The Ideal Holes of C.B. Macdonald

The notion that there are ideal, replicable golf holes that can be combined to form a perfect golf course has a long history, dating back to the thoughts and endeavors of pioneering American player and architect Charles Blair Macdonald. 

In the early 1900s, the advent of the longer Haskell golf ball made many existing golf holes obsolete, prompting a widespread discussion on what made a golf hole sufficiently challenging and worthy of praise. In a 1901 edition of Golf Illustrated magazine, English amateur player Horace Hutchinson posed a question to readers: “Which are the most difficult holes in the world?” The debate soon turned to what the best holes in the world were, and many esteemed names in the game responded, including Harry Vardon, John Low, and Harold Hilton.

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Inspired by this discussion, Macdonald began thinking about how the best golf holes of Great Britain might form the basis of a great American golf course. During trips to the UK in 1902, 1904, and 1906, he took notes, drew blueprints, and conducted topographical surveys on notable holes from the Golf Illustrated debate, along with some he had discovered himself. Devereux Emmet, a friend just embarking on his own career in golf architecture, assisted Macdonald by taking trips of his own across the pond and gathering information. 

Over time, Macdonald realized 1) not all great holes were great in their entirety and 2) many holes could not be satisfactorily replicated on different types of terrain. So instead of copying famous British holes in their entirety, he began to focus on borrowing specific features and strategic principles in order to create ideal holes. If he could string together a series of such holes, chock-full of excellent characteristics borrowed from the world’s best models, he believed he could create the ideal golf course. Certainly, such a course, according to Macdonald, would be miles better than the rudimentary layouts found in the U.S. at the time.

After considering a number of different properties on the East Coast of the U.S., Macdonald determined that no site available to him would yield itself naturally to a collection of his ideal holes. So, on a rolling piece of land next to Shinnecock Hills Golf Club on Long Island, he resolved to move dirt to create them. The result was the National Golf Links of America (1911), immediately one of the most discussed courses in the world thanks to its unique design approach and impressive construction. 

Macdonald’s philosophy did not stop there: all of his subsequent designs, and those of his protégé and associate Seth Raynor, employed “template holes,” as they are commonly called now. Raynor’s construction supervisor, Charles Banks, continued the tradition in his collaborations with Raynor as well as his solo work. A recent revival of interest in Macdonald and Raynor has led to a number of new template-based golf courses, such as Old Macdonald, the South Course at Arcadia Bluffs Golf Club, Kinsale, and The Lido. Typically, golf architects inspired by Macdonald and Raynor have been unafraid to move earth and create bold shapes in building template holes, in contrast to more naturalistic methods of design.

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Perhaps the most consistent of Macdonald and Raynor’s (and MacRaynor-style) templates are the par 3s. Almost invariably, the four par 3s are the Redan (based on the 15th at North Berwick), the Eden (the 11th at the Old Course at St. Andrews), the Short (the fourth at Royal West Norfolk), and the Biarritz (of uncertain origins, but named after an NLE hole in Biarritz, France). Longer template holes include the Sahara (the fourth at Royal St. George’s), the Road (the 17th at the Old Course), the Cape (likely invented by Macdonald himself at National Golf Links), and the Leven (the seventh at the original Lundin-Leven Links). Other famous template features include the Principal's Nose bunker complex (from the 16th at the Old Course), the Double Plateau green (of unknown origins), the Alps blind approach (the 17th at Prestwick), and the Punchbowl green (the fourth at Royal Cinque Ports). Not every ideal hole can be found on every template-based course, and Macdonald and Raynor both typically incorporated a few original holes into their designs, either to meet routing requirements or to take advantage of outstanding natural attributes. 

To this day, the ideal holes constitute an instantly recognizable language of design — one that has introduced countless golfers to the finer points of golf architecture.