PROBLEMS IN REMODELING COURSES
By DR. ALISTER MACKENZIE
THE AMERICAN GOLFER - NEW YORK
MAY 1933
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IT IS a rather extraordinary thing that members of golf committees, themselves men of intelligence, experience and frequently specialists in different lines, when it comes to consideration of the task involved in remodeling the club course, will turn to seek the advice of persons whose only qualification in matters pertaining to golf is the ability to play a good game. Granted that the play of such persons is probably a fitting measure by which to judge the merit of a course, the fact still remains that worthwhile course designing is a matter for specialists in that line. And the stature of the specialist is determined by the character of work which he has turned out.
The mere fact that a course is considered to require alteration should be a warning that unless the committee is very careful, the club may make the same mistakes again, and every precaution should be taken to ensure that any changes to be made shall be of a permanent and lasting character. After all, the cost of expert advice is infinitesimal compared with the cost of manual labour and particularly unproductive manual labour.
The so-called improvements of golf courses usually consist in making holes longer and in riddling the place with sand bunkers. If a hole is uninteresting to start with, it can only be made more so by lengthening it, and most golf courses have too many sand traps already.
As a rule, it is surprisingly difficult to obtain the co-operation of club members in agreeing to the advice of an expert, except on the foolish pretense that changes in the ball or the addition of new traps make it desirable to bring the course up to date. I have a vivid recollection of an occasion over thirty years ago, when the president of a club to which I belonged addressed the members and stated that the introduction of the rubber-cored ball made it necessary to lengthen the course. He added that he proposed to make it the world’s best golf course by lengthening it to 7,000 yards. He succeeded in making it the worst, and it was not until, under expert advice, they shortened it by a thousand yards that it regained its popularity.
It is remarkable how loyal the ordinary club member is to his own course. His friends play there and he has many pleasant recollections of enjoyable rounds with them. The course may be so bad that he gets tired of golf without realising the reason why, and some times he either gives up the game altogether or wanders off to “pastures new”. He may submit to changes made by the green committee, but he will rarely admit openly that his course is not all that it should be by submitting it to outside expert advice.
There are rare instances of chairmen of green committees who have made a life-long study of golf architecture as was the case of the late John L. Lowe at Woking in England and the Wilson Brothers at the Merion Cricket Club in America. But in the majority of cases, changes made by the green committee consist in the construction of more penal hazards and the making of the course even less interesting than is was before.
The majority of the greens committees consist of men averaging from four to twelve handicap and they are usually subconsciously influenced against any handicap or hazard which will penalize themselves, but are unanimous in agreeing to the introduction of new hazards which will make the life of the long-handicap player a living purgatory. They rarely have the grasp and conception of Bobby Jones, who agreed most emphatically in the case of the Augusta National that due consideration was to be given the high-handicap player in all cases, but that the course must be made so difficult for himself that he would be continually striving for shots he has hitherto been unable to do. The result of our consultations at the Augusta National was to reduce the number of sand traps on the plan from thirty-six to twenty-two.
Few committees appear to realize that after all golf is played for fun, and that the most important thing in reconstructing a golf course is to make it more pleasurable. The most successful committees are those who are ruled by a benevolent autocrat, who has made a life-long study of the requirements of golf. I have done most of my reconstruction work for men of this kind; men who know golf, but realize that they had not sufficient knowledge to know about everything, and who consequently were only too anxious to consult anyone who might throw fresh light on their problems.
I have recently had two striking examples of this. In both instances the ruling autocrat had already made considerable improvements in the course and had gained the confidence of the members.
One example was the Palmetto Golf Course at Aiken in South Carolina. The chairman, owing to the strength and endearing quality of his personality, managed to push things through notwithstanding the opposition of perhaps four-fifths of the members, and called me in to reconstruct the course. The alterations have been such a success that the chairman of Bobby Jones’ executive committee at the Augusta National writes to me saying “We have only one serious complaint to make against you regarding the Augusta National. That layout you designed at Aiken is liked so well that the Aiken colony do not seem to be the least bit interested in coming over to the Augusta National.”
The other instance concerned a club among the oldest in America. The course was designed years before anyone had formulated any definite ideas about golf architecture, so it was hardly to be expected that the layout would be ideal. As a matter of fact, the general design was no better than that of other courses which were constructed about the same period.
The first four and the last four holes were extremely hilly. There were many fine architectural features and backgrounds which were not utilized. There were many parallel holes and there was a stream, which should have been used as a diagonal hazard, which was crossed at right angles. The course was far too difficult for the average golfer, and, on the other hand, of little interest to the good player. In fact it was somewhat surprising that the members got any real pleasure in playing it.
On the other hand the chairman of the green committee had made a study of golf courses, and had eliminated the worst of the hill climbing at the end of the course. Also the club had an excellent greenkeeper, who had got the greens into very good shape. Apart from the hills, there was not much acreage to make a first class golf course, and a plan for taking in more ground involving an expenditure of considerably more than a hundred thousand dollars had been considered.
My problem was to use as many of the existing greens as possible and to evolve a good golf course at a minimum of expense. I had never had a more difficult problem with which to deal, and, after several weeks of careful study and planning, I evolved a scheme which, without taking in any additional land, would give an exceptionally pleasurable and interesting course at an extremely low cost. One hole had already been made from one of the plans, when unfortunately something happened in the inner workings of the club, and the work was not carried through to a finish.
I had a somewhat similar case in Montreal. The green committee accepted plans for the reconstruction, but the directors, fearing that we should make the course too difficult, over-ruled their decision. They little appreciated that the plan would have eliminated more than half their penal hazards, and have made the course infinitely more interesting and enjoyable.
There is another most important point about the reconstruction of golf courses. If the work is done on what we consider the right lines, namely eliminating all purely penal hazards, and grading all the slopes so that they are of such a natural appearance that little or no hand labour is required in taking care of them, the cost of reconstruction is practically nothing, in the long run.
I have been informed by the chairmen of both the Lake Merced and the California clubs in San Francisco, whose courses I reconstructed, that we have saved the clubs the whole of the cost of reconstruction in reduced maintenance every year since the remodeling was carried out. I have also been informed that these clubs have continued to increase their membership and have consequently increased in prosperity in spite of the prevailing conditions.
Remodeling and reconstruction, which results in added pleasure in the play of the club members and their friends, is very much worthwhile. The result is added interest on the part of old members and the attracting of new ones. A job which fails in doing this is nothing more than money thrown away and is as well left undone.
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Jockey Club of Buenos Aires — No. 16 Red Course
While construction work is under way.
Jockey Club of Buenos Aires — No. 16 Red Course
Here is how the completed job appears.