I'm privileged to be consulting on restorative-based improvements at six courses designed by A.V. Macan. At this moment, each of these projects are at different stages of research, planning, construction …
My point here is, the more I delve into Mr. Macan's original designs (which have been bastardized probably more than any other architects' work in history), the more I'm overwhelmingly impressed with him as a true contemporary of the great architects of the 1920s and '30s. His routings are excellent, almost with exception; and, he's designed some of the coolest, seemingly subtle greens I've ever seen. Recently I've discovered some really great and artistic bunker styles and schemes in old aerial photos of places like Inglewood and Broadmoor, for example. Mr. Macan's best work seems to have been done where an exceptional contractor was involved ... like at Fircrest, in Tacoma, Washington. William Tucker & Son, out of New York City, built that course for him. (Fircrest is an exceptional property, too.) Overall, Mr. Macan's work is very studied and classy, not pretentious, ever.
I ran across this today, doing some research … plans for expansion of Portland International Airport in the early 1950s that buried Mr. Macan's Alderwood course, on the banks for the Columbia River, in 1953. Alderwood opened in 1925, when Macan was incredibly busy … along with Fircrest, Glendale (Seattle), Langara (Vancouver) and California Golf Club, his Columbia-Edgewater course (which is still next door to where Alderwood was … !) had just opened; it looks like he may have had at least three courses under construction at the time, too, including Seattle's Broadmoor. (Amazing.)
Alderwood was the first course west of the Mississippi River to host the US Amateur, in 1937. Gone 16 years later.
