or dead, in the history of golf course architecture.

Mackenzie might have built too many duff courses to win.

Which ones are duff courses? Admittedly there are dozens in the north of England that don't make top 100 lists and are only known locally but I don't know if any are bad courses.
I have played a few 'minor MacKenzies' and intend to play more. Some are better than others but none are 'duff'.
The most noticeable common characteristics are clever routings making the best of the natural topography and interesting green complexes.