Alister MacKenzie

As I've probably recounted more than once on my blog, my path in high school and early college was pointed toward trying to become a golf course designer. My experience in architecture school shifted me toward buildings rather than landscape, but my appreciation of golf course design has stuck with me, ebbing and flowing over the years. If I would have picked up this book in high school, written by the great Alister MacKenzie, designer of Augusta National in Georgia and Cypress Point in show more California, I might have stuck the original course. I didn't really delve into much literature on golf course architecture outside of the World Atlas of Golf, but this book (written in 1933 but never published in the author's lifetime) would have been the place to start, as it lays out so many fundamental "truths" about how the game is played on its courses, as learned from the oldest one, St. Andrews, the most lasting test of skill for golfers. MacKenzie's ideas on laying out golf holes, their strategy of play, their construction, and other design considerations are thoughtful, but also written in a great manner, such that sentences here and there can be easily extracted from the main book and stand up on their own. His statements are strong and his position admirable, especially all these years later as the design ideals he held seem to be coming back into vogue. show less

As much as I hate to say this, I didn't think the book was very good. Mr. MacKenzie could sure design a great golf course and he sure could appreciate someone else's work in the same field but he was not a good writer. I'm glad I have the book, however, because has some interesting and valuable history in it. Sadly, this edition carries reproduced photographs of very poor quality. I hope that there is an edition out there somewhere which carries good reproductions because the subject matter show more would really profit from it and enthusiastic golf nuts would love them.
The chapter subjects are: The Evolution of Golf, General Principals (of golf architecture), Economy in Golf Course Construction, Ideal Holes and Golf Courses, Greenkeeping, In the 70's at 60, and Some Thoughts on Golf.
I have played several of his layouts in New Zealand and California and I have played St Andrews (the Old Course). I agree with almost all of Mr. MacKenzie's thoughts on course design. He was a clear and logical thinker and he improved the world he lived in. We who live later than him benefit from his life's work, whether we play golf or not. show less