MACKENZIE'S LEGACY AT SHARP PARK
By BO LINKS
SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC GOLF ALLIANCE
JANUARY 2020
:::
SAND DUNES NEAR LAGUNA SALADA
Prior to construction of Sharp Park Golf Course — Pacifica, California.
ALISTER MacKenzie may well be the greatest golf architect who ever lived. Surely, whiskey fuels any debate, and it may ignite passions on this subject, but facts are facts. Not only did MacKenzie pen one of the first extensive texts on golf course architecture in 1920. Not only was he the first man hired to map the Old Course at St. Andrews. And, not only did he design some of the world’s greatest courses — on four separate continents, no less. But all of that really pales against what we can now derive as the essence of MacKenzie’s work as a golf architect, for he was the first person to truly capture what it means to enjoy the thrill of the game.
MacKenzie’s design principles emphasize both the beauty of nature and fairness of allowing players of all abilities to compete effectively against each other. That said, don’t think for a moment that MacKenzie was all hit and giggles. His designs constantly challenge a player to become better. He was not about defeating the weak, but making the weak player stronger — giving rise to the hope that through practice and strategic thought, a developing golfer could take on all comers.
At the root of MacKenzie’s philosophy was a medical concept – something he learned as a doctor before he took up golf course architecture full time. The concept is to provide players with “pleasurable excitement,” encouraging them to make the “heroic carry,” beckoning everyone to experience the thrill of adventure as they traverse a golf course.
All of this adds up to one thing. Among the architects of any era, MacKenzie has no peer in the number of people who fall hopelessly in love with his courses. Bob Jones and generations of Masters patrons fell in love with Augusta National. And who knows how many more have fallen in love with Cypress Point, Royal Melbourne, Titirangi, Lahinch and The Jockey Club, just to name a few from around the world.
Not to be lost in this pantheon of greatness is the little public course at Sharp Park which MacKenzie designed by the sea in Pacifica, just 10 miles south of San Francisco. MacKenzie designed the course in the late 1920’s, and turned over construction to his colleagues, Robert Hunter, Jr. and H. Chandler Egan. When the course opened in 1932 it was a layout for the ages, one that, in MacKenzie’s own words, was “as sporty as the Old Course at St. Andrews and as picturesque as any golf course in the world.”
“The municipal courses in San Francisco are far superior to most municipal courses. The newest, which we constructed at Sharp Park, has a resemblance to real links land. Some of the holes are most spectacular. Two of them are of similar type to the plan of the ideal two-shot hole. One of them has the island on the right and the other on the left. In designing and constructing the course, we had the greatest assistance from Mr. John McLaren, the designer of Golden Gate Park. John McLaren is an artist, and his help not only in the artistic planting of trees but in creating other delightful features was most valuable.”
FOURTH HOLE — SHARP PARK GOLF COURSE
The original one-shot fourth hole at Sharp Park — 140 Yards — Pacifica, California.
At Sharp Park, MacKenzie was free to indulge all of his design principles, unburdened by a developer’s desires, or a private club’s politics. He was, in essence, given a blank canvas and asked to paint a masterpiece. MacKenzie eagerly accepted the challenge, utilizing double tees; double fairways; forced carries; cross bunkering; camouflage; and his classic cloud shaped bunkers and heaving greens. Most significantly, MacKenzie built two mirror versions of his famous “Lido Hole” — the design that catapulted him to fame in 1914. Sharp Park is the only place in the world where MacKenize did that.
Sharp Park has always been open to all for a modest fee. Although construction of a sea wall in the early 1940s eliminated several holes closest to the ocean, golfers today still play 12 of the original holes, and parts of two others. Recent restoration work has begun the process of bringing back many of the original features, including the original green sizes and contours, some of them 150 feet long, with bumps and hollows reminiscent of the Women’s Putting Course at St. Andrews, one of MacKenize’s favorite places on Earth.
Sharp Park is Alister Mackenzie’s only public seaside design in America. But it is more than that. What MacKenize really did was transplant the seeds of Scottish golf on the shores of the Pacific. Indeed, it was Ken Venturi, San Francisco’s native son and 1964 US Open Champion, who said it best: “Sharp Park is a great course of the old school: a seaside course, designed by one of history’s greatest architects, where the wind and weather dictate the play of the game.”
As we celebrate Dr. MacKenzie’s sesquicentennial, let us never forget the legacy he left to public golfers at Sharp Park.
:::
MAP OF SHARP PARK circa 1932: “A second St. Andrews, and the finest municipal golf course in America.”
Reproduced by Kind Permission of the San Francisco Public Golf Alliance
Present day perspective of Sharp Park Golf Course as seen from Mori Point in Pacifica. — Copyright Brad Knipstein