I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset. And when I find my.
Ball in a bride egg Frida egg, the dreaded Frida Egg, Frida Egg, Frida Egg, bride.
Egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off the golf course. Welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast. Today's episode is with Josh Pettitt. Josh put together a wonderful book called The Mackenzie Reader. He's also in golf architecture. He owns Pacific Golf Design, does a lot of golf architecture work, so it was it was awesome to have him on and talk about his book, The McKenzie Reader, that he released last year. Is a beautiful, beautiful book
and definitely one worth checking out. But we talk a ton about the book and then also just Alistair McKenzie in general, his favorite anecdotes. He's done a ton of Alistair McKenzie research, so this was a really fun conversation. I was planning on putting together a second conversation for this,
but I am traveling. Been kind of a hectic schedule going from LACC to the East Coast has not been friendly with the with the jet lag and the new hours on the East Coast with some early mornings to shoot, but really really great seeing some new new golf courses out here.
It was blown away by Hollywood the other day.
We had an event out there and what a cool place, a Walter Travis design that you know, we will have a write up in the future on Club TFE. If you haven't signed up for Club tfy do so if you want to you know more from We've been writing basically daily articles Monday through Friday on there, and we do in depth course profiles where we kind of break down the architecture of different courses, a wide spectrum of them, from private to public golf courses all over the country and a.
Little bit in the UK.
So real quick, I wanted to do some closing thoughts from LACC and the US Open.
I was out there all week. I'm not gonna lie.
I don't think the atmosphere was great, the fan experience wasn't great. The you know, the whole ticket situation that everybody's talking about, the limited number of tickets for the US Open, that wasn't great. But what I can say unequivocally having attended a lot of the recent US Opens, this was the best US Open set up in a long time. I think that John Bodenhammer and his team deserve a ton of credit for the sensational set up.
In presentation of Los Angeles Country Club, I thought the test, you know, everybody was talking about low scores, and I think it was kind of a silly thing to think about when you look at the When you look at the front nine, the eighth hole is a five hundred and ten yard par five. These guys were hitting five wood and and then like six iron into it. The reality of par is that the definition of par is what an expert player, how many shots it takes them to get to the green and then plus two putts
the first and the eighth hole. If the players, if every player in the field hit the fairway, they were going for that green and they were going to probably reach it pretty easily. Those aren't par fives in the actuality. I think it was great leaving the first hole a par five to respect the way that George Thomas intended golf courses to start like an opener, super easible, easy, gettable hole in terms.
Of par a hard par four coming up after that.
Now, if we just changed the par to sixty eight like it was, that's what this golf court. It was a par sixty eight for these guys. There was a reachable par four and two reachable par five, two par fives that are really par four's on the front nine. If we change the par to sixty eight, all of a sudden, the low score a window. Clark wins at two under. Nobody's complaining about score to par. If he wins it two under, this is silly, you know that way. If you do it that way, two guys were under
par for this tournament. Anyways, let's just talk about scoring a little bit more. Thursday, I think was the day that everybody freaked out. Xander Schaffley and Ricky Fowler shoot sixty twos. It was an ideal scoring day. Overcast, it sprits a little early in the morning, and that overcast and the in the air and on the ground just allowed it to be soft. There was no wind. Add end, the USGA is playing their first ever.
US Open at LACC.
One of the big concerns heading into the week was pace of play and also just you know, you want to feel your way into that setup. So yes, it was scorable, but you had to play great to score That's the thing that's kind of lost on everybody. You had to play awesome to score well. You had to hit fairways. If you weren't in the fairway. It was really hard golf course. And Ricky Fowler and Xander Schoffley shoot these sixty twos.
It's not like these.
Guys ran away to twenty under. They were way over par after that round. You know, if you look at the rest of their tournament, they were over par. It was a hard golf course, it was. It really did a great job of separating the players that were playing well, the players that were playing mediocre, the guys that were playing bad. I mean, like Justin Thomas shoots eighty one, Like this was a golf course that really you knew
how somebody was playing based off of their scores. The other thing, the golf course got tougher and tougher every day. That's what you want from a championship setup. You want the golf course to peek on Sunday. You don't want it to peak on Thursday or Friday or even Saturday Sunday. You want that to be the toughest day. If you look at the final groups on Sunday, it was really hard. Nobody broke par in the last three groups. Now, before you say, well Tommy Fleetwood shot sixty three, had a
really good look at sixty two. Look at what happened throughout the week, the low scores and everybody that knew, everybody that was there knew this. The low scores were available in the morning, That's when the course was more receptive. That's when the wind was down. You know, on Sunday the marine layer stayed in again, that moisture stayed in the air. It clears up in the after it gets
brutally tough. And why this didn't matter, why it didn't matter that Tommy fleet would shot sixty three was the golf course had done its job.
There weren't forty guys.
Within six shots and Tommy Fleetwood sixty three could all sudden win him the tournament. Tommy Fleetwood was so far back because this golf course had identified that he was not a contender. There were four guys that could win this golf tournament on Sunday, and they were awesome players. You obviously had Wyndham Clark, Rory McElroy, Scotti, Scheffler, and Ricky Fowler. Those were the only four guys who had a chance to win on Sunday. I'm sorry if you think somebody else did.
They didn't.
I think everybody in the field knew they didn't have a shot. There was no way someone was coming from six back on this golf course and leapfrogging those four players in a late tea time. Sure Tommy Fleetwood could shoot sixty three and surge up the leaderboard, but he was too far back because he hadn't played well enough at a golf course that identified he hadn't played well enough early in the week. And that's the thing about this golf course that I think needs to be remembered.
It gave people enough space to play and it really identified who was playing best. I you know, I think LACC has gotten a lot of flak for scoring. I think that's unfounded and wrong. You know this is this was a great tournament of really like wonderful competition from a golf standpoint, where they do deserve some grief. And the USDA shares of this probably is on the fan experience. On the atmosphere. It lacked a lot of pop, not having any fans around the and this is hard, the
hard situation. Some it was tight, but one of the reasons that it was so tight is that all the back teas they're using. You know, if they don't have to use all these back tees, there's al sudden a lot more space for grand stands, more tickets can be sold. But also, you know, the corporate aspect of this, like more than half. You can't have a tournament where more than half the tickets go to corporate like that shouldn't happen.
And if you can contrast this with last year's US Open, last year's US Open was probably my favorite tournament of the year.
I don't know.
The Open Championship was great too. Those were two sensational tournaments. But if I think about last year's US Open, which was a sensational tournament, that atmosphere was unbelievable. I think the competition and the way the golf course kind of selected players was better this year. And I thought the country Club was a great US Open venue, So I think if you look at it from the way the golf courses tested players, I think this year's US Open was a little bit better. But then the atmosphere of
last year's US Open. It was electric on the weekend. It was awesome that one would be just so exponentially higher than LACC. I think they are both really good US Opens, and I think, you know, the I'm excited for when they go back to LACC in twenty odd years. Obviously they're all booked up. We can talk about that another time. But Riviera just got the twenty thirty one US Open. That'll be interesting, you know, in eight years. We're talking about eight years, but it'll be interesting to
see how that one's set up. Given the complaints of LACC, it seems like that is an even smaller site. So let's talk about the four guys that could win the tournament on Sunday and kind of where they go from here. The champion, Wyndham Clark. I can't believe the discourse on Wyndam Clark about. I mean, this guy played great golf. Look at who he beat. He beat Rory, he beat Scottie,
and he beat Ricky Fowler. He beat two players that are often considered the best player in the game right now, and Rory and Scottie, and then the other guy is one of the best modern players without a major so Wyndham Clark played great. He's on a meteoric rise. He's up to thirteenth in the OWGR. I think what's being a little bit overlooked and the disappointment that Rory didn't
win is who knows what Wyndham Clark could become. He's got all the ingredients to be a very very very good player on the PGA Tour and in the world of golf. He's super long, he's got a great short game, he's a great putter, and his approach place improving, Like that's what you look for. He's a guy that can
do everything. So you start to think, like, and we do this every major where we start to project out what a player might end up with, you know, famously, like after Sergio won the Masters, it was like, is this going to open the floodgates? Are we going to have these Sergio major wins? No? No, you know this. We almost always air on the two high side. But with Wyndham Clark, like, let's just say a low bar. I probably think a low bar is five wins in
his career in a Ryder Cup. Just to give that some context, Gary Woodland, this is not meant to be a drive by Gary Woodland a US Open at Pebble Beach that nobody really complained about. He's got four wins in his career, so I don't think this is going to be a disastrous US Open winner.
On the high end, I think a.
Skill set really translates well. He could be a top twenty player for five six years maybe more. Maybe he's kind of like an older Brooks Kopka where he wins, he picks up not Brooks.
I mean he's not gonna win.
I don't think he's gonna win five majors, but maybe he picks off another one. His game certainly fits a lot of golf courses. So Wyndham Clark I think obviously a huge winner from the week and somebody that people should be excited about. I think he gave a really good press conference where he talked a lot about his process, what he's gone through, and I love his approach with no coach of how he's just trying to get back to neutral.
It was.
It was a.
Phenomenal interview where he just talked about, hey, if I'm drawing the ball, I'm trying to hit cuts to get back to neutral. If I'm cutting the ball, I'm trying to get hit draws to get back to neutral, and I've never played better.
I mean, I think that's a.
Really interesting way and we need more of this in the game of golf for the younger generation to see, Hey, you don't need your swing micro analyzed after every single shot, Like you don't need that, you know, speaking of that, Like what was interesting is like, you know, Wyndham Clark, Rory didn't have a coach there, Scottie, Randy Smith wasn't there. I don't think on the weekend, you know, three of those guys and I don't think Ricky had a coach there.
The four guys that had a chance to win and have coaches on the range with them this weekend, all right, the gut wrenching second place. Rory McElroy. I think this one, this one was tough. He played well enough to win. He certainly played well enough to win if he had a good putting week, he wins. I think the my criticism for Rory after the after oak Hill was that he was too sloppy. He wasn't really sloppy, you know.
I think that when you watch Rory McElroy play Major championship golf, You often get frustrated with the week bogies the week, you know, just the giveaways, and seemingly there is always one or two.
In every round. This week was a lot different.
I think there were really three giveaways, and I think one of them is tough to point out as a giveaway. He had two three putts. The one on eight on Sunday was really bad. That needs to be a birdie, right there's in the playoff. I think the the fourteenth, the web shot on Sunday that everybody's going to focus on.
That was that was not great.
I mean he was, he was a yard from it being really great, really great shot, but he was you know, also had five yards of space beyond the flag where that has to be the miss. Miss has to be past the flag, you have to have a twenty footer, and I think he gave.
Himself a lot of those types of looks on a very.
Hard golf course and in the nobody wants to hear this, but the simple fact of that tournament was Rory didn't make anything on the weekend.
Nothing.
He made no putts, and sometimes that that's what golf comes down to. One guy makes putts, the other guy didn't and Rory didn't make putts. I think the the one other place that you can look at and say, man, that was a missed opportunity was Saturday. He three putts on thirteen. That hole just kind of was a bugaboo. I think for him in general, he bogeated two of the four days. But you know, where does he go
from here? I think he's got to come away from this feeling great about his game and future major championships.
I think he is.
I think he's cleaned up a lot of the things that kind of made him struggle early in the year, especially with majors. He's driving the ball great. I think what I would like to see from him is a real dedication to the wedge play. It's obviously been kind of a thorn inside. We saw it running into the tournament where the wedge play has been a struggle, and we saw it pop up on fourteen. I think he
was pretty solid outside of that. Major championships are about opportunities and being there, and I think like this is going to parlay into Scotti, But Rory's now at the point where he knows how hard these things are to win. It makes it a little bit tougher, but he's getting himself. And now this is two days, two years in a row with Saint Andrews in here where he is on the back nine and he just he needs a couple putts to drop, and he just didn't have a couple
putts drop. And I think we can overanalyze everything, but that's the really the basics.
Of this for him. Scotty Scheffler, what a player.
I mean, it is extraordinary what he's doing this season in terms of consistency. He hasn't finished outside the top twenty in forever. It's amazing to watch a guy. I watched Scotty his entire round on Thursday, and then I watched his entire round on Sunday, and I caught obviously him intermittently throughout the rest of the tournament. A lot of nights I was watching the telecast after the golf was over. Scotty contended in this major when he didn't really have it. He was really slow out of the
gates on Thursday. Sunday, he missed the bunch of short putts and you start to add up the totals and you're like, wow, he missed two or three short puts on Sunday, and he finished three shots out of the lead, out of being in a playoff factor in he opened the tournament on the most ideal scoring conditions ever, he was shot two over on the front nine. He has to feel a little bit like, man, this is crazy that I'm not winning, given how many how well I'm playing.
As a whole body of work.
He obviously won the Masters in twenty twenty one in record setting fashion, not record setting, but like he was dominant. It was a dominant, dominant win. He's been in contention basically in every single major since. He wasn't really in the open at St. Andrews, but really like he's been a factor at all these majors and leading into that Masters when he was a fact during a ton of major championships. Like this guy is built for major championships.
That being said, what we just talked about with Rory, the one worry I have about Scotty is like, is he starting to learn how hard it is to win these majors? You kind of and I think, like Colin Morikawa is in this state right now, and I think
it's that's the tough thing. Like you want these young players to keep picking them off, Brooks just dealt with this where he had the injuries and everything, and all of a sudden it went from making majors look easy to they're really really hard and you get like kind of a mental block. And I think with the putter, that's that reappeared on Sunday. He was pretty solid throughout
the week. The putter'spent a problem, but winning major championships is really hard, and when you know it's really hard, it just makes it tougher. I think there's a naive nature that some these young players now have to winning majors and winning golf tournaments, and it's it's hard when you lose that mindset. And Scotty I expect him to contend at the Open, and I think he's probably by far the best player in the world right now, just based off everybody's looking to be consistent. He's the most
consistent player. Hopefully he's not developing any of the scar tissue, because that's that's I think the one thing that could slow him down in major championships.
All right. Ricky Fowler, he he had a great week.
I think he was obviously the story of the week until Sunday, and uh, it was it was amazing to feel the energy. You know, there wasn't a ton of energy out at LACC, but where there was a lot of energy was with Ricky Fowler. I followed him on Saturday extensively, and you know, you could just feel the graciousness of or Friday afternoon, the greciousness of the crowd. You know, they just you could sense that everybody was
pulling for Rick. He's had an awesome year. If you go back and look after last year's playoffs, he was one hundred and sixty seventh in the world rankings. Right now he's thirty fifth. He's on a meteoric rise. He is playing some of the best golf we've seen him play. I mean the best golf we've seen him play in effectively five years.
I think the question about.
Rick coming out of this is is he going to have another shot at the Major? Was this his best shot? I think he's got chances at the Open. I think that's going to be his best chance moving forward. I don't think the US Open is his best chance. I don't think the Masters is his best chance. I think the Open Championships moving forward a place where.
Distance isn't the end.
All be all at Open Championships experience I think matters a lot. You have to hit shots in the wind, and you know, I think that's where we're gonna see Ricky potentially have chances to win majors. But this was an awesome performance. I feel for the guy. I mean, you could tell he just didn't have it on Sunday, but this was a great tournament, and I you know, it's amazing to have him back in the game. I always like one of my favorite things about golf is
watching guys come out of the gutter. And I think Ricky Fowler one of the most popular players, one of the players of like the twenty tens. I think you'd have him on the short list of the most memorable, impactful players in a decade.
He got it going again. It was awesome to be there and awesome to see it.
And I hope we get a little bit more Ricky. I'm not sure how much more, but it looks like the game is getting into a really, really good spot. So without further ado, I just wanted to wrap up the US Open. It was an awesome tournament. I you know, it just makes it with everything going on in golf. It just one of the things that's sad is when major championship season it's coming to end, and we're getting
close to that with the Open next month. This was a really fun tournament and it was great to have the focus of the week beyond the golf and not everything else that's going on in professional golf. Now for a quick word from our sponsor, Echo. Echo makes the most comfortable golf shoes in the world. They just want to help their brand purposes. They just want to help golfers simply enjoy their game. Our shoes are made for all golfers, allowing them to have a great time on
the course. Golfers don't need to worry about their shoes, about traction, wet feet, or comfort.
I mean, this is a you got to take care of your feet.
It's the most important, I think part of golf. I think most people that listen to this podcast probably love walking. There's nothing worse than having uncomfortable shoes that deter you from walking or make the walk more difficult than it is.
Echo Shoes.
I've used them good portions of my life. I will tell you there, I've never put on a more comfortable pair of shoes than Echo Golf shoes. I think the amazing stat is ninety percent of golfers who buy echoes buy a second pair. That's the best selling point you can make.
People that buy these buy more.
They've got a wide range of styles and if you're interested, go to US dot Echo dot com. That's US dot Ecco dot com slash TFE and you can check out all their shoes there. Thanks, and now to Josh Pattitt. All right, tell me about your recent trip to Colorado.
Well, I unearthed a few interesting artifacts that were given to me from the closest thing to a living heir to doctor Alistair Mackenzie. It's from a woman named Joan Haddock, who's the She's the widow of Mackenzie's step grandson, Ray Haddock, and they were the ones that found the manuscript for the Spirit of Saint Andrews in nineteen ninety two and then it was published in I think ninety four ninety five.
She gave me Alistair Mackenzie's hickory clubs that their family had kept all these years from Pasa Tiempa when he
passed away, and it's a pretty good story. Those clubs have actually traveled all around the country in a caravan in the late thirties and up until about nineteen forty, their family basically we're living out of a motor home and traveling a lot, homeschooled their kids and kept all that stuff with them in this little like what would have been the equivalent of Winnebago in those days, and then eventually it made it out to the Denver area
in Colorado, where it's been all their stuff for about yeah, forty years or so, no, maybe longer, like since about nineteen seventy. So, yeah, I've got three sets of clubs, two golf bags, and it's pretty pretty cool, very special.
Some cool the clubs that were in famous pictures. And then another one that was the putter.
Yeah.
So there's a photo of Mackenzie standing on the fifteenth Green at Cyper's Point, pointing out out with this putter to the Pacific Ocean, and that putter is one of the putters.
You know.
I have a high resolution version of that photo. I could zoom weighing on the putter head and it's very obvious that that's the same putter that was in one of the bags. And then there's another putter that the story is that Bobby Jones gave him probably nineteen thirty one or thirty two when they were working on Augusta. That's a Calamity Jane replica that was made by Spaulding and he gave out a bunch of those to friends of his. So m Kenzie got one, and that's part of the set.
How did you get so enamored with Alistair McKenzie.
Well, it was sort of a gradual process. I suppose started in two thousand and three, twenty years ago.
I was hired.
As a young lad on the construction crew at the Metal Club and they were in the process of doing a restoration project with Mike Debris and I, you know, it was just a grundone on the crew, you know, swinging a shovel and a pick and pushing a rake and uh, but I loved it. Nineteen I just turned nineteen, So, I mean I had started working at courses when I was fifteen in high school and worked at several courses at that point, but had never really been that engaged
in golf architecture in any in any way. I had done some maintenance at a different course, but this was just such a unique process that we were sort of
trying to unearth. There was sort of an archaeological component to it, you know, unearthed this Mackenzie course that had been sitting there and all those all those decades, and so under the supervision of Mike, just learned a lot about the process of trying to reclaim these old greens and these bunkers and you know, reclaiming the width and the fairways to you know, get back to the old
strategy and providing the different shot and angles. So that that just, I don't know, that really fascinated me, and that that led me toward a couple of years later working at the Valley Club in Montecito where they were getting ready to do a restoration project and they basically let me spearhead the historical research component to that, and so started That's when I really started digging deep into research and really fell in love with that process, which
is sort of different, quite a bit different than when I was doing a metal club. But you know, just in my spare time I was working on the crew there, but in the afternoons and evenings, I was just full time doing research and collecting stuff and digging through the art archives in the basement of the Valley Club and this process of researching and curating this horse historical content was it was kind of thrilling to me, and I
sort of fell in love with that. And so then we did a restoration project at the Valley Club in two thousand and seven with Tom Doak, and but I had developed this love for research and just continued doing that in my spare time, you know, anytime I could go into libraries, going to archives. I started gradually building a network of historians and archivists and researchers all around the world that we'd sort of help each other find
different things. And so I've been doing it ever since, and you know, just kind of fell in love with that.
I imagine it's kind of like pulling a thread. It's like a mystery rite where you're trying to solve for something, and in this case, if you're considering like McKenzie, it's just trying to find I mean, there's so much stuff that isn't around.
Right, Yeah, that's exactly right. So it actually really started, you know, the impetus was this routing plan that I found that was in the original perspectus for the Valley Club. And it's different than the routing plan that you often
see with the Valley Club. This was an earlier one from nineteen twenty eight, and that routing plan had a lot more detail and was just super interesting and there was a guy's name on it who drew it, and that was I started out by trying to find that guy and find any other material because in order to draw that map, he would have had, you know, my theory of the case is he would have had a lot of material from mackenzie and Hunter to be able
to draw all that. You know, he was a draftsman, as it turns out, and so you know, really what I was after we're green sketches, notes, correspondence, photographs, anything like that from mckenzien, Hunter and so that that was sort of the impetus. And then you know, collecting that got me into collecting photos, you know, trying to identify
features that have been lost. But yeah, it was like, like you said, you pull it a thread and then you know, it's like you go down that rabbit hole and you just never stop.
When you think back to that Metal club, is there a moment you obviously you know you're working, you're nineteen, You're like.
This is cool.
Is there like a specific moment of that project that you remember most vividly of like I love this.
Well, there was a few moments, but one that comes to mind, I guess. We were working on the fourteenth Green, which is a part three and that was sort of McKenzie's take on a Verdan and we were floating the green. I was pushing like the you know, with a rake,
basically floating out the finished grade. And I just remember, you know, Mike was sort of supervising and showing me, you know, how to float this green out by hand, and just the detailed nature of finishing that was was so intricate, and for some reason, I just I realized then, like wow, I love this. This is this is such a cool process, Like, you know, the the detail required to do it just right and the craftsmanship was just
something I really enjoyed. And that was that was just one moment that sticks out and and Mike, Mike said something to me at the time like wow, I've never seen anybody rake so precisely as you're raking right now, something like that, and I was like, wow, this is that's pretty cool man.
So you got fascinated and the research and the life of Alice Firm McKenzie. And at what point do you decide that you want to put together a new book on McKenzie.
Well, that started initially. I got the idea in I think it was two thousand and sixteen or seventeen, you know. In twenty seventeen, the La Times did a big feature on Frank Lloyd Wright, you know, celebrating his one hundred
and fiftieth birthday. Franklood Wright was a contemporary of mackenzie, you know, was born in eighteen sixty seven, and the Frankloyd Right Foundation and some other people put together a big exhibition, and I thought, Wow, it'd be really cool to do something like that for Alistir McKenzie, And I
was thinking toward the future. Mackenzie was born in eighteen seventy, so twenty twenty was McKenzie one hundred and fiftieth, and so I had a number of ideas floating around, where like how how I could sort of commend rate that. And even prior to that, I had been thinking about different concepts for a book just as a way of kind of showcasing all this material that I've collected over the years. I wanted to do something with it, you know,
get down into the public. And so that was a process in and of itself, trying to figure out the right concept for the book. But that all kind of came together in this yeah, twenty seventeen ish, and then started working on it then, and you know, it took a three year project.
With the book. I mean, I think, like the.
I think there's something magical now about books, especially well put together books, because there they become like kind of like it becomes a piece of your house. Really when there's a certain in with your book, McKenzie reader, I feel like there it was a very very intentional style in which the book was created, from the typeface to the way the pages feel, to the cover. Can you walk us through just the little details of how you wanted this book to look and feel.
Yeah, that's very insightful. You're right, yeah, you know, all the details I thought had to be just right. And so the thinking was, I wanted to try to create a book that Mackenzie himself would be proud of or or put another way, if he were alive today and he was putting together a book, what might it look like? And that was kind of the driving force for what this book should look like. And so right off the bat, I made the decision. You know, I didn't want this
to be a coffee table book. I wanted to be something that looked and felt like something that would have maybe been produced one hundred years ago. And at the same time, I wanted it to be in interactive because there's so much rich content in the book, photographs and sketches, routing plans, and I wanted that to be sort of
like an interactive experience that the reader could enjoy. So trying to fit all that into a small, portable book that you could bring onto an airplane or carry around that took a lot of figuring out how to do that, and that's what that's what led me to doing this thing where there's these what are called gatefolds, you know, these big pages that fold out from the book that
really showcase those those maps. But yeah, the the look and the feel is just was really important that all the details were correct and people in the printing world, you know, reflect back on twenty twenty and twenty twenty one, really the last three years the paper industry has been just was really hit bad by COVID and supply chain issues, and so getting paper is an absolute nightmare when I
was doing this book. It's gotten a little better in the last year or so, but the struggle that I went through just to source the paper itself was it was quite a story, but I was just adamant that it was the story. Well, basically I worked with at the end of the day, it was five different printers, and you know, three of them essentially said we can't do this because we can't get paper, and so I sort of said, well, I'm going to get the paper myself from a paper company. So I learned how the
paper industry operates, which is pretty interesting. It's all done on monthly quotas. So essentially there was paper that was actually identify that was sitting in a warehouse in LA that they couldn't sell me because they didn't have the allocation in their monthly budget to be able to allocate that paper for me, even though no one else is
buying it. So what I ended up doing was going to like some executives at this paper company and saying, like, you've got six cartons of this paper that I need that's sitting in this warehouse, no one else is buying it, and I need you to increase your allocation so that my local paper distributor is allowed to sell it to me, and so that that whole process took several months, and I actually had to do it twice because we did a second printing.
It's it's got that paper I I you know, I've really enjoyed the book. It's like, yeah, there's like a texture to it where you you know, it's not it's just like it's you feel there's it's weird to say this, and I don't want people to think I'm like a weird human being, but like there's a satisfaction to turning a page.
Yeah, it's funny you say that because friends of mine have known for a long time before I ever did a book that I've had this weird paper fetish for a long time. I love really cool crafty paper. A lot of it is like European, French, Italian style papers. I don't know, I just have this kind of fascination with it. So that paper that you're talking about is referred to that there's all these different textures in paper lingo that's referred to as a vellum finish. But yeah,
that's what I wanted, you know. It's like, that's if you had a book one hundred years ago. That's the kind of paper they were using. There wasn't this. They had some, but it was pretty rare, like the glossy, shiny kind of smooth paper. And so but then there's all these other components too, like the technology now that because this was a short run of books, it was printed on a digital press as opposed to an offset press, and so with a digital press you have to use
a certain type of paper, so the inkdhres. So it's not like you can just use any paper, whereas with an offset press you could use any paper you want. So there's like this whole process of just narrowing down my options, finding it, getting the paper and then sort and then delivering it myself to a printer that could then take it and print the books for me. So I had to like facilitate all of that.
That sounds like a fun process, but I think the final the final product shows.
How much time and effort was into it.
You know, I think anybody that picks up the book, what's in the book, how did you go about creating the concept. Obviously there's been much written about Alistair McKenzie. Alisair McKenzie wrote a bunch himself. How did you want to go about creating your own unique little space? And the Alistair McKenzie what you called discography of books? I guess what would portfolio of books?
Yeah? Well, I purposally didn't want to do a biography. You know, that's that's been done, you know, Ray Haddock and Tom Doak, and they put together a biography that's a really nice book, and I didn't want to just kind of rehash that same concept. So I spent a lot of time thinking about the best way to curate all this material that I had and present it and what was the driving concept? And I got a great
idea from a book. I was in a used bookstore in Pacific Grove and this must have been twenty sixteen or seventeen, and I picked up this book for like a dollar that was called The Lincoln Reader, and it was all about Abraham Lincoln. And it was like an Abraham Lincoln historian had curated all this material that were like speeches and writings that Lincoln had written. And then
also he had contemporary people, other historians. You know, there's a whole network of Abraham Lincoln historians write their own little bits and he you know, he collated all that together into this book called The Lincoln Reader, and that was like an AHA moment for me, like, wow, this
is a pretty cool concept. I could do something similar with all this McKenzie material that I've collected, and it worked so well because I had had dozens literally dozens I've probably got it's not they're not all in the book, but I've got probably at least forty articles that mackenzie had written in all these different publications like Golf.
Dumb and yeah exactly American Golfer, different magazine.
Illustrated and write all these and so I'd collected all these articles that were a lot of his writings, and some of those writings are sort of rehashed and kind of there's sort of reworked for parts of his book, you know, Spirit of Saint Andrews. And then there's some of it that's sort of kind of a little bit in his first book called Golf Architecture, So there's some redundancy to the writing, but but they are different articles.
And so just collecting all this stuff, I thought, wow, you know a lot of this stuff that you know, people that are interested in Mackenzie that have written the you know, they've they've read those two books, The Spirit of Saint Andrews in Golf Architecture. You know, there's a lot more to it that he wrote that's not in those two books. And so the thinking was, okay, let's curate all these articles into a book. And you know, and with those articles, oftentimes we're a lot of these
really cool photos. So most of those photos in the book are are sequenced pretty much as they were in the articles when they were published in those different publications. And then there's some other stuff I added in. But and then I also took this idea from the Lincoln Reader of having some other contemporary historians do a little short piece on, in this case, Mackenzie. And so that's why the back of the book there's a little section
called some Thoughts on Mackenzie. And I had several people, you know, Jeff Shackelford and Mike Debrees and Mike Clayton, and you know Pedro Costio down in Argentina. All these guys, I asked them to contribute short little pieces, you know, from from their perspective as being kind of McKenzie historians in their own right. And and that was a way of showcasing a bunch of other content that didn't fit. And what's the majority of the book that are all those different articles?
With those little articles?
Do you have do you have a favorite uh in there of the little articles that McKenzie wrote.
Once that he wrote or ones of other people. I really liked the one, Yeah, there's a couple, but I really liked the one about Augusta called Plans for the Ideal Goal, of course, because conceptually it's it's pretty deep and really fascinating to me. And and he talks about, you know, hole by hole, what was the motivation, the motivating concept where they where they got the concepts for
those holes? He and Bobby Jones a lot of them were from Saint Andrew's and other links courses that they that they really admired, and so and he talks about how they weren't replicating those holes and how it would be a you know, it would be a fool's errand to try to copy any holes. But they were taking the concept of those holes and applying them to the landscape that they had in Augusta and doing their own rendition on them. And then he and he thought that
he and Bobby Jones. They were really really proud of what they had come up with the collection of holes, and so much so that he talks about how he had hoped that one day somebody would look at all these holes at Augusta as not not templates, but as concepts in their own right, that people would then be inspired to sort of pay homage to a different golf courses.
So that's just like sort of this lineage of golf design, of these different concepts that started in the British Isles and were you know, applied to this landscape in Augusta, and then Mackenzie hoped that other people would be inspired by those and apply them to other developments in the States and around the world. And so I just love that that article plans for the ideal golf course and it just features just the beautiful watercolor routing map.
Yeah.
Yeah, I really enjoyed that section and it'll probably be something that I revisit every year before the Masters. I think one of the things, like one of the things similar that I really liked and got me thinking about architecture was like his deal short hole discussion. Yeah, and it was I mean, I feel like he was taking some shots too like, you know, like this idea of like a short hole that's just surrounded by a bunker, you know, yeah, versus a short hole that provides different
routes of play. And if you think about McKenzie, And then I started to think about mackenzie short holes and how often so many of them have the ability to have a ball run up, and absolutely and you know he was, I mean, it was fascinating how obsessed he was with the and and with good reason, with the idea of alternate routes and the you know he you I feel like you can't read his writing without him mentioning the old course at least once in an article, and like the idea of like and it makes it
like a short hole is so hard for a lower trajectory player, you know, if it's just surrounded by sand and there's no option for running it up. And one of the Holsey references was the sixth out Augusta.
Especially in those days too, the equipment and you know, yeah it was it was much much more of a ground game still in those days.
So it was I really enjoyed that. And then do you have a favorite guest Essay, I don't. I don't want to put you on the spot, but just maybe a favorite topic.
Sure, no, no, I I could. I'd love to answer that. And the reason why is because of the guest essays, the other contributors. They were mostly contemporary people, but there was a few in there that weren't. You know, there's IRB. Graphis, who was a longtime editor of different golf publications.
And.
My favorite though of those was written by his sister, Marion Maryon Mackenzie, who was also a doctor, and I
loved it so much. It's called a Sister's Tribute, and she wrote it as a response to an obituary that was published in the Yorkshire Evening Post right after he died, you know, January sixth of nineteen thirty four, and it was just a way, it was her way of saying, you know, you guys all know about Mackenzie because of his career in golf course architecture, but I want to give you a little bit more insight into him as a person and his other interests and from his sister's perspective.
And so originally I had that in the back of the book with all the other guest essays, but I liked it so much that I moved to the front of the book, and it's kind of like a like a second forward. You know. Ben Crenshaw was nice enough to write the forward for the book, but I had to put that in there as well because I thought it just sets up the book so well. So that's my favorite of the Yeah, it's.
A great whole piece of writing. You know, one thing that people bring up all the time is is is Mackenzie's camouflage. Can you speak to how influential that idea has been in golf architecture.
How influential it's been in golf architecture more or for him more broadly.
Like from him to where you know what what that idea brought and you know the influence on him it had. But then more importantly, you know whereas take I feel like, you know, it is a forefront idea in golf architecture.
You know, yeah, it was. You know, people often talk about, you know, Mackenzie he was had this, you know, these experiences in the military. You know, he was in the Boer War and that's where he first started observing the Boers and their use of camouflage and really admired it. And that's when he you know, so he's in you know, he's in he's in the Border War. He was a surgeon, and he's looking at this and he's thinking, Wow, these concepts could be applied to building golf courses. That's when
he started thinking about that. And then again in World War One, he you know, he did a lot. You know what people don't know is that, yeah, he wrote a little bit about camouflage. There's a couple of articles in my book that he wrote about camouflage. But his wealth of writings on the subject of camouflage actually is
probably broader than his writings on golf. The stuff that I have, which I will be releasing at some point, I'm trying to figure out I'm probably actually going to do a whole second book that's just about camouflage because he wrote so much about camouflage. There's enough material for a full book, and that was really really influential to you know, yeah, to his philosophies when he started building
these courses. I think I think the impetus was this idea that you know, the novel idea for him was I want to try to build really good link style golf on inland terrain that's not really conducive to golf, especially in those days. So in those days, all the best links, you know, were seaside courses built in the sand dunes and British Isles for the most part, and he thought, well, how can I take those ideas and build them on sort of flat, boring, heavy soils, you know,
inland terrain. And you know, he started doing that at all would Lead in nineteen oh seven and then and then more Town right after it, and so his thinking was like, well, I've got to develop some interest and on these sort of what are sort of relatively boring
pieces of land. And I think that's when he started testing his ideas of how can I build some of these landforms and you know, manipulate the landscape to provide strategic value and to There's another component too that he was trying to He was trying to subconsciously affect golfers. So you know, he was trying to make holes visually appear more difficult than they actually play. And so that was one of his like I think big tricks was
like how do I trick the eye? How do I make this bunker complex that's maybe seventy eighty yards short of the green look like it's surrounding the green, so that when you're hitting an approach shot in from one hundred and sixty yards out, it feels way more daunting than it actually is.
And I mean this is all over the place that some of this course is. Like one that jumps to mind is like the fourth hole at Pasta Tiempo. There's a bunker in the fairway on the left side that looks like it's pressed up against the green, but it's actually like eighty yards short.
Right exactly. Yeah. Two at Metal Club is another good example of that. He did that all over the place. And because yeah, you know, he wasn't I think most people know he wasn't a great golfer. Yeah, so you know, some of these other guys in those days were actually really really good golfer. Donald Russ was a great golfer.
My Tilling hasse.
There's a great player, like you know most of them. I mean McDon old was competing for you know, national championships.
Right, and he was always like a you know, a double digit handicap up until the last couple of years
of his life. He was you know, maybe got down to like a seven or eight nine handicap at the best, but he was never a great golfer, and so I think that's actually one of the things that benefited him the most was, you know, is this idea that I want to build golf courses that are super fun and enjoyable and inspirational for me to play and for people that are like you know, not not great golfers, and for beginners, but then also at the same time try to make it as difficult as possible for like your
scratch player. And that's what going back to your comment about having all these different alternate routes, you know, he wanted to have as many routes as possible to the whole. And you know, one of the great drawings that exemplifies that is the sketch he did for the Lido hole, you know, which is now now been recreated out and you know, Wisconsin. So yeah, the camera going back to the camouflage that was I think that was by far the most influential concept that that motivated his work that
he did. And you see it and everywhere, you know, like from bunkers. From one angle, they're either in your face and then you go past them, you look backwards and you can't even see him they just blend in. And that's that's one of the tests with like if
you're actually restoring some of these courses. And I often tell people, you know, the tie ins are so extremely important because if you go past the bunker and then you look backwards and you could still see the landform and it sticks out, well, then you didn't build it.
Right with UH.
With Mackenzie, I think something that always gets brought up is his associates. In America, it was Robert Hunter and Perry Maxwell, and UH in Australia is more comb Well, how did he go about cultivating the Alex Russell Alex Russell too, and then Marion Hollins too in the States.
Yeah, and guys like Wendell Miller and Luther Koontz who was Wendell Miller's guy that he brought down to Argentina and built all the stuff and Luther ended up staying down there and lived there for the rest of his life. That this is an excellent point. This is like one
of the knacks that Mackenzie had. I think that I can't explain how he did it, but he definitely had a knack for identifying like minded people that were talented that he could convey his concepts to what he was trying to build and then entrust them to build it and then also put their own flair on it too. He wasn't you know. He enjoyed having the input of these other guys like Robert Hunter, like Alex Russell, like Pray Maxwell, which is why you can identify, you know,
stylistic differences of these different courses. You know, he liked that collaboration.
Yeah, Like the style of Crystal Downs is drastically different from the style of passive tempo.
Exactly right, and and then you go to like Royal Melbourne and it's a very very different style. And so he I think he really enjoyed that. He but he had this knack of finding really talented people that were like minded when it came to golf strategy, golf design, and we're talented and he entrusted them and that that's a skill set because you know, it's like you're only as good as the people you found yourself with. And he understood that really well. And and he was traveling
a lot. You know, It's it's amazing if you look at a calendar, you look at the timeline of how he was traveling around the world. He was traveling a lot, and so some of these properties never got back to and he entrusted these guys to execute his vision. And in all cases he just had stellar talented people who
could all be architects on their own right. And some of them, you know a lot of them did do stuff on their own, like Perry Maxwell obviously and uh and so that was that was a very important skill that he had, was being able to identify those people.
What would you say the influence of Harry Colt was on on Alistair McKenzie. Obviously, when he started his career, he was partnered with Harry Colet and and Alison at that time. What was what would you say would was Colt's roll in McKenzie's life.
You know, I don't claim to be like that much of an expert on Colt, but what I do know is that when he was trying to build Awardly, the founding members, they wanted Colts sort of they wanted Colt
to sign off on what mackenzie was doing. And so there was definitely a collabor of effort between him and Colt on Awwoodley and on more Town, and then they established a partnership, Like you said, after that, I think Mackenzie recognized that in those days in Europe, Colt was the only one who was building the type of golf that Mackenzie wanted to on these inland sites, on these
heavy clay, these these heavy soil sites. And you know, I just look back when I'm looking at material that I'm researching, when I find old photos of Harry Colt, stuff from you know, from England or from mainland Europe, a lot of it is like I have to do a double take and oftentimes think, wow, is that what Mackenzie built, you know, And so it's it's just clear that stylistically they were on the same page, and and
so they were, you know, naturally collaborated well together. And I think, you know, there had to be some influence for sure, and I think it was just my sense it was mostly just affirming. You know, Colt was kind of affirming a lot of McKenzie's ideas, Like Mackenzie kind of had these off the wall ideas that people thought were pretty crazy actually in those days, and I think Harry Colt was the guy that sort of affirmed them, like, no, you're onto something here, and this this can.
Work, Yeah, with with the McKenzie designs, what do you have you Are there any designs that you're dying to see that you haven't seen? And and what of the lost designs do you most wish you could see?
Yeah, the two I want to see the most that I haven't are one Augusta and two Royal Milbourne. So those, you know, those are definitely the top two in my list of the lost courses. There's there's a few. There's a few buckets. So okay, in one bucket, you got courses that he designed that I have plans for. Some of them are in this book that were never actually built, or they weren't the plan wasn't followed in some cases. And so to see those built or see those come
to life, that would be a dream. That's something that I've I've been actively working on with different people.
What would be an example of that.
Well, a guy I don't know if you know, David y Dell Yes is h he's the guy that found the elbook Roun Plan in Argentina, and so he's been trying to build that. You know, I just met with him a couple of weeks ago out in Colorado. But he's been trying to build that book Roun course.
You know.
Initially he had a site north of Austin.
Yeah, I remembered it being in Texas.
Yeah, and that fell through. But that that's like right up there. And then there's another course that to me, the most incredible course that McKenzie ever designed, maybe the most incredible course ever designed that never got built, was a course called El Nadiko Sandy's he drou and would have been in Argentina, and the plan for that in this book. And that was an interesting project because that
was McKenzie's. That was his opportunity to go full out, like if I have a blank canvas and can create all this from scratch, what would I do?
It was right at the same time that right after the Leedo had been built, correct.
It was, It was a little it was a little after that. So this was nineteen thirty one.
Because he referenced that this is something like this had happened right right.
Exactly, because the whole course would have been built by dredgings and so it had been a completely manufactured course like the Lido was originally, which would have been you know, really, especially in those days, a really impressive engineering feat. But that was mackenzie just saying like, if I have a blank canvas and I can literally manufacture an entire site
from scratch, what would I do? And it's just an if you look at that routing plan, I mean, it's just a phenomenal course, and you know, it's a dream of mine to build that somewhere someday. Likewise, the Augusta National Part three course that McKenzie designed, what he called the Approach and Putt course that never got built, That never got built. You know, it was designed on the same piece of land where their current Part three courses twenty acre site, and well they just redid it, and
they just redid it. Yeah, exactly when when I saw that they had, you know, one of those aerials that someone posted on Twitter of that site, it looked like they just dropped a bomb on it. I just thought, for a second, wait a minute, now, there's no way
they're going to actually build the McKenzie. You know, I sent those guys, you know, I sent Augusta that that plan several years ago, and so they have it and they're aware of it, but that that would be a dream to build that somewhere someday, and and I've looked into.
Maybe they could build it at the patch the public course that they're renovating.
That'd be sweet. But then so those are courses that that he designed that never were built, so they've never come to fruition. And then of courses that he did build that are gone, there's one to me that's really really important and that I I actually worked with the developer a few years ago. We had a site in Florida where we were actually gonna build it. By the way, this was before the Kaiser family announced they were doing the Lido project, so this was not like trying to
rip off that concept. But this plan was for a course called Bayside, which was on Long Island in New York. And there's a lot of really really interesting things about that.
You wrote about that one a lot. Ye seemingly he reference in the greens right right.
Well, he was building that, you know, at the same
time he was building Augusta. And in those days, you know, this was nineteen thirty one, you know, so this is like the depression is full on at this point, and Mackenzie was thinking really a lot in this, you know, this idea of economization economization of design, economization of construction, and economization of maintenance, and so how can you do more with less essentially, And you see that at Augusta where Augusta when it was originally built, only had twenty
two bunkers. And so it was just this idea of you know, economy and bunkering, which was in those days a very novel idea. And it was like, well, how do we create all the strategy with mostly landforms and other features but not bunkers because bunkers are expensive to build, they're expensive to maintain. And so he took that even further at Bayside. Bayside originally only had eighteen or maybe nineteen bunkers on it, and it was just a flat This is like one of the things that's interesting to
me about this site. It was just a flat piece of land, no inherent interest. The site was just a rectangle and so it was basically like a blank canvas and and there was like old stone walls that zigzagged through the property that they had to bury. So it's like they buried these stone walls, created right milt mounds over them, and so it's like they they either got filled material or they cut, probably a combination of both.
They definitely cut material in certain areas and filled and so he did this you know, cut and fill process to create all of these artificial landforms that didn't exist, and it was all it was just a very simplistic concept.
You know.
It was a good routing, not like the greatest golf course you're ever gonna play, But it was always from the get go it was always a public fee course. It was never a private course. And so the idea was it.
Was affordable book golf.
Was the exactly exactly, how do we build something that's economical, to build something is economical, to maintain something that will be you know, affordable public access golf. And so to me, that's a really really inspiring project and it's just a shame that that was. You know, that property was sold to a housing developer in the fifties and now it's just covered with houses. But that would be.
Any of those if there are any green remnants or anything in in people's backyards.
Probably from looking at that, I have not been actually to that site, but from looking I've studied at you know, I studied a lot and I haven't mapped out in cad I don't think so. I think it was just absolutely leveled. I mean it's just yeah, I'd be really surprised if that's the case. But I think they just wedged in a bunch of little lots and they probably just nuke the whole site.
And what what's been what's been your favorite mackenzie uh, course that you've you've seen?
And why my favorite McKenzie gorees that I've seen? I have to say Cyprus Point. You know, it's hard not to. I mean I've got other favorites for for different reasons, you know, sentimental reasons. Uh, Northwood Is is very near and dear to my heart. I just love that property and say something if it's got so much potential, I mean, as great as it is, but it's got Yeah, it's got an enormous amount of potential and you know, hopefully one day we could we could do something there. But yeah,
it's hard not to say Cyprus. I mean, Cyprus is just is it's really awe inspiring that that site is just world class and you know, it's a world class routing and a world class set of greens on you know, just the most interesting geography looking out at the Pacific ocean. So it's just it's phenomenal.
I feel like Mackenzie was was not one too like put that his work was you know, so so great, Like you know, he always held the Old Course in such high esteem. But that the writing that you have in your book about after he built Cyprus, where he was like, you know, I'm not I.
Don't want to say, but this might be better than the Old Course.
Yeah, that's a great article.
Yeah, it's an incredible article.
Like and you could tell like he you know, he held his work in high regard, but he wasn't ever like one to be like this is the great you know, like some architects, this is the greatest land I've ever like. Cyprus was the one where he was like, you know what, this one might be better than the old course.
Well yeah, he had great, great admiration and just a true love for the Old Course. Yeah, and and so nothing could surpass that. And so and I think that was one of the big things that he and Bobby Jones bonded over so much, is they both had such mutual admiration and love for the Old Course. And so, yeah, you're right, you know, he would never you know, just come out and say, oh, you know, this is better
than the old course. But he was very very careful in that article to say why he thought it was as good or maybe better. But you know, I thought he he paid deference.
Well and all right, well I appreciate the time. Ever, how can people purchase your book?
Yeah, we're in the middle having another printing. The third printing is in production and we'll be ready in a couple of weeks and you can go to the website's alistairmackenzie dot org is the Alistair McKenzie Institute and you can order it from the website there.
Awesome. I recommend it.
I mean, I guess when we released this, it'll be after Father's Day. But uh, you know it's a good it's a good gift for yourself.
So thanks Josh. How can people find you? You're you're on Instagram.
Yeah, Instagram is Mackenzie Institute. Twitter is doctor McKenzie spelled out D O C, T O R McKenzie.
And then you've got your design business.
Yeah, and then and then on Twitter, we should probably be more active. But on Twitter, I'm pack golf design.
And that's it.
Just Twitter.
Sometimes we'll we'll talk architecture more but I wanted to just kind of profile McKenzie and and you're in the great book that you produce. So future podcasts to come. But thanks Josh so much.
For the time.
I really appreciate you having me on.
Thanks Andy, thank you for listening to another edition of the Friday Podcast. Today's episode was edited by Matt Rushes.
Thank you Matt.
As a quick reminder, I mentioned it at the top. We are we have Club TF Hummon. It's our membership. It's a great way to support our company, what we're doing. If you like what we're doing. It is one hundred and twenty dollars for the year. You get loads of content. I've had a number of people come up to me at events at the US Open and tell me how good of a bargain this is because of everything that they're getting. There are tons of articles, there are tons
of course reviews and write ups. You get the entire back catalog if you join. I've had a few people ask like, does it end to the end of the year you get it. It's a year from the day you join, So if you join today, your membership ends in the end of June, or a year from the day you sign up what we'll have coming up. We're on a big Northeast excursion here. We'll have some new reviews from the met section, so we'll have some New York golf courses featured on the membership here shortly.
So if you're looking to get more.
From us, or if you're looking to support us Club TFP is one of the best ways to do it. Sign up at the Friday dot Com slash membership. You can see all the everything going on and what you get included in that membership there. So thank you so much, and we will be back on Tuesday with a new episode for you guys.