Evangelist of Golf: The Story of Charles Blair MacDonald

Rating:
Summary: Evangelist of Golf
Review: A wonderful work by Mr. Bahto. A must read for any serious golf architecture student. The photos and drawings are amazing. The chapter on National is worth the price of the book alone. Great read.

Rating:
Summary: Evangelist of Golf
Review: A wonderful work by Mr. Bahto. A must read for any serious golf architecture student. The photos and drawings are amazing. The chapter on National is worth the price of the book alone. Great read.

Rating:
Summary: the evangelist
Review: great read and terrific reference! a must for any serious student of architecture.

Rating:
Summary: what term describes "beyond must read"
Review: The "Evangalist" should be sufficient to re-direct the path of contemporary golf course design from its current preoccupation with window dressing and waterfalls to the structural soundness and strategic integrity inherent in Macdonald/Raynor's work. Devotees of this book will require hospitalization the next time they hear the hot architect of the day say that he doesn't want to adapt old principles when there are "so many new strategies yet to be developed".

Rating:
Summary: what term describes "beyond must read"
Review: The "Evangalist" should be sufficient to re-direct the path of contemporary golf course design from its current preoccupation with window dressing and waterfalls to the structural soundness and strategic integrity inherent in Macdonald/Raynor's work. Devotees of this book will require hospitalization the next time they hear the hot architect of the day say that he doesn't want to adapt old principles when there are "so many new strategies yet to be developed".

Rating:
Summary: Great National Golf Links Coverage
Review: This is an awesome review of C.B. MacDonald but is mainly a book about the road to creating the National Golf Links.

Of course, there's a healthy dose of Raynor as well, but this makes complete sense. Whereas MacDonald would create the course designs and plans, Raynor would most often turn around and handle the course development.

I think the research and the writing behind this from Bahto is most excellent + no sugar coating. Simple honest unbiased delivery of what happened and how, but even more importantly you will "know" the National.

Picture wise, I thought the historical pics were very interesting. However, I thought it was rather difficult to match up any "pre" and "post" pics for any of the changes that took place to any of the holes being described. Furthermore, there were several recent color pics that were repeated in various sections. Unfortunately, I didn't think several of the pictures conveyed what the text was trying to explain at times. Few angles were used to show by pictures what was making each and every hole so special.

Other than that, I highly recommend this book for its content. Very well done overall. Above all, the description of each hole and how they work together to create a seamless golfing experience is the best I've read thus far. The supporting hole drawings help as well to complete the course visualizing. I just think I could visit the National tomorrow and would be as ready as possible to play it from a course management perspective. You just sense you'd know what to look out for and appreciate.

There's also a strong review of the Yale course and I think the Lido review, although brief, was most interesting. What a course the Lido must have been to play.

Excellent.