How Scrupulous was Dr Mac?

[Mike Hendren]

I indeed misread Jim's post.

[Bill_McBride]

I think Jim was implying that Bobby Jones and Cliff Roberts may have been lacking in scruples, not MacKenzie.

Got it, thanks.

[Neil_Crafter]

Tom, do you have a copy of the RCD history? If anyone does I'd really appreciate a scan of the relevant page or pages. Thanks.

Just thought I'd post a couple of other Mackenzie adverts with course lists, including some Mackenzie and Egan ones. In those, a lot of the obscure sounding courses are ones Egan had been involved in, some in the Pacific north-west I understand. The last one is a Colt Mackenzie & Alison one which has only Alison and Colt jobs from North America and Europe - seems any of Mackenzie's projects got left out of this one!

[Michael Whitaker]

If some of the references on the Dr Mac ads make you scratch your head take a look at the design credits included on Rees Jones' website:

http://www.reesjonesinc.com/golfcourses/golfcourses_alpha.php

[Andy Levett]

Many thanks for posting the course lists Neil - I'd seen the first one but the others were new to me.

On the general point, it's just wrong to suggest MacK (or in the case of the last list, Alison) were less than scrupulous, or 'resume padding'.

Firstly, they wouldn't have got away with it at the time, secondly MacK in particular had no need to pad his resume as he leaves out loads of courses blighted by controversy (Sitwell Park etc), obscurity (Hazel Grove, Darlington etc,) or a limited role on his part (Prestwick, Royal St Georges etc).

MacK's claim of 300 courses 'advised' does sound a lot, and unlikely to ever be proved either way, but (like James Braid) his modus operandi was to start with a report for c.£20, then hopefully bring in his construction partners for a larger contract. Many clubs would then elect to ignore the report, or carry out the work, or some of the work, themselves. Some of them make a lot of their MacKenzie history, others don't.

The Mack&Egan list is interesting for the (reconstruction) parantheses. Clearly, they don't imply that courses without the (reconstruction) parantheses are entirely new build, as obviously many are not. For example, MacK's vision of Seaton Carew was approximately a third entirely new holes on new land, a third adaptations of existing terrain and features and a third existing holes retained with some improvements. That seemed enough to MacK (and to me) to claim it as his own, like Lahinch, without parentheses. Other great links like Silloth and Littlestone are (Reconstructed),implying MacK did less.(To be fair, they may have needed less work than SC, which had meandered across unsuitable land inland).

Interesting there are no (reconstruction) parantheses for Pebble Beach. I'll leave others to debate that.
The curious thing on the Alison list is the claim for the Addington,which is generally attributed to Abercrombie (sic?).

[Paul_Turner]

Vis a vis Portrush, Colt had his first consultation with the Club in 1923, 9 years before the work was finally done.  Maybe Mackenzie was involved in those early stages since he was still at least nominally working with Colt then.

I think Rich is correct, the firm consulted on the original course at Portrush, this was separate from the work resulting in the current Dunluce and Valley, about a decade later.

Addington attribution...HC was definitely involved right from the beginning there.  In another article from 1920 Alison writes that Colt designed Addington and it was constructed ("very cleverly") by Abercrombie. 



Neil, 
Have you got these Mack courses on your list (they were new to me):  Hornsea and Temple Newsam

I hope you are listing The Eden as "misattributed" or "wildly improbable"

[Rich Goodale]

Vis a vis Portrush, Colt had his first consultation with the Club in 1923, 9 years before the work was finally done.  Maybe Mackenzie was involved in those early stages since he was still at least nominally working with Colt then.

I think Rich is correct, the firm consulted on the original course at Portrush, this was separate from the work resulting in the current Dunluce and Valley, about a decade later.

Addington attribution...HC was definitely involved right from the beginning there.  In another article from 1920 Alison writes that Colt designed Addington and it was constructed ("very cleverly") by Abercrombie. 



Neil, 
Have you got these Mack courses on your list (they were new to me):  Hornsea and Temple Newsam

I hope you are listing The Eden as "misattributed" or "wildly improbable"

Paul

If I remember the Club history book correctly (I borrowed it and read it for a project earlier this year), Colt's consultations in 1923 were regarding building the mostly new Dunluce course on the new land which was under consideration for purchase, not any changes to the existing course (except of course to keep a few of the old holes on the new Dunluce).  He seems to have worked on and off on this project for most of those 9 years, mostly frustrated that the Club throught that his proposed budget was much too high.  As I remember, they eventually settled on a contract roughly 1/3 of the price Colt had asked for that gave Colt control over the routing and the greens, but left much of the other work to the club to finish off.  His fee after the 9 years of work was 750 quid!

Rich

[Sean_A]

Vis a vis Portrush, Colt had his first consultation with the Club in 1923, 9 years before the work was finally done.  Maybe Mackenzie was involved in those early stages since he was still at least nominally working with Colt then.

I think Rich is correct, the firm consulted on the original course at Portrush, this was separate from the work resulting in the current Dunluce and Valley, about a decade later.

Addington attribution...HC was definitely involved right from the beginning there.  In another article from 1920 Alison writes that Colt designed Addington and it was constructed ("very cleverly") by Abercrombie. 



Neil, 
Have you got these Mack courses on your list (they were new to me):  Hornsea and Temple Newsam

I hope you are listing The Eden as "misattributed" or "wildly improbable"

Paul

Which Addington are we talking about?

Andy

While I question the idea that MacK was involved in 300 courses, I didn't suggest he was less than scrupulous.  I asked a question because I didn't know the answer.  Additionally, I now understand that the adverts were very much in a general sense and that none or loads or work may have been carried out on MacK's advice.

Ciao

[Neil_Crafter]

Andy
Some interesting comments from you there. In a lot of cases it is a simplification to have one course with a (Reconstructed) note and others not when on the courses he did not design from scratch they were all varying degrees of reconstruction.

Mackenzie's claim of 300 courses was upped to 400 by 1929 so thats a lot of courses he added in just 6 years! I'm not sure how to take this, whether it is a gross exagerration or a massive one or a medium one. Our spreadsheet is well over 200 courses consulted to or designed but I sincerely doubt whether we'll get anywhere close to 300 let alone 400!

Paul
I have just been in touch with Richard Latham who wrote the RCD course history book. He has confirmed to me that Mackenzie was involved in the redesign of the Ladies' Course at RCD in 1919 and visited RCD in August 1919. This is a summary of what he wrote:

Richard Latham indicates that The Ladies Committee requested permission from the Club Council to approach Mackenzie for advice on extending their 9 hole course.  This request was granted and he visited in August 1919.  His report was discussed at the main Council meeting on 20th September 1919 and a small committee was set up to study his proposals in depth.  At a meeting on 18th October and after full consideration, it was decided that no further action should be taken until the matter of the lease for the course was resolved.  To the best of his knowledge, none of his ideas were ever implemented.

He has no evidence that Mackenzie reported on the main course while he was there, so this is just conjecture. But he was there and he later claimed he gave them advice on the main course as well as the Ladies' Course. One has checked out, so the other is still a possibility.

As to Portrush, we can now place Mackenzie in Northern Ireland for work in 1919, although it appears he had visited Belfast before WW1 for Malone GC. So it is possible that on the same 1919 trip he visited Portrush, ostensibly as part of Colt Mackenzie and Alison. I've enquired with the club to see if their historian can take a look at their records.

As for Hornsea, yes its on the spreadsheet, this what I have on it so far:

Listed in AM 1923 advertisement.  Moreton's Braid book suggested AM modified the original Sandy Herd layout in 1912 and Braid later altered the course again in 1924. The club website indicates the original design of the current course, which opened in 1908, was by Alex (Sandy) Herd, Open Champion 1902. In 1912, Dr. Alistair Mackenzie, the renowned golf architect from Leeds, who designed, among others, Alwoodley, Royal Melbourne, Cyprus Point, Pebble Beach and most famously the Augusta National. He made numerous recommendations for the Hornsea golf course, particularly in relation to the greens. His approach was that greens should be visible to the approaching golfer and have undulating surfaces towards the back. In 1925 James Braid, 5 times winner of the Open was asked to the course and he proposed various alterations relating to bunkering on the course.

Temple Newsam is too:

Leeds Municipal courses, listed in 1923 AM advertisement but not specifically by name. AM's article "The Growth of Golf in Leeds" (Golfing Oct 1923) indicates that the historic Temple Newsam estate was acquired by the City of Leeds from the Hon. Edward Wood. Two 18 hole courses were planned by AM, with the first open for play in July 1923 and the other Mackenzie expected to be ready for play by the "next spring", i.e. 1924. Official opening of the first course was on 20 July 1923. Second course opened in 1925, later than AM's suggestion. Both courses constructed by the unemployed under direction of BGCCC supervisors. The two courses are named the Lord Irwin Course (number 1 or top course) and the Lady Dorothy Wood Course (number 2 or bottom course), with the Lord Irwin being marginally longer.

Still more to be learned about both of these.

As for the Eden, I'm not certain where to put it at the moment, somewhere between the two categories perhaps?

[Thomas MacWood]

Neil
If Mackenzie had anything to do with the Eden don't you think he would have listed it?

[Neil_Crafter]

Tom
I do suspect you are probably right. Perhaps its wishful thinking to believe he helped out Colt. But then again, maybe he felt it was covered in the St Andrews in the heading of the 1923 and later adverts. Will we ever know?
Neil

[Paul_Turner]

Vis a vis Portrush, Colt had his first consultation with the Club in 1923, 9 years before the work was finally done.  Maybe Mackenzie was involved in those early stages since he was still at least nominally working with Colt then.

I think Rich is correct, the firm consulted on the original course at Portrush, this was separate from the work resulting in the current Dunluce and Valley, about a decade later.

Addington attribution...HC was definitely involved right from the beginning there.  In another article from 1920 Alison writes that Colt designed Addington and it was constructed ("very cleverly") by Abercrombie. 



Neil, 
Have you got these Mack courses on your list (they were new to me):  Hornsea and Temple Newsam

I hope you are listing The Eden as "misattributed" or "wildly improbable"

Paul

Which Addington are we talking about?


Ciao

Sean

It's The Addington we know and love.

[Sean_A]

Vis a vis Portrush, Colt had his first consultation with the Club in 1923, 9 years before the work was finally done.  Maybe Mackenzie was involved in those early stages since he was still at least nominally working with Colt then.

I think Rich is correct, the firm consulted on the original course at Portrush, this was separate from the work resulting in the current Dunluce and Valley, about a decade later.

Addington attribution...HC was definitely involved right from the beginning there.  In another article from 1920 Alison writes that Colt designed Addington and it was constructed ("very cleverly") by Abercrombie. 



Neil, 
Have you got these Mack courses on your list (they were new to me):  Hornsea and Temple Newsam

I hope you are listing The Eden as "misattributed" or "wildly improbable"

Paul

Which Addington are we talking about?


Ciao

Sean

It's The Addington we know and love.

Paul

That is very interesting.  Do you think that Aber did enough to the course to earn some credit?  To me it does feel different (more wild - daring) then a Colt course.  Have you come across anything other than a mention that Colt designed Addington?

Ciao

[Paul_Turner]

Sean

I'm sure that Aber deserves credit too.  Colt and Co claim Addington in their early ads but then drop the course in their later ads...I suspect because Abercromby became a competitor when he joined up with Simpson.

(Which may be similar to Mackenzie making no claim to any Colt courses (built in the 1920-23 time frame) once he quit the firm.)

During its construction, Darwin does report that Colt and Abercromby were working together on Addington ....only Alison gives the design credit to Colt and construction to Aber.

Addington is definitely a "one of a kind" but I think the course is consistent with Colt's style, probably most similar to St George's Hill.

[Tom_Doak]

I had not known of the Colt connection to The Addington and I am sure from what you've said that he was involved, but I think it's a bit speculative to give him all the credit now.  Hunter's Foreword to THE LINKS clearly credits Abercromby for The Addington and he, too, was very careful about his attributions.  Meanwhile, the source you are quoting as proof of Colt being most important is Colt's partner, Alison, who would hardly be considered fully neutral.

[Paul_Turner]

Here is the article, from Alison. 

I think that's probably the 13th in the pic.

I'm not giving Colt all the credit for Addington and Alison doesn't really either:

[Tom_Doak]

Tom:

Apologize for misstating your position, although there are many people out there who would characterize taking credit for the design as taking credit for the whole thing.  Thanks for reprinting the article -- in addition to the great old photos, it's clear that Alison's quote about "clever construction" gives a fair amount of credit to Mr. Abercromby.

Wasn't it Abercromby's family who owned The Addington for many years?  So was the client, in the same manner as Crump at Pine Valley?