Charles Price on MacKenzie. Please explain !

[Patrice Boissonnas]

This quote was submitted to me by a French golf journalist.
Apparently it comes from Charles Price's book : A Golf Story.

"McKenzie went along wirh the old Scottish theroy that an ideal round of golf ought to add up to "level four". How those fours added was immaterial. Not knowing how they would add up was  immaterial. Not knowing how they would add was what gave golf its "spirit of adventure" Handicap committees took something away from that spirit by telling you how you were supposed to add them up"

I am not sure I understand what that means.
Can somebody light my lantern?

[John Mayhugh]

Here's a bit more of the text from the book.  This was discussing the design of Augusta National.
Free to lay out the course in any way he saw fit, Mackenzie could let his fancy fly.  He had very few inhibitions about how long or how short a hole ought to be.  For one reason, he had no preconceptions about par, which he considered a figment of the USGA’s imagination.  To Mackenzie’s way of thinking, “par” as such was just an a priori argument as to how the game ought to be played.  Mackenzie went along with the old Scottish theory that an ideal round of golf ought to add up to “level fours.”  How those fours added up was immaterial.  Not knowing how they would add up was what gave golf its “spirit of adventure.”  Handicap committees took away something from that spirit by telling you how you were supposed to add them up.

From this, I take that MacKenzie believed 18 holes should average taking about four shots each (total of 72), but that individual holes didn't need to be strictly defined to a par 3, 4, or 5.  The basic idea is that half par holes were fine as long as the halves averaged out. 

[Patrice Boissonnas]

OK I get it know.
Thanks John, I believe your interpretation makes total sense.

[Patrice Boissonnas]

One thing I don't understand though:
why would MacKenzie be so keen on having par 72s (18 x 4) ?
We all know par 71, 70 or even lower can make great course as well ! I am sure he was also of the same opinion.

[Niall C]

Patrice/John

I'd be very interested to know where Price got this nugget of info. Not saying that MacKenzie didn't believe it or say it at some point but I don't recall. Neither have I ever heard about a round having to be level fours. There's ample evidence around Scotland that not many worked on that basis.

In short, it sounds bogus to me but I've been wrong before.

Niall

[David Kelly]

One thing I don't understand though:
why would MacKenzie be so keen on having par 72s (18 x 4) ?
We all know par 71, 70 or even lower can make great course as well ! I am sure he was also of the same opinion.

In Price's quote, his point was that he didn't think Mackenzie cared at all about a par of 72 and was saying that the par was an artificial construct of handicapping committees.  A 7000yd course is a 7000yd course regardless of whether it adds up to a par 72 or a par 70.  

[Niall C]

David

That's as maybe but it sounds to me as if he's comne up with an artificial construct of his own and attributed it to MacKenzie.

Niall

[David Kelly]

David

That's as maybe but it sounds to me as if he's comne up with an artificial construct of his own and attributed it to MacKenzie.

Niall

May be.  I don't recall reading Mackenzie write that anywhere.  I hope he thought like that though because it jibes with my way of thinking.

[Rich Goodale]

Patrice/John

I'd be very interested to know where Price got this nugget of info. Not saying that MacKenzie didn't believe it or say it at some point but I don't recall. Neither have I ever heard about a round having to be level fours. There's ample evidence around Scotland that not many worked on that basis.

In short, it sounds bogus to me but I've been wrong before.

Niall

Not true, Niall.  Donald Ross and John Sutherland and Rev. Donald Grant played their frequent "matches" at Dornoch prior to 1900 based on whether or not they were below at or above "level 4's."  See Grant's book about "Donald Ross at Pinehurst."

[Alex Miller]

Mackenzie did build a lot of par 72's though. What non-72's were built by him?

However I think the quote says more about Mackenzie's lack of interest in par and interest in creating good golf holes than it says about a focus on par 72 courses.

[DMoriarty]

It is a strange statement, because his description of "level fours" as representing an "ideal round" seems like it would inevitably lead toward the concept of "par."  And maybe it did.

My understanding is that the concept of "fours" was no more than a counting mechanism, to simplify keeping track of score.  For example, a golfer could say could say "I am 3 over fours" after eleven, instead of saying "I have 47 after 11."  

Here is an except from June 16, 1899 Golf Illustrated, discussing the improvement in play and the drop in scoring.  Note that golfers had transitioned from counting by fives to counting by fours . . .

But in spite of all this I cannot help thinking that there has been a considerable heightening in the standard of actual play.  
A significant proof of this is the way in which everybody reckons the score now by ''fours," and not, as used to be done, by "fives." Players prefer now to say that they are two over "fours" for nine holes, to the old-fashioned "seven under," and this has only happened because the four standard is much more commonly reached or approached than formerly.

So at one time, apparently, golfers used to count by fives.  Sometime before 1900 they started counting by fours because they got better.  I think that is all "level fours" meant.

[Peter Pallotta]

I have to say I had the same reaction that Niall did, i.e. wondering about where Mr Price got that. To borrow some of his own langauge, it struck me as a post facto but a priori assumuption on his part, a looking back on a (completed) Augusta and deciding that Dr. Mac must have approached/planned his design that way, with little reference to par on individual holes. But when I think of Augusta and other famous Dr Mac designs, it seems to me that he was very much interested in par and how that number affects the play and the psychology of play - e.g. the supposed opportunities for birdies that Augusta's back 9 Par 5s afforded, or how daunting the 16th at Cypress Point is because it is a Par 3.

Peter

[David Kelly]

But when I think of Augusta and other famous Dr Mac designs, it seems to me that he was very much interested in par and how that number affects the play and the psychology of play - e.g. the supposed opportunities for birdies that Augusta's back 9 Par 5s afforded, or how daunting the 16th at Cypress Point is because it is a Par 3.

On the other hand, where does he say the above?

[Garland Bayley]

...
So at one time, apparently, golfers used to count by fives.  Sometime before 1900 they started counting by fours because they got better.  I think that is all "level fours" meant.

More likely, because equipment, especially the ball got better (longer).

[Peter Pallotta]

But when I think of Augusta and other famous Dr Mac designs, it seems to me that he was very much interested in par and how that number affects the play and the psychology of play - e.g. the supposed opportunities for birdies that Augusta's back 9 Par 5s afforded, or how daunting the 16th at Cypress Point is because it is a Par 3.

On the other hand, where does he say the above?

Good point, DK - which probably means, it seems to me, that Dr Mac did what every other good architect does, which is to try to find 18 cool and differing golf holes that link together nicely and add up to 70-72 without concerning himself with the kind of over-riding ideas or pre-conceived philosophies that observers like me and Mr. Price love to look for and find there (not that I'm comparing myself to       Mr Price ).

Peter

[Niall C]

Patrice/John

I'd be very interested to know where Price got this nugget of info. Not saying that MacKenzie didn't believe it or say it at some point but I don't recall. Neither have I ever heard about a round having to be level fours. There's ample evidence around Scotland that not many worked on that basis.

In short, it sounds bogus to me but I've been wrong before.

Niall

Not true, Niall.  Donald Ross and John Sutherland and Rev. Donald Grant played their frequent "matches" at Dornoch prior to 1900 based on whether or not they were below at or above "level 4's."  See Grant's book about "Donald Ross at Pinehurst."

Rich

Even I recall a time when we played to level fours (in the case of good golfers) or level fives (in my case) however that was a means of keeping tally with your scores, not a means of gauging how the course should be designed. Whereas Price apparently wrote the following;

"McKenzie went along wirh the old Scottish theroy that an ideal round of golf ought to add up to "level four"."

From all the digging about the old literature I can't recall a design philosophy along those lines.

Niall

[Brent Hutto]

Niall,

It's exactly the same error in thinking that leads (in that other thread) to thinking that a slope rating of 113 means the course is "ideal" in difficulty. It's just a number and you can't read any more than that into it.

Absent a direct quote from MacKenzie to the contrary, I tend to believe Price (or whoever Price might be getting a third-hand version of MacKenzie from) is making the same mistake. There is some reference to "level fours" and that was mistakenly interpreted as a criterion for excellence.

People do that with numbers all the time. Stick an arbitrary number on something and suddenly there has to be a "right" number that's unassailable.

I think a lot of people nowadays fail to keep in mind that the "over par"/"Under par" style of scorekeeping is not as old as golf itself. In fact it is a relatively recent innovation. If I'm not mistaken it dates back only to the televised golf tournament age.

[Steve Wilson]

I think they used level fours which calculates to 72 as it is easier to keep track of in your head than is level 3.8888888s which calculates to almost 70.  Although the Scots were reputed to be excellent calculators at sums large and small where money was concerned, they chose not to exercise their superior mathematical skills including decimals and fractions (remember the currency of those days) unless it involved financial transactions. 

Insert here obligatory apology to those who may have been offended by stereotyping of an ethnic group.  I do, however, get a pass because I am part Scottish.  I think it's the part that plays golf, particularly the part that plays golf badly, sometimes so badly I realize I should have been a Scottish professor (that's a Wodehouse inside joke).

[Colin Macqueen]

Dear Steve,
The above just does not add up!  Brace yersel'!

I think your abject, patronising, "obligatory"  apology to the Scots hardly went far enough. It was beholden unto thee to divulge that you once gave a Scotsman a tenner to pay off a debt of yours, a long outstanding debt of yours, to one Sean Arble. This tenner burnt a hole in the pocket of this Scot but was duly delivered! To disparage the likes of me does not go unheeded nor unanswered.

Now "Professor Pringle was a thinnish, baldish, dyspeptic-lookingish cove with an eye like a haddock …." which is not far off in describing my good self and rest assured there is a baleful glare being shot in your direction from my one (almost) good eye!

Cheers Colin