From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Alister MacKenzie (born Yorkshire, England, 1870; died Santa Cruz, California, 1934) was an English golf course designer.

MacKenzie was taught at Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, Wakefield and trained as a doctor and served in the Second Boer War. He then left medicine and began to design golf courses in the United Kingdom in association with H.S. Colt. He was not a good golfer, and was one of the first men who had not been a leading player to become a prominent course designer. He published his book, Golf Architecture in 1920. In the 1920s he emigrated to the United States, and he carried out his most notable work there, while continuing to design courses outside the US.

MacKenzie worked in the era before large scale earth moving became a feature of golf course construction and his designs are notable for their sensitivity to the nature of the site. He is celebrated for his ability to produce holes with an ideal balance of risk and reward, and for his knack of producing courses which both challenge and accommodate golfers with differing levels of skill.

There is a biography by Tom Doak, The Life and Work of Dr. Alister MacKenzie.

• Claremont Country Club, Oakland, California (1920): His first project in the United States, located in the Oakland hills.

• Titirangi Golf Club, Titirangi, Auckland, New Zealand (1926): A true championship course in natural surrounds. One of the top courses in New Zealand.

• The Old Course at Lahinch Golf Club in Ireland (1927): Mackenzie reworked the original layout by Old Tom Morris layout on a stunning oceanside site. He left in a blind par 3 just for history's sake.

• Rosemont course at Blairgowie Golf Club, Perth and Kinross, Scotland (1927): One of Scotland's top-ranked courses. An inland parkland layout cut out of dense forests and moorlands.

• The No. 1 course at Hazlehead Park, Aberdeen, Scotland.

• Cypress Point Club, Monterey Peninsula, California (1928): A beautiful, well-crafted, course with a famously photogenic 16th hole. Rated the fourth greatest course in America by Golf Digest in 2005.

• Pasatiempo Golf Club, Santa Cruz, California (1929): A beautiful course and a difficult test of golf, perfectly blended into the northern California coastal forest.

• West Course at Royal Melbourne Golf Club, Melbourne, Australia (1931): Regarded by some as the finest course south of the equator.

• University of Michigan Golf Course University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan (1931): One of the first and finest golf courses in the United States.

• The Scarlet Course at The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio (1931): One of the best collegiate golf courses in the United States.

• Augusta National Golf Club, Augusta, Georgia, USA. (1933): Bobby Jones chose MacKenzie ahead of Donald Ross to co-design the only course in the world which stages a major championship every year. Rated the second greatest course in America by Golf Digest in 2005.