If Jones hadn't picked MacKenzie, then who?

[Ran Morrissett]

If the 1929 U.S. Amateur had not been held on the west coast, RT Jones might never have seen Pasatiempo and Cypress Point, or at least not seen them in a timely enough fashion to have influenced his decision in Augusta, Georgia. (By the way, I just learned that Jones was the referee for the semi-final match at Pebble + did you know that Jones was on the USGA Executive Committee from 1928-1930 when he was aged 26-28?  ). If he had never met MacKenzie, who would he have selected for Augusta National?

Personally, I think he would have liked Stanley Thompson and their personalities would have meshed. Yet, I don't know if, unlike Mackenzie, Jones ever saw Jasper, so Thompson might never even have been considered.

Jones didn't relate to Ross's sober style particularly well so who else might he have considered? His love of The Old Course is a paramount consideration. Where was Colt in 1931/2, I wonder?

Cheers,

[Tim Rooney]

Why not the first Great American born architect, A.W.Tillinghast?

[Mike Nuzzo]

Are you saying he would have hung out with the guy with the highest tolerance for booze?
Sober not MacKenzie & Thompson

[Gene Greco]

            This the same dinner party?  Up to cigars and the tawny port?

[Rob Rigg]

Can we get a list of potential architects in the country at the time?

Since Jones travelled to Scotland, I think he could bring himself to travel to the great white north so he could visit Thompson and perhaps Colt & Allison (if they were there then)? He probably would have enjoyed the golf in the TO area.

Can we also get a list of the wines (and vintage) and single malts (and vintage) that were consumed at Ran's dinner party. 

Sidenote - For anyone looking for a wonderful pinot - check out any J. Rochioli single vineyard wine (a Roch has won 90% of pinot blind tastings I have been involved in).

[Tom_Doak]

Colt hated to travel, and his last visit to America was before 1920, so I don't think he would qualify.  Alison is a possibility, I guess, but I don't think he was around by 1931-32, either.

Maxwell is unlikely ... Jones wouldn't even give him a reference for the Ohio State job after MacKenzie passed away.  In fact, the recommendations from Jones [via the professional at Augusta] included a young Robert Trent Jones.  If Trent had been born just a couple of years earlier, your answer might well have been himself.

[Phil_the_Author]

A surprise to many here, but I honestly do think the answer is Tilly and with very good reasons.

Mike Nuozzo stated, "Are you saying he would have hung out with the guy with the highest tolerance for booze?
Sober not MacKenzie & Thompson"

First of all, Tilly's hard drinking days were done by the early 1920s and we have proof that he took his very last drink of alcohol in 1927. But the real reason is that Jones DID spend a week or so with Tilly at his home in New Jersey in 1931. We have an eyewitness account of this visit from his granddaughter who followed them around everywhere they went. She got to the point that she began imitating Jones' walk to the extent that she was given the nickname "Bobby JO" to which she answers to this very day.

That was a long way to come just for a social call and I would expect that among the things they spoke about was the Augusta National project.

In addition, in 1928 Tilly designed the Colonial Golf Club in Atlanta which was immediately lost to the market crash in 1929. There are accounts that Bobby Jones was on the board of directors. Among the interesting design features of this course was that there was to be NO ROUGH whatsoever on the more than 7,000 yard course.

[Dónal Ó Ceallaigh]

Colt hated to travel, and his last visit to America was before 1920, so I don't think he would qualify.  Alison is a possibility, I guess, but I don't think he was around by 1931-32, either.

Maxwell is unlikely ... Jones wouldn't even give him a reference for the Ohio State job after MacKenzie passed away.  In fact, the recommendations from Jones [via the professional at Augusta] included a young Robert Trent Jones.  If Trent had been born just a couple of years earlier, your answer might well have been himself.

According to Rosses Point (Co. Sligo) website, Alison visited Rosses Point (Co. Sligo) in 1931 to provide a bunkering plan. Colt did not have any other projects on in Ireland, so he sent Alison instead.

[Tom MacWood]

TD is right, the athletic director at Ohio State was looking for a sympathetic replacement for Mackenzie in 1936 and sought the advice of three men: Bobby Jones, George Sargent and Herb Graffis. He also asked them specifically about Maxwell; I suspect Wendell Miller had recommended Maxwell.

Sargent had been the pro at Scioto, which was TOSU's home course at the time, and as the pro at Scioto he was TOSU's acting golf coach. In 1936 he was pro at East Lake in Atlanta, Bob Jones' home course. Sargent had met Maxwell at the Master earlier that year but he didn't believe he had the sufficient experience to carry out Mackenzie's ideas. Sargent said the best man in the business was Ross.

Sargent asked Jones for his thoughts, and Jones recommended Robert Hunter and RTJ. Jones didn't know anything about Maxwell so he couldn't recommend him one way or the other. Ironically Maxwell would redesign ANGC the following year. By the way Hunter was retired in 1936.

Graffis, the editor of Golfdom magazine, recommended RTJ and Maxwell. He said although Maxwell had been considerably influenced by Mackenzie it was hard to teach an old dog new tricks, and Maxwell might just throw the Mackeznie's plan in the trash and start over. Based on that the younger RTJ would be his recommendation, they associated him with Banff and other Thompson courses. RTJ wrote for Golfdom.

in 1933 my guess is Jones would have chosen one of the two: RTJ (& Thompson) or Ross. Ross was pretty old and winding down in 1933, so Thompson & Jones is the more likely candidate. You could argue Thompson was at the peak of his design career in the late 20s and 30s, and perhaps at the peak of golf architecture worldwide.

By the way, after all that St. John (athletic director) ended up hiring Maxwell, unfortunately there were some personality conflicts and that only lasted a few weeks, so they went another direction.

[PCCraig]

The timing is off at Tom D. mentioned above, but the proof is in the pudding when you look at Bobby Jones' and RTJ's design at Peachtree as well as RTJ's various "upgrades" to Augusta over the early years of the Masters.

Personally, I can't even imagine that Augusta would be (even today) what it is without MacKenzie.

[Tom_Doak]

Pat:

Jones was certainly influenced by some of MacKenzie's ideas, even before their collaboration at Augusta National.  Most of all, he liked MacKenzie's thoughts that the course should be fun and relatively free of trouble for the average player, but that a good player should not expect a string of greens in regulation to automatically mean a string of pars and birdies.

But a course of 7000 yards with no rough?  That wasn't MacKenzie's idea, or Tillinghast's ... that was Bobby Jones, I think.

[BCrosby]

Tom D -

I think your take is on the money. In addition to the enormous fw's and lack or rough, the reduced number of bunkers also seems to have come from Jones.

I've always been intrigued by why Ross wasn't chosen for ANGC. He had redone East Lake no.1 a couple of times in the 20's. He designed and built East Lake no. 2 in 1927/8. Those were Bobby's home courses. He was the most powerful person at EL and would have been involved in the choice of architects. But, apparently, Ross was never seriously considered for Jones' dream course.

Bob

[Chip Gaskins]

I thought I had read on here a while back that Ross and Jones had already talked about working together and wasn't until Jones' west coast trip did that change direction???