Hochstein Design: Golf Course Design + Creative Construction

An alternative look at MacKenzie’s famed Gibraltar leads this photo tour of . To me, this view is a representation of what I most absorbed from the day—that Moortown may be the single most fascinating study of feature construction among MacKenzie historians and golf designers/builders who cherish his work.

Abrupt, sharp, funky, occasionally linear: these are the traits you find among the course’s hummocks, bunkers, and in the case of the opening photo—back of the Gibraltar green. For an architect most known for his ability to blend the natural with the constructed, often doing so with very long, sweeping lines (as evidenced at places like Cypress Point), the features at Moortown are archaic and almost foreign from what you expect of MacKenzie designs. This is the fascinating part, as it shows two things. One is the beginning point of an evolution that spanned gentler stylistic changes and experimentation across England, a major and immediate change to bigger and smoother features in California, the unique sandbelt style of Australia (which notably lacks mounding more than other MacKenzie styles), and the bunker reduction/wild green era of South America, Sacramento Municipal () and ultimately Augusta. Which, interestingly, I almost see some of that work as the start of a return to some of the early era quirk, with scragglier bunkers and deliberately built mounding in select places.

The other thing this style indicates to me is the power of period in which the course was built and its place in the greater evolution of golf design and feature construction. The naturalism of the Golden Age was still trying to pry itself still from the formality of the Victorian Era, and there are remnants of such found in almost all pre-WWI work. Part of that is a “bridging” of style, and part is just the available construction techniques of the day, which still largely consisted of doing hand work and only being able to execute ideas in small spaces. MacKenzie’s work in this period reflects that, though you can clearly see his efforts toward some version of “natural.”

No place still showcases this all as wonderfully well as Moortown.

2024 was a pretty great year. A master plan revealed at Land Park, shaping work at two Alister MacKenzie courses (Pasatiempo and Hadley Wood), developing a master plan for another (Haggin Oaks), and maybe the best year of seeing/playing new golf yet, largely boosted by my time over in England. All that and a bunch of other special memories with special people along the way. Very grateful for these experiences and the direction everything is heading.

As per usual, I wrote about it and shared some photos (too many photos?) posted at my website. Link is in bio.

Thank you all for checking it out, and Happy New Year!