Tom,
This hardly seems like a course for a broad spectrum of golfers of differing abilities.
Was Bobby describing a course for golfers of differing abilities, or his own ideal course, for him?
You use the term "ideal" in the above sentence much more narrowly than the way the term was used in reference to golf courses. Courses weren't ideal to certain types of golfers. They were "ideal" because they were the best possible representation of certain golf course principles and concepts, and these principles and concepts did not have limited application depending upon the ability of the golfer. This was especially so of Mackenzie courses, where a large part of the "ideal" was that a course could be challenging, interesting, and enjoyable to golfers of wide abilities, including duffers and experts. This "ideal" comes up again and again in the descriptions of what they were trying to accomplish at Augusta, which was meant to remain playable and enjoyable for all while still challenging
the best in the world.
In short, Augusta was ideal precisely because one need not designate a type of golfer that it fit best. By this standard, Jones's 1936 "Ideal Golf Course" seems to have been far less than "ideal" in the sense that it was usually used in the genre, and by Mackenzie himself.
TomPaul claims that there were many different "ideals" depending upon the quality of the golfer. For the reasons above, he again demonstrates his ignorance of this period of golf course architecture and of Mackenzie in particular.
TEPaul also tries to claim that Pine Valley was considered to be an "ideal golf course" but fails to provide any basis for his claim. In fact, the biggest criticism of Pine Valley was that no matter how good a course it might have been for the better golfer, it was NOT IDEAL precisely because it was too hard for the rest. So if anything Pine Valley was the exception that proves the rule, and perhaps the beginning of a school of design that tended to judge quality based on in part on difficulty rather than playability and enjoyment for a broad spectrum of golfers.
But Augusta was very much not of this school. At Augusta, ideal meant playable, interesting and enjoyable to the entire spectrum of golfers. TEPaul also guesses that the Masters was an afterthought, but the reality was that the Masters tournament was being comtemplated from the year the course opened at the latest.