Mackenzie letter and sketch on Bayside Links (NY) bunkers

[JC Urbina]

Neil,

Just thought you would have some cool revelation about the sketches,  all kidding aside I appreciate your insights.

 I have always enjoyed looking at the drawings but funny when I first started working with Pete Dye,  on occasion when he wanted to show me what  a feature would  look like he would get down in the dirt and shape with his hands an idea and ironically he over built the feature  in the dirt so that it had  a 3 dimensional look.   

Same idea different approach.

 

[Sean_A]

Jim
I said Mackenzie had a sense of art - but I did not say scale!
I know many of his green plans appear out of scale, but I do not think they were ever intended to be taken too literally, plus they are also like an axonometric or isometric projection, in that they depict three dimensions and are not simple vertical plan depictions.

Sean
Sorry, can't see why you don't understand what Mac is saying here. If you are a poor player you can put out of the bunker at an angle away from the flag to points B and C. But a better player has to play a lofted explosion over a steep face in the direct line to the hole, line A.

Neil

Sorry, your translation original used "putt", but now you re using "put".  I didn't quite know what Dr Mac meant by "putt" out of a bunker.

Ciao

[TEPaul]

Sean:

It was not uncommon in the old literature of golf (particularly in the 19th century) to spell "putt" as "put."

Apparently Neil is aware of that or at least has a very old fashioned flair to his writing and spelling! 

In any case, it is not hard to tell Mackenzie is referring to a golfer using a PUTTER to play a shot out of a bunker!

[Neil_Crafter]

Sean
Although TE suggests my mis-spelling of "putt" as "put" was intentional, it sadly wasn't. Apologies for any and all confusion. As TE correctly states, Mac's intention was that poorer golfers could use a putter to get out of the bunker.

Jim, nice story about Pete and his overshaped dirt sculptures.

[Sean_A]

Thanks Neil. I suspected this is what was meant though I am not sure how this jives with deepening the bunkers.  In any case, did Dr Mac write of designing bunkers to be PUTTED out of in other letters/pieces? 

Ciao 

[Neil_Crafter]

Sean
Agree, this doesn't gel with the idea of deepening the bunkers. But that is what he asked for.

As for other examples, I said in the intro to the post that I knew of no other mention by him about being able to putt out of bunkers. Maybe he did somewhere but i can't recall it if he did.

[Sean_A]

Sean
Agree, this doesn't gel with the idea of deepening the bunkers. But that is what he asked for.

As for other examples, I said in the intro to the post that I knew of no other mention by him about being able to putt out of bunkers. Maybe he did somewhere but i can't recall it if he did.

Neil

I ask because it doesn't seem like a Dr Mac thing to do, that is to putt out of a bunker.  Do you spose Dr Mac meant "putt" as in "put"?

Ciao

[Neil_Crafter]

Sean
There is no doubt he meant putt, as in use a putter. He wrote about one particular golfer who played the 16th at Cypress with a putter - took him 4 putts to get there if I recall - and Mac was proud that his hole could be played with a putter.