Significant Augusta National Design Artifact Up For Auction

An early Amen Corner rendering features Alister MacKenzie's handwritten notes

Plan with MacKenzie notes for Augusta National’s 13th (The Golf Auction)

The Golf Auction expects to fetch a significant sum for a “museum quality plan” of Augusta National’s two most famous holes. Set to end Sunday, December 12th, the auction offers a rendering of Amen Corner in an early, bunker-free stage when two of golf’s most famous holes were the third and fourth. But it’s the extensive handwritten commentary from Alister MacKenzie takes the offering to another level given how few original depictions exist of golf’s sacred creations.

The plan is signed in the lower right by “R.L.B.” and exudes elements of MacKenzie’s style, but is a bit more formalized than his looser watercolor and ink renderings. Nonetheless, the artist’s effort met with approval based on MacKenzie’s validating signature.

Readers of my Golden Age of Golf Design will recognize the rendering from page 163. I found that version along with a beautiful rendition of the then-14th hole—now the 5th hole—in an obscure year-end annual called The Golfer’s Year Book. The drawings accompanied a 1932 Bobby Jones article titled, “The Ideal Golf Course” where he set the table for what was to come in Augusta. MacKenzie would later write a piece under the same not-so-humble title and both efforts seemed to be part of an awareness campaign when membership sales were a priority.

While the actual drawing on the auction block does not appear to be MacKenzie’s work, the handwriting is definitely his. Aware of a past efforts to impersonate the architect for profit that were handily debunked, The Golf Auction secured full letters of authenticity from James Spence Authentication and Professional Sports Authenticator.

The lineage of the drawing helps validate its legitimacy and is contributing to suggestions of massive final bid prices. However, the auction site’s comparison to “some of sports most magnificent documents, including James Naismith’s 13 Rules of Basketball which brought $4.3 million in auction in 2010,” seems a bit optimistic.