[Tom_Doak]

They all pretty much worked for Michael Collins who was reputed to be one of the best bunker makers of all time----his technique involved some pretty powerful explosives. His bunker style was called the "crater look" and it was generally very large in scale, and they say it worked best on clay-loam soil. If the technique was used on sandy soil like CPC sometimes the crater bunkers might turn out to be in the neighborhood of 100 to 200 thousand SF, and it took like years to get the sand outta everyone's hair and skin and such.

My wife has told me a couple of times that Michael Collins is a distant family relative.  I can't remember if she was mad at me when she mentioned it, but I guess I'd better be more careful not to upset her.

[TEPaul]

TomD:

Not a bad thought. I hope living with her and her Michael Collins terrorist family background isn't anything like what Inspector Clouseau and that Asian House Boy he had went through every time Inspector Clouseau came home.

[Tom MacWood]

. But who ever was given credit he is convinced that MacKenzie was the genius behind the project, leading both Egan and Hunter. In fact he has uncovered a number of articles written by Egan contemporanious to the project where he describes walking the course and consulting with MacKenzie.

Tom, I know this a long dead and buried thread, but just wondering if you ever got those articles from Neal Hotelling?

I never did, and like a dumb dumb I never asked.

[Neil_Crafter]

TE
Did the USGA Architecture Archive get to talk with Neal Hotelling as you suggested you would back in February? I am still interested to hear if he has those articles by Egan that describe him walking the course with Mackenzie. Thanks.

[Padraig Dooley]

Here's an excert from Cork's 1988 Centenary book on Jack Fleming

[TEPaul]

"TE
Did the USGA Architecture Archive get to talk with Neal Hotelling as you suggested you would back in February? I am still interested to hear if he has those articles by Egan that describe him walking the course with Mackenzie. Thanks."


Neil:

Yes we did but it has been slow going to actually get material from Pebble Beach into the still under development new USGA Architecture Archive website component, and for obvious reasons Neal Hoteling is a very busy man at a time like this with the US Open at Pebble right on the horizon. Bob Crosby and I are going out there for the Open week to help the USGA in a few new ways and we will certainly see Neal so we will be sure to ask him your question and get back to you about those Egan articles.

[Neil_Crafter]

Thanks TE, would be great if you could follow up with Neal when you see him during the US Open.

Padraig
Thanks for the extract on Fleming from the Cork history book. Just wondering what other mentions there are on Mackenzie in the book? Would be very grateful if you could scan and email them to me so we can add them to our Mackenzie information. Many thanks.
neil@golfstrategies.com.au

[Neil_Crafter]

Padraig
I noticed in the extract that Fleming apparently worked on the Youghal course. Do you know anything about it? Is it safe to assume that as Fleming was an employee of The British Golf Course Construction Co that the work at Youghal was to Mackenzie's design also? Interested in your thoughts. Youghal is not a course we have come across in reference to Mackenzie in our various researching.

[Padraig Dooley]

Thanks TE, would be great if you could follow up with Neal when you see him during the US Open.

Padraig
Thanks for the extract on Fleming from the Cork history book. Just wondering what other mentions there are on Mackenzie in the book? Would be very grateful if you could scan and email them to me so we can add them to our Mackenzie information. Many thanks.
neil@golfstrategies.com.au

Neil, there isn't too many mentions of MacKenzie in the book. I'm just away from home for a couple of days and will have a further look when I get back. The clubhouse fire in 1945 meant most of the records were lost but a bit of research has been done on him for later in the year and I'll try and track it down and send it on.

I have played Youghal, you're right it's never been associated with MacKenzie and I don't recall any of his traits there. I'll see if I can find out more information on it.

 

[TEPaul]

"Thanks TE, would be great if you could follow up with Neal when you see him during the US Open."


You're more than welcome, Neil; and allow me to thank you for all the wonderful detailed and in-depth and level-headed research you have provided on Alister Mackenzie et al in recent years. It's wonderful stuff and so important to have collected.

I've never been a fan at all of any kind of rankings (courses or architects etc) but I've always felt somehow that all-in, at least for the guys who have now gone to the Great Router in the Sky, that Mackenzie pretty much has to top them all with perhaps Colt right there with him; even if something in the back of my mind tells me that if George Thomas had put the time in and kept at it like those two did he would be right there too. But I guess one should never sniff at a guy who had that kind of talent for golf architecture but might've actually topped it as a world-classer breeder of roses. 

[Neil_Crafter]

Thanks Padraig
Would appreciate whatever you can excavate when you get back home. I was aware of the clubhouse fire and Cork's loss of records.

The Youghal mention for Fleming is interesting as we have never found any course built by Charles Mac that was not an Alister Mac design. If Fleming worked for a period on Youghal you would think it was for Charles - and hence for Alister. Appreciate it if you could make some enquiries. Looked at the club's website but there was no mention of the club's history at all on it.

TE
Thanks for your thanks, appreciate your thoughts. We see it as important and with advances in internet newspaper searching combined with some old fashioned legwork our little group has been able to add a number of courses into the list of Mackenzie's known works.
He is certainly up there with Colt, where exactly depends upon your personal preferences I imagine.

[TEPaul]

Neil:

Allow me to elaborate on what I said about my opinion of Mackenzie (probably at the top) and why I feel that way.

I would have to say that what I have seen of his architecture just completely appeals to my particular taste in so many ways, even if perhaps not in all ways----eg sometimes I wonder if he didn't tend too much towards the "artistic" even if in a somewhat natural way such as copying the shapes of passing clouds in some of his West Coast bunkering, if that is actually true.

But what I really mean is that in my opinion, any man who could come up with the ideas to apply to golf course architecture he did from highly naturalized Boer military trench construction is just totally brilliant----frankly genius!

The latter is far more important to what I believe real natural looking architecture should be and should look like than any applied principles of Landscape Architecture could ever be, in my opinion.

On the subject of Landscape Architecture, I think the only thing I have ever completely agreed with Tom MacWood on was many years ago when he mentioned on here that Landscape Architecture, even the finest naturalized English LA or even an Olmsted, is essentially an "idealized" form and presentation of Nature!

I very much doubt that was the case with the naturalized military trenches of the Boers because if it was I'm pretty sure they realized full-well they were more likely to DIE if that was the case!  

Being the expert on Mackenzie that you are I'm sure you realize that Mackenzie not only informed the British military that they should emulate the Boer naturalized military trenches but he also informed them that the Boers also emulated the highly artificial looking British trenches just to draw fire away from their manned Boer trenches.

And lastly, I feel more and more as I continue to consider GCA and its history that all of this kind of stuff revolves around the fact that with golf architecture it's all contingent on the fact that golf may be the only stick and ball game in the world in which the ball is not vied for between human opponents. And with that fact which may be so fundamental to golf as to have become forgotten about years ago, it may put the context of the target for a golfer in somewhat the same context as a highly naturalized Boer military trench whose primary purpose is to deceive the target shooter and/or drive fire away from it.

OR, in a short construct, I think I believe in all forms and applications of deceiving the eye of a golfer, if for no other reason than to make him always ponder the less, and hopefully far less, than the obvious.

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