Links Magazine | The Best Of Golf

Tee to green:
restore options
Augusta National’s recent installation of the “second cut” along with liberal pine-tree planting led all of the architects we questioned to unanimously recommend that the club restore the design to the wider, less cluttered look that could be found during Tiger Woods’ 1997 victory.

“Our first step in any renovation work is to work on the non-invasive stuff—removing trees and getting the mowing lines right—and as you know, the club has been moving in exactly the opposite direction for the past several years,” Doak says.

Australian architect Mike Clayton, who co-designed Barnbougle Dunes with Doak, is a well-known MacKenzie aficionado doing extensive master plan and renovation work Down Under. “Worse than the introduction of rough has been the use of trees to redefine the strategy at holes like the 11th and the 15th,” says Clayton. “Rather than determining the strategy, the pines have conspired to take away the most interesting options and the resulting penal nature of the driving areas has done nothing to add to the thrills of Masters Sunday—to say nothing of the fun for the members. The holes may be harder but are they better?”

Architect Mike DeVries grew up at MacKenzie’s Crystal Downs in Michigan and recently oversaw a restoration of the Good Doctor’s Meadow Club, north of San Francisco. While he’s not a fan of the recent tree planting, he feels there may be a more clever way to add challenge for Masters play without penalizing members.

“Instead of planting large groves of trees to dictate play, return to planting a small cluster of three to five trees or even specimens that could turn into the next Eisenhower Tree and which would reward or punish play,” he says. “I would mow tight turf around these areas to encourage aggressive play that challenges a tree. By getting around it, the player will gain a significant advantage. The risk/reward shot will return, instead of just punishing a misplayed shot.”

As for added length, few of the architects feel it is a top priority, except for possibly updating the members’ tees or proposing the addition of another set of tees to deal with the huge, undesirable gap between the back (7,445 yards) and member tees (6,230).

But that decision may have already been made. According to several published reports, the club has been actively scooping up real estate west of the course, with an eye toward more tee expansion on holes like the 455-yard 5th, which has become a drive and short iron in recent years.

MacKenzie bunkering
The architects polled were unanimous in their desire to maintain the ingenious placement of key hazards, while hoping that the committee would open up the club’s photo archives to facilitate a restoration of MacKenzie’s bunkering.

“To an Australian used to the wonderful ‘MacKenzie’ bunkers of the Melbourne Sandbelt, it is an oddity to see bunkers on a MacKenzie course so pristine, white and rounded off,” says Clayton. “The originals had more of a rustic, rugged and natural feel and one wonders what the course would look like if they were restored to the look and feel of MacKenzie hazards. The world over, his bunkers are subtly different, the result of different soils and the skills of the varying construction crews he used. But those at Augusta look nothing like the work of a Scot who was one of the first to extol the virtues of natural-looking hazards that appeared to be as much the work of nature as man.”

David Esler, whose rugged bunkering at the highly regarded Black Sheep Golf Club outside Chicago has earned rave reviews, concurs. “When one examines early photos, the serpentine bunkers of accidental character define hole strategy at MacKenzie’s Augusta,” he says. “MacKenzie’s bunkers seemed to be ripped from the earth or constructed as if they had bled from a seam in the soil and eroded down hill, exposing sand as they washed away the topsoil. The original bunkers backing the 13th green are exemplary examples of the latter.”