Speaker 1: Welcome to another edition of the Frida egg Podcast and
Speaker 1: to another episode of Frida Egg Stories, our audio documentary series.
Speaker 1: This is the second of these you've gotten in a row,
Speaker 1: so it's worth noting that this is not the permanent
Speaker 1: format going forward. You'll get just as many interviews and
Speaker 1: conversations as usual. Today's installment of Frida Egg Stories focuses
Speaker 1: on Royal Melbourne, the venue of this week's President's Cup. Specifically,
Speaker 1: the episode tells the story of doctor Alistair Mackenzie's ten
Speaker 1: week visit to Australia in nineteen twenty six. During that time,
Speaker 1: the great architect not only planned the West Course at
Speaker 1: Royal Melbourne, but also managed to have an influence on
Speaker 1: golf architecture throughout Australia. So right off the bat, I
Speaker 1: want to thank the experts who talk to me, Mike Clayton,
Speaker 1: Mike Cocking, Neil Crafter and Sean Tolly. I had long
Speaker 1: conversations with each of them, but used only brief excerpts
Speaker 1: for this episode. That's just the nature of this format.
Speaker 1: But many thanks to those four gentlemen for their generosity.
Speaker 1: All right, let's get to it. Here is the Doctor
Speaker 1: goes down Under.
Speaker 2: It requires a different technique.
Speaker 3: What you need to do is actually square the face
Speaker 3: so it'll dig down underneath that bad.
Speaker 4: Lie and propel that ball right out onto the green.
Speaker 2: Here's the thing.
Speaker 3: Playing out of a buried lion a bunker is completely
Speaker 3: different than playing out of a nice clean lion a
Speaker 3: green side bunker.
Speaker 5: You need to be aggressive on any show.
Speaker 1: Weather it's sitting cleanly, or it's Frida Egg. Well, we've
Speaker 1: all faked it, the dreaded Frida Egg. It's not to
Speaker 1: be feared, though.
Speaker 6: It's actually a pretty easy shot to hit.
Speaker 1: There's a particular sound that I love that we hear
Speaker 1: in golf tournaments only a few times a year, sometimes
Speaker 1: at the Open Championship, frequently at the Masters. It's this one.
Speaker 2: It's slow down, slow down.
Speaker 5: To right on the edge.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's gone. It's the unmistakable sound of a gallery
Speaker 1: and a broadcast crew reacting to a ball. In this case,
Speaker 1: Bubba Watson's rolling off the green and into trouble. There's
Speaker 1: a reason we usually hear this just at the Open
Speaker 1: and the Masters. Those events, unlike most these days, combine
Speaker 1: firm conditions with plenty of short grass around the greens.
Speaker 1: Firm means the ball rolls. Short grass means it rolls
Speaker 1: a long way. That's just fun to watch. The clip
Speaker 1: you heard isn't from the Open or the Masters, however,
Speaker 1: it comes from the NBC telecast of the twenty eleven
Speaker 1: President's Cup held at Royal Melbourne. On the final day,
Speaker 1: conditions got fiery and multiple players actually putted off the
Speaker 1: treacherous third green at Royal Melbourne's composite course. This week,
Speaker 1: the President's Cup returns there. For those interested in golf architecture,
Speaker 1: this is the rare December event that's one hundred percent
Speaker 1: appointment viewing because the West Course at Royal Melbourne, which
Speaker 1: makes up two thirds of the composite routing used for tournaments,
Speaker 1: is one of the very best golf courses in the world.
Speaker 1: It embodies much of what we at the Frida Egg
Speaker 1: love about golf course design. Each hole offers a distinct
Speaker 1: and memorable challenge. It's wide, so there's plenty of room
Speaker 1: for everyone to plod along, but if you want to
Speaker 1: go low, you'll either need to challenge the hazards or
Speaker 1: hit great shots from bad positions. The turf is firm,
Speaker 1: so your ball is going to run out after landing,
Speaker 1: which means angles and shot shaping really matter. Finally, Royal
Speaker 1: Melbourne is just charismatic in appearance, the undulations, the varied
Speaker 1: colors and textures, and those flamboyant bunkers which cut right
Speaker 1: into the greens. So who's responsible for this course? The
Speaker 1: name you'll hear most this week is the familiar one
Speaker 1: of Alistair McKenzie. In late nineteen twenty six, Mackenzie sailed
Speaker 1: to Australia and stayed for ten weeks. In that time,
Speaker 1: he left an indelible mark not just on the Melbourne
Speaker 1: sand belt, but on golf throughout the country. Today, many
Speaker 1: Australian clubs boast of mackenzie heritage, and one form or another,
Speaker 1: these include Kingston Heath, New South Wales, Rural Adelaide, Metropolitan,
Speaker 1: Rural Queensland. Basically a role call of the finest courses
Speaker 1: in Australia, and Mackenzie never even saw any of them
Speaker 1: in completed form because he never went back. And so
Speaker 1: I've always been curious, how did Alistair mackenzie have such
Speaker 1: an impact on Australian golf in just one two and
Speaker 1: a half month visit or are we all giving him
Speaker 1: too much credit? Prior to Mackenzie's visit, golf was popular
Speaker 1: down Under, but golf architecture wasn't particularly advanced.
Speaker 5: Billy Day's golf design was done by golf professionals, and
Speaker 5: you know, they were checksable trades if you like. You know,
Speaker 5: they could teach, they could make clubs, they could design
Speaker 5: golf courses where they necessarily terribly good at it. Well,
Speaker 5: that's sort of arguable.
Speaker 1: Neil Crafter is an Ozzie golf architect, historian and one
Speaker 1: of the writers of the Mackenzie Chronology. He has more
Speaker 1: knowledge about this subject than just about anyone. Crafter told
Speaker 1: me that by nineteen twenty six there were some good
Speaker 1: courses in Australia, but a lot of them, including Royal Melbourne,
Speaker 1: felt distinctly old fashioned. The shaping of the greens and
Speaker 1: bunkers was somewhat simplistic, and the philosophy of design was
Speaker 1: more penal than strategic. That is, the courses were designed
Speaker 1: to punish poor strikes rather than to engage players minds. Overall,
Speaker 1: by the nineteen twenties, golf architecture in Australia seemed to
Speaker 1: be stuck. In the late eighteen hundreds, the Victorian era.
Speaker 1: So when Royal Melbourne decided to relocate and expand its
Speaker 1: golf course, the club looked outside the country for help.
Speaker 1: They probably reached out to the famous English architect Harry
Speaker 1: Colt first, but they found Colt's former partner Alistair Mackenzie
Speaker 1: more willing to travel. In nineteen twenty six, mackenzie had
Speaker 1: not yet done Cyprus Point or Pass Tiempo or Augusta National,
Speaker 1: but his career was on the upswing. He was the
Speaker 1: consulting architect for the RNA and he was starting to
Speaker 1: become well known internationally.
Speaker 5: Up until that time, his work had been restricted geographically
Speaker 5: to England, Ireland, Scotland Wales, but nineteen twenty six saw him,
Speaker 5: I guess, branch out on the world stage.
Speaker 1: Getting to Australia from Great Britain was no mean feat
Speaker 1: back then. On September nineteenth, nineteen twenty six, Mackenzie boarded
Speaker 1: the ss A Toronto in London. The ship rounded the
Speaker 1: Iberian Peninsula, traveled east through the Mediterranean Sea and passed
Speaker 1: through the Suez Canal before the long trip across the
Speaker 1: Indian Ocean. It stopped in Ceylon or what is now
Speaker 1: known as Sri Lanka. Mackenzie actually visited a golf course there. Finally,
Speaker 1: on October nineteenth, the Toronto birthed at Fremantle in Western Australia.
Speaker 1: It had been a month long journey. Within a few
Speaker 1: days mckenns he arrived in Melbourne. While his primary task
Speaker 1: was to reimagine the golf at Royal Melbourne, he visited
Speaker 1: many other clubs during his stay.
Speaker 5: Very cleverly, the Royal Melbourne made an arrangement with mackenzie
Speaker 5: so that they wouldn't effectively loan him out to other
Speaker 5: golf courses in Australia while he was here and take
Speaker 5: half the half of the fee a two hundred and
Speaker 5: fifty pound fee they settled on Mackenzie would get half
Speaker 5: and Royal Melbourne would get half, and effectively the net
Speaker 5: result of that for Royal Melbourne was that McKenzie didn't
Speaker 5: cost them anything at all, because they made his feedback
Speaker 5: up out of the fees from the other golf clubs
Speaker 5: that he consulted to while he was here.
Speaker 1: Those clubs ranged through the most populous parts of Australia,
Speaker 1: from Adelaide to Melbourne, to Sydney to Brisbane. In addition
Speaker 1: to his busy travel schedule. Mackenzie had one other major
Speaker 1: method of spreading his influence.
Speaker 5: In nineteen twenty Mackenzie had put out his Little Green
Speaker 5: Book for golf archey and it was sort of his
Speaker 5: calling card, and so it's very clear that he bought
Speaker 5: a stack of them out with him when he came
Speaker 5: to Australia and probably part of the deal of Mackenzie
Speaker 5: designed for your course, you got a copy of his
Speaker 5: book along with it. There were many extracts from that
Speaker 5: book published in the newspapers in Melbourne. Mackenzie also wrote
Speaker 5: regular columns for these newspapers, so he was very good
Speaker 5: at marketing himself and his ideas.
Speaker 1: These ideas were essentially those of the strategic school of architecture,
Speaker 1: the ones that the old course at Saint Andrew's embodied,
Speaker 1: that John Lowe had articulated in his ratings, and that
Speaker 1: Harry Cole, Mackenzie's ex partner, had widely put into practice
Speaker 1: in the UK.
Speaker 5: The two ideas that I guess caused the most interest
Speaker 5: and controversy were the first one that there should be
Speaker 5: no rough. That was very controversial because I think there
Speaker 5: were a lot of golf courses that had rough thick
Speaker 5: Rough and liked the idea. Maybe the golfers themselves didn't,
Speaker 5: but the powers that we did that was one that
Speaker 5: was particularly promoted through some newspaper articles. And I think
Speaker 5: the other one primarily was the different lines of play
Speaker 5: that Mackenzie had promoted. That you could have a harder,
Speaker 5: more challenging direct line of play that the better player
Speaker 5: could take with a degree of risk associated with it,
Speaker 5: while providing an alternate, much safer, but longer line of
Speaker 5: play for shorter hitters to take to go around hazards
Speaker 5: rather than over them.
Speaker 1: In total, Mackenzie spent about ten weeks in Australia, about
Speaker 1: half of those at Royal Melbourne. He then sailed to
Speaker 1: New Zealand where he designed tit Orangi, and from there
Speaker 1: to California where he planned Sapress Point. But the impact
Speaker 1: those ten weeks in Australia had on the future of
Speaker 1: golf in the country was profound.
Speaker 5: At the end of it, you had more courses in
Speaker 5: their genesis of Royal Melbourne, New South Wales. These courses
Speaker 5: hadn't existed before Mackenzie, and people couldn't really imagine what
Speaker 5: they would be like. So very much a watershed moment
Speaker 5: for golf in Australia. And you know, to this day,
Speaker 5: the West Course a Royal Melbourne is still in Australia's
Speaker 5: best golf course. And you know we're talking about ninety
Speaker 5: years on, nearly from its opening. So you know, if
Speaker 5: that's not testament to McKenzie and his the impact of
Speaker 5: his trip, then nothing is.
Speaker 2: Yeah the course player's birth.
Speaker 3: I thought I watched Savvy play there in nineteen seventy eight.
Speaker 3: I watched pretty much every hole and Savvy just know
Speaker 3: Kensie built that course for him.
Speaker 1: Mike Clayton is a former European tour pro now a
Speaker 1: golf architect and for him, the artistry of Mackenzie's work
Speaker 1: at Royal Melbourne comes fully into relief when someone plays
Speaker 1: it with artistry.
Speaker 3: You know, it was a perfect stage for Sevie to
Speaker 3: play golf, because that was the golf Mackenzie wanted people
Speaker 3: to play.
Speaker 2: He wanted people to play with freedom and flair.
Speaker 3: And you know, if you hit the ball out of place,
Speaker 3: he gave you a chance to recover if you could hit.
Speaker 2: The great shot.
Speaker 3: But if you tried for the great shot and didn't
Speaker 3: pull it off, then you're in a whole, a whole
Speaker 3: part more trouble Sevi. You could hit it out of place,
Speaker 3: but McKenzie gave him a shot and gave him a chance,
Speaker 3: and he was great enough to pull it off because
Speaker 3: he would.
Speaker 2: Hit those towering high middle lines and long lines and
Speaker 2: get him on the greens.
Speaker 3: And if you missed on the short side, he was
Speaker 3: great enough around the green. So please give himself a
Speaker 3: chance to get up and down.
Speaker 2: He was building.
Speaker 3: He wanted people to play golf like Sebie. When people
Speaker 3: criticize Sebie, that's how mackenzie saw people playing golf, play
Speaker 3: with flair and imagination and you know, don't play tight, restrictive,
Speaker 3: pokey golf.
Speaker 1: For Clayton Royal Melbourne and encourages this kind of golf
Speaker 1: as well as Saint Andrews does, or as well as
Speaker 1: Augusta National did before Tiger proofing. And one big reason
Speaker 1: for that is the preponderance of short grass around the greens.
Speaker 3: When you miss the granite roll Melbourne, you get a
Speaker 3: really difficult shot played off a perfect lie was in
Speaker 3: the PJA two. With all that ruffer and the grains,
Speaker 3: you get really easy shots my difficult because they've played
Speaker 3: out of terrible lives. It's kind of obvious which one
Speaker 3: is A better option to me is that difficult shots
Speaker 3: played off perfect lives where you can hit anyone of
Speaker 3: literally twelve clubs.
Speaker 1: Probably difficult shots from perfect lies. I'd never thought of
Speaker 1: it that way before, but so often those shots are
Speaker 1: the most fun to watch because if the lie is easy,
Speaker 1: the golf course has to do something else, often something
Speaker 1: subtle or delayed, to make the situation hard. Both the
Speaker 1: player and the viewer have a more complex puzzle to solve,
Speaker 1: and that's what you get at Royal Melbourne that you
Speaker 1: so rarely get at PGA Tour venues, real complexity.
Speaker 3: Last time with they were one of the pg I
Speaker 3: rules officials told me this would be a much better course.
Speaker 2: They would have more rask, which.
Speaker 3: Was just a mind boggling misunderstanding of what the course is.
Speaker 3: It needs with and it needs the boat to run
Speaker 3: out to the bad angles, and it needs a bolt
Speaker 3: to run away from the grains if.
Speaker 2: You miss them.
Speaker 3: So if the PGA Tour had its hand and set
Speaker 3: the golf goes up exactly the way they wanted to,
Speaker 3: that would kind of ruin it. Really, I'll just grow
Speaker 3: rough everywhere and just the whole point of the place
Speaker 3: would be lost and be like growing rough around the
Speaker 3: grains of Augusta.
Speaker 1: Thankfully, the club at Royal Melbourne, like the one of Augusta,
Speaker 1: has a great deal of institutional pride. No one's going
Speaker 1: to tell them how to set up their golf course.
Speaker 1: So if the weather cooperates at the President's Cup, we
Speaker 1: should see the ball doing all sorts of things around
Speaker 1: the greens. The key to this is not only short grass,
Speaker 1: but also the firmness of the turf, something Royal Melbourne
Speaker 1: has in common with all of the best sand belt
Speaker 1: courses Australia.
Speaker 4: To me right now, there's the reason why a bunch
Speaker 4: of superintendents get excited when in you know, in golfers
Speaker 4: as well, but more so for the for the superintendent
Speaker 4: is we get to see a golf course that's playing
Speaker 4: firm and fast and you just get to see the
Speaker 4: ball move.
Speaker 1: Sean Tully is the superintendent at the Meadow Club, a
Speaker 1: Mackenzie course in California.
Speaker 4: It's important to have firm conditions and instead of being
Speaker 4: green and lush, the idea is to not worry about color,
Speaker 4: and you're not playing on color, you're playing on turf,
Speaker 4: and again it doesn't matter the color. It just matters
Speaker 4: to the furnace. So you can get it firm with green,
Speaker 4: and you can get it firm with brown. The most
Speaker 4: important part is to find that firmness to hell with
Speaker 4: the color, you know, figure out how you get to
Speaker 4: that firmnace, if it's strainage, sand, top dressing or different grasses.
Speaker 4: I think if there's one thing Australia's got.
Speaker 7: Right, it's that.
Speaker 1: And as Ozzie golf architect Mike Cocking explained to me,
Speaker 1: the firmness of Royal Melbourne is key to its strategic integrity.
Speaker 6: You know, one of the challenges as an architect is
Speaker 6: you can create the most strategic golf haul in the world,
Speaker 6: but if the grains is soft, you can't defend it.
Speaker 6: The ability or the way that guys can hit short
Speaker 6: eynes these days and stop them quickly even if they're
Speaker 6: out of position, you just can't defend some of these
Speaker 6: holes against that. But at Royal Melbourne's it's the firmest,
Speaker 6: fastest golf course, one of the firmest, fastest golf courses
Speaker 6: in the world, and that just further enhances that strategic
Speaker 6: notion of being in the right position or the wrong position.
Speaker 6: For every yard you are out of position, that shot
Speaker 6: into the green just becomes more difficult with every yard.
Speaker 7: So it's an incredibly strategic golf course.
Speaker 1: Clearly, Royal Melbourne's turf conditions are integral to its greatness,
Speaker 1: and obviously Alistair mackenzie isn't responsible for that. He was
Speaker 1: never out there attending native areas or edging bunkers or
Speaker 1: sprinkling sand on the greens. In fact, he was present
Speaker 1: for the construction of only a couple of holes. So
Speaker 1: while the firm and fast turf and the fascinating green
Speaker 1: complexes we've been discussing, Embardi Mackenzie's ideas were put in
Speaker 1: the ground by others, specifically at Royal Melbourne, by a
Speaker 1: pair of supremely talented individuals, Alex Russell and Mick Morecombe.
Speaker 1: While he was in Melbourne, Alistair Mackenzie boarded at the
Speaker 1: Royal Melbourne Clubhouse. Just across the road was the home
Speaker 1: of Alex Russell, a well to do young member of
Speaker 1: the club and one of the best golfers in Australia.
Speaker 1: Although Russell was twelve years younger than Mackenzie, the two
Speaker 1: men had a lot in common. Both had served in
Speaker 1: the British Army in the Great War, both had attended
Speaker 1: Cambridge University, and both had an absorbing passion for golf architecture.
Speaker 1: By all accounts, they got along famously. Mick Morecambe was
Speaker 1: the superintendent at Royal Melbourne and as it turned out,
Speaker 1: one of the most gifted shapers in golf history. Together,
Speaker 1: Morecambe and Russell learned what they could from McKenzie in
Speaker 1: November and December of nineteen twenty six, and they proceeded
Speaker 1: to build the West Course according to McKenzie's plan, certainly,
Speaker 1: but also using their own career creativity. From there, along
Speaker 1: with Mick's son, Vern, they essentially created what we now
Speaker 1: know as sam Belt Golf, and Mike Carking, for one,
Speaker 1: would rather not see their legacy overshadowed by mackenzie's.
Speaker 6: So every single sad Belt course bar Peninsula, either Vern,
Speaker 6: Mick or Alex Russell was involved with at some point
Speaker 6: in time. You know, some courses really heavily involved, like Yaria,
Speaker 6: whereas at Russell Design and the Malcoms were involved in
Speaker 6: constructing it, you know, to Commonwealth to Woodlands, so really
Speaker 6: they are involved basically everywhere, which is why they deserve
Speaker 6: some credit or at least a part in the discussion
Speaker 6: of when the sand belt comes up in the look
Speaker 6: and the feel of sam Belt golf, which is particularly
Speaker 6: the particularly the bunkering. You know, those two guys really
Speaker 6: need to be part of the discussion.
Speaker 1: In fact, as a solo architect, Russell produced a remarkable
Speaker 1: quality of work.
Speaker 6: You know, Russell probably has the best strike rate of
Speaker 6: any architect in history. Really when you consider he did
Speaker 6: his four main courses were like carrying out the ace
Speaker 6: course at Real Melbourne, Yariara and Paraperomu.
Speaker 7: In New Zealand said great strike right.
Speaker 1: So for my fellow Americans out there, strike rate is
Speaker 1: a cricket term, we would say batting average. Basically, every
Speaker 1: time Russell tried, he at least got a triple. So
Speaker 1: clearly Russell, as well as mcmorcam had serious skills. They're
Speaker 1: the ones who actually built the courses. The same is
Speaker 1: true of many Mackenzie courses. In fact, think of Perry
Speaker 1: Maxwell at Crystal Downs or Robert Hunter at Cyprus Point.
Speaker 1: That kind of thing makes the issue of credit at
Speaker 1: Royal Melbourne and elsewhere somewhat complicated.
Speaker 6: And that's where it gets a little bit hazy, because
Speaker 6: you can sort of look at Mackenzie and look at
Speaker 6: his primary influence, the plans he drew and the things
Speaker 6: he did while he was here, and I mean really
Speaker 6: other than those plans, which aren't always that accurate, and
Speaker 6: he you know, he had a tendency to exaggerate of
Speaker 6: his green drawings and things like that. So a lot
Speaker 6: of it was how he communicated it to the guys
Speaker 6: on the ground. And when he was here he only
Speaker 6: saw a couple of things being built and that was it.
Speaker 7: Then he left.
Speaker 6: He never wrote about his time in Melbourne in the
Speaker 6: spirit of Snandrew's. He had a picture of some dunes
Speaker 6: at Royal Adelaide and made a comment about, you know,
Speaker 6: how great it is as golfing ground, but never talked
Speaker 6: about how good the land was at Royal Melbourne or
Speaker 6: how well he thought the design was going to turn out.
Speaker 6: So it was really left to the Morcams and to
Speaker 6: Russell to execute his plans, certainly at Real Melbourne and
Speaker 6: then at some of the other courses just to the Markhams.
Speaker 6: And it's hard to know, I mean, how much did
Speaker 6: he how much did he actually teach him in ten
Speaker 6: weeks and did he really teach them much at all?
Speaker 7: I mean did it was just some passing comments.
Speaker 6: So did they really deserve the credit for a lot
Speaker 6: of the work, particularly for the style.
Speaker 7: Of the sandal bunkering and for some of the green complexes.
Speaker 6: So it's kind of murky when you start trying to
Speaker 6: apply credit for specific things.
Speaker 1: At the same time, a lot of fantastic golf courses
Speaker 1: in Australia started the same way with a visit from
Speaker 1: Alistair mackenzie.
Speaker 6: I guess if you look at the bigger picture, would
Speaker 6: any of that work have ever been carried out the
Speaker 6: way it has been if he had never come?
Speaker 7: And you would have to say, well, now.
Speaker 1: There's no denying Mackenzie' Johnny Appleseed effect. Wherever he went,
Speaker 1: world class golf courses seemed to sprout up in his weak.
Speaker 2: If you want to know.
Speaker 3: Having fluenil McKenzie I was look at the places he
Speaker 3: didn't go in Australia, person terrible golf Prisbone. He went
Speaker 3: to Royal Queens and that's the only decent golf course there.
Speaker 3: And well that Slides did a new course that we did,
Speaker 3: So you know, McKenzie's influence was. It's definitely not a coincidence.
Speaker 3: Where he went he left great golf and where he
Speaker 3: didn't go there isn't great goal.
Speaker 1: Mike Clayton goes as far as to say that if
Speaker 1: mackenzie had spent more time in Western Australia, things would
Speaker 1: have turned out differently there.
Speaker 3: If mackenzie had gone to Perth and had the influence
Speaker 3: he had in Melbourne, Perth of the best course in
Speaker 3: the world. It's got incredible lamb and Melbourne's got shiplamb
Speaker 3: for golvit to Sandy it's not ship lamb, but that's exaggeration,
Speaker 3: but low It was flat sand that Perth had, undulating
Speaker 3: sam with much better vegetation. So his influence had been
Speaker 3: the same in perthos that was in Melburn, Perth would
Speaker 3: have an incredible golf.
Speaker 1: Basically, Clayton acknowledges the importance of Russell and Morcambe, but
Speaker 1: he maintains that Mackenzie's philosophical influence was the decisive factor.
Speaker 3: Mackenzie deserves the credit for the principle of the golf
Speaker 3: he wanted to play. He deserves the credit for the
Speaker 3: holes he routed and re routed. He deserves the credit
Speaker 3: because the type of golf it's on the ground was his.
Speaker 1: In this light, what's even more impressive than Mackenzie's ideas
Speaker 1: themselves was his preternatural ability to communicate them, to persuade
Speaker 1: others to adopt them, and to teach others to give
Speaker 1: form to them even in his absence.
Speaker 3: His skill was being able to articulate both through his
Speaker 3: book and through the meetings.
Speaker 2: He had with him.
Speaker 3: What they spoke about together was how he wanted the
Speaker 3: golf to be. Between Morcambe and Mackenzie, and Russelle came
Speaker 3: up with a unique kind of.
Speaker 2: Look to the bunkers, which works incredibly well.
Speaker 3: So his influence was profound, but it was profound through
Speaker 3: his book and through what he articulated to.
Speaker 2: The guys about how how he wanted the golf to be.
Speaker 3: Certainly a masterclass in short term instruction on how to
Speaker 3: build the golf he life, and he trusted him.
Speaker 7: To do it.
Speaker 1: So one takeaway here is that a great golf course
Speaker 1: architect needs a peculiar mixture of personal qualities. On the
Speaker 1: one hand, Mackenzie was brash, and the way you have
Speaker 1: to be if you're going to show up in a
Speaker 1: part of the world you've never been and start telling
Speaker 1: everyone what to do.
Speaker 3: It didn't sound like he was that charming, Like he
Speaker 3: was pretty sure of his own opinion, which in his
Speaker 3: position you had to be. I mean, you know, he
Speaker 3: wasn't going to be swayed off what he thought, and
Speaker 3: he certainly wasn't going to be told by committees what
Speaker 3: to do.
Speaker 2: He was interesting, he was a mattock. He was full,
Speaker 2: so he was arrogant.
Speaker 3: He was all those things that attracted people who had
Speaker 3: gride it what they did to their croft.
Speaker 1: In other words, mackenzie was a gifted leader. No doubt
Speaker 1: he could be cocky, but he was also good at
Speaker 1: building friendships, and he did so with, among others, Robert Hunter,
Speaker 1: Perry Maxwell and Alex Russell. Those are three very brilliant
Speaker 1: and very different people, yet Mackenzie managed to connect with
Speaker 1: each of them to convince each of them to follow
Speaker 1: through on his vision. On top of that, Mackenzie was
Speaker 1: secure enough to allow all of them Hunter at Cyprus Point,
Speaker 1: Maxwell at Crystal Downs, and Russell and Morcombe at Royal
Speaker 1: Melbourne to use their own judgment. So while those three
Speaker 1: courses are mackenzie designs through and through they're best understood
Speaker 1: as interpretations of his philosophy by his associates on the
Speaker 1: ground their collaborations. You could say the same, in fact
Speaker 1: about a lot of the greatest golf courses, not just Mackenzie's.
Speaker 1: The old course at Saint Andrew's is the result of
Speaker 1: many contributions from many people of many different generations. In
Speaker 1: designing Pine Valley, George Crump continually sought out the smartest
Speaker 1: people he could find and asked for their feedback. The
Speaker 1: more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that
Speaker 1: the most underrated skills in a golf course architect are
Speaker 1: the interpersonal ones. The ability to identify talented collaborators, to
Speaker 1: get along with them, to mentor them, and to inspire
Speaker 1: them to be the most capable and creative versions of themselves.
Speaker 1: That's what Mackenzie could do, and it's why his single
Speaker 1: ten week visit to Australia had such an impact. Now.
Speaker 1: Then again, if Mackenzie had lived in the twenty first century,
Speaker 1: I bet he wouldn't have been his hands off with
Speaker 1: Royal Melbourne.
Speaker 2: In today's world.
Speaker 3: It'd have flown back to see it, jumped on a
Speaker 3: plane and gone back at you allowed to check it out,
Speaker 3: and he would have said to us, I've got this
Speaker 3: job at sarbers Point and now, gous they have a
Speaker 3: jumping on a plan land, let's go and go that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, those courses to get when you can jump on
Speaker 2: a plane and be there in an off of die.
Speaker 1: Now, that's essentially what Corn Crenshaw, Tom Doak and Gilhants
Speaker 1: do today. They have crews of associates and shapers who
Speaker 1: follow them from job to job all over the world,
Speaker 1: and after finishing the course, the architects can go back
Speaker 1: regularly to check up and make tweaks. This has probably
Speaker 1: helped with quality control. In the nineteen twenties, every time
Speaker 1: Mackenzie went to a new place he had to assemble
Speaker 1: a new team just out of the local population, and
Speaker 1: sometimes after leaving he never returned. So yes, the modern
Speaker 1: approach does make things a bit easier and less risky,
Speaker 1: but there's always a price for comfort. Is it possible
Speaker 1: that we've lost the notion of local variations of a
Speaker 1: great golf course architect's work? This week we'll see the
Speaker 1: most distinctive of the Mackenzie variations. Royal Melbourne is one
Speaker 1: of the world's best golf courses, not just because Alistair
Speaker 1: mackenzie planned it brilliantly, but also because, in adapting that plan,
Speaker 1: Alex Russell and mc yorcumb used their own knowledge of
Speaker 1: the indigenous landscape and their own eccentric artistry. The result
Speaker 1: was a one of a kind golf course, and now
Speaker 1: ninety years later, we get to see it on TV
Speaker 1: far more clearly than its designer ever got to see
Speaker 1: it in his life. This was the second episode of
Speaker 1: Friday Stories. It was created and hosted by me Garrett Morrison,
Speaker 1: with editing from Jay Vick. Our executive producer is Andy Johnson.
Speaker 1: Thank you, as always for listening.