18Th Revision Mackenzie Chronology
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The Project Front and Back Cover Artwork by Thomas Naccarato In the late 1990’s Nick Leefe and Bob Beck launched an effort to document the physical presence and movements of the great architect Dr. Alister MacKenzie. That effort sparked club secretaries, historians, architects, professional writers, enthusiasts – in short, a global community of MacKenzie admirers – to share their knowledge. This, the 18th Revision of “The Dr. Alister MacKenzie Chronology,” is the latest product of that collective and continuing generosity, and once again expands considerably on the previous revision. Why are MacKenzie’s whereabouts important? A timeline establishes a foundation of fact. Upon this foundation researchers can build their narratives of history. Without this fact base, large gaps in time appear, and speculation is the all too-common and unfortunate result - the quality of scholarship is impoverished. The ramifications can be significant - original design features and perhaps entire courses disappear or suffer disfiguration, writings are misunderstood or misinterpreted, attributions are missed or made improperly. As readers, as golfers, and as caretakers of the game of golf, we suffer. Dr. MacKenzieAdvertisement photographed for on The American Golf Course ConstructionCover of a printed version of one of Postcard of oneRobert of MacKenzie’s Hunter, S.H. attractively Woodruff, unknown, shaped and Dr. Alister board the S.S.Company Berengaria showing en-route the 17th hole at MacKenzie & Hunter’sMacKenzie’s many lectures on the subject bunkers at MacKenziethe Hadley at Wood proposed GC nearDana LondonPoint Golf Course, California to England, March 9, 1926Cypress Point Club in California of Architecture and Greenkeeping. Photo courtesyPhoto courtesy:: Neil Crafter Dana Point Historical Society Photo courtesy: Neil Crafter Photo courtesy: Sean Tully Why? Why are MacKenzie’s whereabouts important? A timeline establishes a foundation of fact. Upon this foundation researchers can build their narratives of history. Without this fact base, large gaps in time appear, and speculation is the all too common and as an unfortunate result - the quality of scholarship can be impoverished. The ramifications can be significant - original design features and perhaps entire courses disappear or suffer disfiguration, writings are misunderstood or misinterpreted, attributions are missed or made improperly. As readers, as golfers, and as caretakers of the game of golf, we collectively are the poorer. Above - MacKenzie playing to the 6th green at Alwoodley GC, Leeds Photo Courtesy: Neil Crafter Above – Postcard of the 15th green at Cypress Point Club A chronology is much more than a series of dry facts. To read this Courtesy: Neil Crafter document is to know MacKenzie the designer whilst gaining an insight into the man. We are given the gift of seeing, in a single sweep of pages, MacKenzie’s global and decades-long pursuit of excellence in golf design - a pursuit that ended nearly 70 years ago, but whose ramifications and influence, improbably, continue down to our day. Further Research The process of compiling and continuing the research to update the MacKenzie Chronology has sparked two additional significant pieces of scholarship: * A detailed list of the golf courses MacKenzie designed, remodelled, or consulted to, and; * A bibliography of MacKenzie’s writings, both public writings in the form of newspapers, magazine articles and books, as well as private correspondence, plans, and reports. For a man who achieved such a rich and productive career, surprisingly few primary source documents are known to researchers. Some have been lost to fire, some to time. The authors therefore urge anyone with information on Dr. MacKenzie to contact them. Left - MacKenzie with his Sheffield MacKenzie Research Group collaborator A. E. Turnell on the Nick Leefe [email protected] Sheffield Municipal course they co- Leeds, England designed at Tinsley Park in 1919 Photo Courtesy: Neil Crafter [email protected] Neil Crafter Adelaide, Australia Sean Tully [email protected] San Francisco, USA Niall Carlton [email protected] Elgin, Scotland Mark Bourgeois [email protected] USA Mark Rowlinson [email protected] Manchester, England Nick Norton [email protected] London, England Dr. Alister MacKenzie at Moortown in 1908 Photo Courtesy: Neil Crafter th What’s New in the 18 Revision? This 18th Revision continues the effort and fills in many gaps in the chronology from the 17th, with around 380 new, revised or expanded th entries. This 18 Revision has primarily concentrated on newspaper sources from two continents; the British Newspaper Archive being a rich source for the two Leeds daily newspapers ‘The Yorkshire Post’ and ‘The Yorkshire Evening Post’, while Newspapers.com has allowed access to the Santa Cruz daily newspapers that provide a telling look into Mackenzie’s final years in California. Highlights of this revision include: * Mackenzie’s earliest recorded competitive game of golf and his membership of the Leeds Golf Club is pushed back to February 1899. * Details of MacKenzie’s participation as Surgeon officer in the 3rd Volunteer Batallion of the Prince of Wales’ Own West Yorkshire Regiment ‘The Leeds Rifles’ in the years between the Boer War and WW1. * Details of MacKenzie’s competitive golf career in Leeds playing at courses such as Leeds (Roundhay), Harrogate (Starbeck), Brough, Huddersfield (Fixby), Alwoodley, Ganton and Moortown. * Details of MacKenzie’s wedding to his first wife Edith Wedderburn, the wedding reception and their honeymoon in Scotland. * Information on pre-WW1 course design activity including Moortown, St. Leonards, Wakefield, Garforth, Ganton, Harrogate, Oakdale, Hallamshire, Scarborough, Dore & Totley, Dewsbury District, Filey, Wheatley Park, Fulford, South Shields, Howley Hall, & Sitwell Park. * Various classified advertisements placed by MacKenzie and his wife including seeking a new cook and selling his De Dion motor car. * Post-WW1 a number of luncheon talks were given by Mackenzie to groups in Leeds on various topics including camouflage & economics. * Information on post-WW1 courses including Cleveland, the Eden at St. Andrews, Nelson, Shipley, Walsall, Grange-over-Sands, London Flying Club, Pontefract, Knock, Ganton, Prestwick, Scarborough South Cliff, Templenewsam, Bradford, Moor Allerton, Hazlehead, South Leeds, Branshaw, Sand Moor, Victoria, Brisbane, Bonnie Doon, Rotorua and Douglas Municpal on the Isle of Man. MacKenzie’s time in California was remarkable for the impact of two women on his life, the first being Marion Hollins (seen at left with MacKenzie at Pasatiempo) and the other his second wife Hilda (at right with Mackenzie at Cypress Point) Page 5 * MacKenzie was a prolific writer of Letters to the Editors of various newspapers, especially the Leeds ones, on a range of diverse topics including Sunday Games, his golf courses and his favourite subjects of Economics and anti-Socialism. * Three courses, two in England and one in California, with a previously unknown MacKenzie design involvement have been discovered since the publishing of the last revision. The first of these is the Lancaster GC where MacKenzie reconstructed their course “on scientific lines”, the major portion of which had been completed by 1922, an involvement not known to the club’s historians. While he included Lancaster in his 1923 list of courses, there was, until now, no independent corroboration. The other is a new course in Northumberland, where MacKenzie designed a new 18-hole course at Otterburn Hall that had been converted to a Hydro Hotel. The course no longer exists, having gone out of use by 1951. And finally, it has been discovered that the firm of Mackenzie & Hunter undertook a redesign and reconstruction of the existing Rio del Mar G&CC in Aptos, near Santa Cruz, California in 1929-30, a previously unknown Californian project with construction by the American Golf Course Construction Co. * Further detail on the development and construction of the Augusta National GC through detailed research in the Olmsted Archives of the project’s planners and landscape architects the Olmsted Brothers. This research, undertaken by Josh Pettit and Mark Bourgeois, has also revealed for the first time MacKenzie’s plan for an Approach and Putt Course that was never built – see the back cover. * The Santa Cruz newspapers have been a source of considerable information regarding MacKenzie’s time in Santa Cruz, especially his golfing activities which increased greatly after he and Hilda settled in Pasatiempo, and they also show how his golf design activities correspondingly shrank in the immediate year or two before his death. These newspapers are also a great source of information concerning the long and difficult saga of his estate’s endeavours to recover his debts after his death in January 1934. We sincerely hope that you enjoy reading our 18th Revision of the Mackenzie Chronology and learn more about Mackenzie the golf course architect and the man. MacKenzie designed a public putting The 10th hole at Mackenzie & green in the Buxton Gardens, not far Hunter’s remodelling of the from his Cavendish course. California Golf Club in San Francisco. Page 6 The Dr. Alister MacKenzie Chronology 1870 - 1934 The 18th Revision September 2014 Entries shown in Green are new entries for the 18th Revision Key for 2nd column Red = Great Britain & Ireland; Brown = South Africa (Boer War); Orange = France (WW1); Blue = North America; Green = Australia/New