The SOCIETY Newsletter #105

A Brilliant Inconvenience: The MacKenzie Course at the 21 Golf Club

There are golf courses that feel inspired by history, and then there are those that feel as if history has been interrupted—paused mid-sentence—only to be resumed decades later. The MacKenzie Course at the 21 Golf Club belongs squarely in the latter category.

This is a course born not merely from admiration of Dr. Alister MacKenzie, but from a lost MacKenzie design—an idea left unrealized in his lifetime and finally allowed to breathe again on the sandy ground of western South Carolina. What has emerged is not a replica, homage, or pastiche, but a living continuation of MacKenzie’s thinking, filtered through modern restraint and uncommon courage.

To my knowledge, there is nothing else quite like this course in all of golfdom.

The most arresting feature—and the one that immediately resets expectations—is the routing itself: eighteen holes played across nine shared greens. This is not novelty architecture. It is communal golf in the purest sense. Golfers move in and around one another, sharing space, sightlines, and strategy. You see other groups putting as you approach, chipping as you wait, thinking as you think. The result is a rhythm more akin to the Old World than modern American golf—a course that feels alive, social, and slightly chaotic in the best possible way.

The shared greens are not compromises; they are revelations. Each green functions as multiple greens depending on angle of approach, hole location, and setup. Subtle ridges, bold swales, and diagonal contours divide the surfaces into distinct personalities. What appears from afar to be a single putting surface reveals itself, upon closer inspection, as two occupying the same landform. It is MacKenzie’s strategic brilliance turned up just enough to feel dangerous.

These green complexes are where the soul of the course lives. They are born from MacKenzie’s long-held belief that greens should reward imagination rather than obedience. Putts are rarely straightforward. Approaches are rarely final. The ground remains part of the conversation long after the ball lands. This is old-world freedom in design—greens that are not manicured into submission but allowed to argue back.

Yet for all its intellectual rigor, this is not a course reserved for the elite ball-striker. Quite the opposite. The MacKenzie Course manages the rare feat of challenging the low handicapper while being thoroughly enjoyable for the high handicapper. Width off the tee invites play. Options into the greens encourage creativity rather than fear. The better player is tempted into heroic lines and exacting angles; the casual golfer is granted room, recovery, and joy.

This balance is no accident. It is MacKenzie’s central thesis realized: difficulty should come from choices, not punishment.

Perhaps most impressive of all is how timely this course feels. Though rooted in ideas nearly a century old, it speaks directly to the realities of modern golf. The entire course occupies a remarkably small footprint—just 65 acres of maintained turf. Water use is minimal. The routing is efficient. The walk is intimate. In an era increasingly defined by sustainability, cost consciousness, and land scarcity, the MacKenzie Course feels not nostalgic, but necessary.

It is a reminder that golf does not need to be bigger to be better. It needs to be smarter.

The MacKenzie Course at 21 Golf Club is not fair. It is not predictable. It is not trying to please everyone.

And that is precisely why it is great.

This is golf that trusts the player. Golf that trusts the ground. Golf that understands that the future of the game may, in fact, look a lot like its past—if we are brave enough to let it.

The best part: The course is currently only 12 holes, which means there are 6 holes left to be built and those holes just happen to sit upon some of the best land. The plan is to have all 18 holes completed by October of this year.

Augusta–Aiken: The New Hub of American Golf

For decades, American golf has orbited familiar poles—Pinehurst, Long Island, Monterey Peninsula, Sand Hills. But quietly, deliberately, and with unmistakable momentum, a new gravitational center is forming along the Savannah River corridor. The stretch between Augusta, Georgia and Aiken, South Carolina is no longer merely adjacent to greatness. It is greatness in the making.

This is not a boom built on excess or spectacle. It is a renaissance rooted in restraint, land, and ideas—an ecosystem where tradition and experimentation coexist, and where golf is once again about the ground beneath your feet.

At the heart of it all stands Augusta National Golf Club, the immutable anchor. For nearly a century, it has defined excellence, taste, and restraint in American golf. But what makes Augusta–Aiken remarkable today is not Augusta National alone—it’s what has grown around it.

Just across the river, Sage Valley Golf Club, offers a private, contemplative counterpoint—golf distilled to rhythm, width, and serenity. Nearby, the Palmetto Club stands as one of America’s oldest clubs, renovated by Dr Alister MacKenzie in the 1930s, its sandy soils and understated architecture reminding visitors that greatness does not require scale, only soul.

Aiken itself has emerged as the spiritual engine of this movement, the Aiken Golf Club proudly public, represents something essential: accessibility without compromise. It is a declaration that great golf belongs not just to the few, but to the curious, the devoted, and the everyday player.

Then come the new standard-bearers—the clubs redefining what modern American golf can be.

The Tree Farm born of a dream by PGA Tour Player, Zach Blair is playful, intimate, and refreshingly unorthodox. Old Barnwell which blends reverence for classic design with a contemporary ethos, proving that tradition is not static—it evolves.

Perhaps the boldest philosophical statement is unfolding at the 21 Golf Club. Its MacKenzie Course—twelve holes currently open for preview play, with all eighteen scheduled for delivery by October 2026—embraces the uncomfortable brilliance of strategic golf. This is architecture that challenges fairness, rewards imagination, and asks players to think rather than comply. It is not a homage to the past; it is a conversation with it.

And the vision doesn’t stop there. New Holland, now under construction, signals continued confidence in the land and the moment. The forthcoming Hammer Course at 21 Golf Club hints at a future where variety, not uniformity, defines excellence.

What unites all of this is not branding or ambition—it is intent. Augusta–Aiken is not trying to be loud. It is trying to be lasting. Sandy soil, walkability, strategic design, and a respect for golf as an intellectual pursuit bind these places together.

This region is becoming something rare in modern American sport: a true hub. Not a destination for a single week in April, but a year-round pilgrimage for those who believe golf is at its best when it challenges the mind as much as the swing.

Augusta–Aiken is no longer emerging.

OUR FIRST ANNUAL MEETING

I am so excited to welcome many of you to my club on January 19th for the very first Society of Golf Historians Annual Meeting.

• Please arrive around 12PM.

• Tee off at 1PM. Assume country club clothing for golf. Please tuck in your polos. If it is cold hoodie sweaters are acceptable.

• On the 7th tee box I will greet you and your group with a limited edition High Society Hat with this limited run design.

• After Golf, freshen up and we will have dinner served in the clubhouse. I would suggest wearing pants, polo or button down shirt, tie and jacket is optional. Please wear dress shoes.

• We will have a series of speakers headlined by my dear friend, Stephen Proctor who was just awarded the 2026 Herbert Warren Wind Award for his latest book, Matchless.

• If you are interested we will have Antiquity Merchandise and golf history books for sale.

If you haven’t registered yet I believe we can make room for a couple more.

THANK YOU

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