The Spirit of St. Andrews | 
 enlarge | Author: Alister Mackenzie
Creator: Robert Tyre, Jr. Jones
Publisher: Wiley
Category: Book
List Price: $29.95
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Rating:  7 reviews
Sales Rank: 716189
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.1
ISBN: 1886947007
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.3520684129
EAN: 9781886947009
ASIN: 1886947007
Publication Date: April 29, 1995
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Condition: DJ has a clear plast covering
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com Review
In 1933 Alister MacKenzie put on paper his considerable golfing knowledge. One of the game's most revered course designers--he conceived Augusta National, site of the Masters, and served the hallowed links of St. Andrews for years as consulting architect--MacKenzie synthesized his thoughts on golf's history, its equipment, its personalities, and his musings on what makes a great course and what makes a great hole, into a manuscript that lay hidden for more than 60 years. Finally available, it stands as one of the most courtly and cultivated treatises ever written on the royal and ancient game. His concepts of the psychology of design are as apt today as when he penned them, and his anecdotal spinnings on his own golfing trials should inspire anyone who's thought of picking up a club.
Product Description
There’s no question that Dr. Alister MacKenzie was one of the best golf course architects in the history of the game. Augusta National, Royal Melbourne, Cypress Point—among many other famous layouts—are proof of that fact. In the mid-1990s, MacKenzie’s lost golf manuscript, written a year before his death in 1933, was found and finally published as The Spirit of St. Andrews. Even all these years later, MacKenzie’s thoughts on such topics as the golf swing, rules, great courses and holes, and golfers are interesting and intuitive.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 2 more reviews...
 Essence of Golf July 11, 2008
I feel that the spiritual aspect of golf is sometimes overrated or overwrought in various writings. Here, however, is a long-lost gem wherein Mackenzie, typically, gets it just right. The last two chapters on the societal benefits of golf and golf courses are spot on. I would suggest that anyone who wished to truly understand the spirit of golf should read those chapters. It causes me to hope that there will be numerous quality golf courses built around Iraq and Afghanistan in the near future. If that could be accomplished and some of the local kids and healthy adults take to it, as inevitably they would, then we would achieve our goals of victory and the establishment of advanced societies in those places. It may take that to get there.
Musings of a great golf course architect March 21, 2006
MacKenzie's "Spirit of St. Andrews" shows that his philosophy of golf course architecture is as relevant today as it was when this was written in the 1930s. The good doctor's writing flows with the charm of that era.
 Substantial resource on golf in the 1930s November 12, 2004
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Not to be confused with a book centered on architecture, this, MacKenzie's unpublished and possibly unfinished volume on golf, is a general essay on the game and its facets.
Because MacKenzie is famous for his courses, the obvious assumption is that this would be centered on course design. Rather, it is almost a reflection on what goes in to making a good course versus a bad one, what seperates good golfers from the hacks, and a whole other range of subjects. It even features a chapter on his disection of the golf swing.
For someone looking purely for an architectural perspective, it would be better to look at his other book, Golf Architecture. This, on the other hand, is much more broad ranging. Most will only be interested in the first half, where the focus is on courses, their upkeep, and MacKenzie's personal involvement in the spread of golf. The latter, on the swing and a few random ideas on golf, will likely drag on the reader rather than offering the enlightenment we would hope for.
Legendary Architect on Sundry Golf Issues February 20, 2001
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Lost manuscript now publlished for all of us to hear the thoughts of such an influential figure in our sport's history. Bob Jones wrote of him in the preface: "all his courses that I have played have been interesting; in every instance he has placed interest and enjoyment ahead of difficulty."Oh, that more modern designers would learn the lesson! He states that even the most emphatic golfer who says he's not interested in beauty is "subconsciously influenced by his surroundings." Easily the designer of some of golf's most influential hole scenes, this guy gives definite hints, e.g. Playing down fairways bordered by straight lines of trees is not only unartistic but makes tedious and uninteresting golf. Many green committees ruin one's handiwork by planting trees like rows of soldiers along the borders of the fairways." Love the poem he quotes on the analysis of paralysis: The Centipede was happy quite until a toad in fun said "Pray which leg goes over which?" This put his mind in such a pitch he lay distracted in a ditch considering how to run."
Buy it and read it now September 30, 1998
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
Great read and great sketches. When asked how he got such interesting, hilly, contoured greens, Dr. M once said, "Employ the biggest fool in the village and instruct him to make the greens all flat"Scary how much of the comments written in the early part of the century apply to today's game and course design. Once section about the controversy of the day re: limiting the flight of the ball is exaclt what we are hearing nearly again 70 years later
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