XXXX: Alwoodley
Before there were the Cypress Point, Royal Melbourne and Augusta Nationals of the world, Dr. Alister MacKenzie – now regarded as one of the game’s most formative figures, stewed in frustration over his home club’s refusal to act on his proposals to improve the layout. So deep was his dissatisfaction that when a sandy, undulating heathland site to the North of Leeds came available for golfing development, MacKenzie pitched his architectural principles and plans to the ownership group in a bid for his first act. And thus, only through an act of bitterness and vengeance was The Good Doctor’s first chapter born and The Alwoodley Golf Club rose.

The sandy tilt of the 6th at Alwoodley
Alwoodley’s gently rolling terrain is the breed of topography which so often fosters the most intriguing puzzles, housing plenty of subtle and interesting features and tilt ideal for golf, but is mainly absent of the extreme movement and dramatic landforms of some of the other great inland designs of the UK such as St George’s Hill and Sunningdale Old. Alwoodley’s sporty turf though remains firmer than anything in Surrey, the bounding ball maximising the influence of every contour and central to the strategy of the course.

Small elevation changes birth holes like the 9th
What is glaring about Alwoodley being Mackenzie’s first attempt is just how relevant its architecture stands today. More than 100 years on, the layout and particularly the excellence of its hazards in both strategy and presentation has retained Alwoodley’s ability to both test and entertain golfers – a true testament to Mackenzie’s genius so early in his career.
At the heart of Alwoodley’s timeless appeal is the consistency of interest and enjoyment and its unrelenting string of engaging golf which architecturally barely sets a foot wrong. MacKenzie’s ability to route such a wide variety of excellent holes where no two appear or play remotely similarly and the one, two and three shot holes stand equally captivating, making Alwoodley one of the great members’ clubs.

The hazards remain unmistakably MacKenzie
Par Fours
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Number Two​
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Teeing blindly uphill and over a ridge at the second serves its purpose in unsettling the golfer early in the round, though plenty of short grass awaits on the other side. The quintessential MacKenzie pitch over a bunker to the undulating green is both fiddly and exacting, delivering a wonderfully wide variance of outcomes to Alwoodley’s beginning.

The touchy pitch into the second green
Number Four
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In a similar vein to some of the vistas at Walton Heath, the testing fourth at Alwoodley screams golf as its fairway gently climbs and sweeps left with a distinct naturalness. The fairway melts seamlessly into the wonderful green site straddling a hillside, which stands as its most endearing feature.

The fourth green is one of Alwoodley's most appealing
Number Five
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The gorgeous fall and rise fifth is one of great appeal as its fairway cants aggressively to the right. Golfers able to hold the left half of the fairway are rewarded with an unobstructed approach, whilst those on the lower right tier will contend with a row of bunkers and partial blindness from the change in elevation. Like many of Mackenzie’s famous two-shotters the simplicity of its strategy and complexity of its execution blend perfectly to define Alwoodley’s most compelling hole.

The beautiful simplicity of the fifth
Number Seventeen
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Alwoodley’s most infamous hole plays across the road from the tee, but it’s the unsighted approach down a slope careening left to right which inevitably finds the first-timer long of the sunken green. Given Mackenzie’s disdain for blind approaches later in his career, one must wonder whether the thrill of running one into the sunken green at 17 would exist if he had a do-over, but walking down the hill towards the towering flagstick to learn their fate, golfers could only feel that Alwoodley is entirely better for it.

Beyond the ridge to the 17th green
Par Threes
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The Seventh
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Following a testing run of holes, golfers may feel some semblance of relief seeing 140 yards on the card at 7th. Although short, it is fraught with danger and confusion in classic MacKenzie fashion as bunkers well short of the long putting surface play mind games with the golfer’s depth perception.

The pretty & deceptive seventh
The Fourteenth
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In many ways the uncluttered 200-yard 14th embodies many of the subtle qualities of Alwoodley. Sandwiched between a pair of deep bunkers, the slightly elevated green tilts sharply from back to front and widens at the back to allow for some elusively tucked pins. With space short, the green is receptive to both the running approach and through the air, optionality a theme of Alwoodley’s green complexes.

Subtlety and excellence
Par Five
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The Eighth
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Although many will remember the downhill 10th as the most endearing three-shotter, the doglegging 8th oozes the MacKenzie. With a long bunker guarding the inside corner of the leg, finding the best angle of approach is not without risk. Its green tilts from back right to front left and makes for one of Alwoodley’s most attractive approaches.

A classic MacKenzie bunker guarding the corner
13 years after the completion of Alwoodley, MacKenzie penned ‘Golf Architecture’ in which he outlined his ‘13 Principles of Golf Course Design’. In perusing them today, it remains striking just how closely they align with his maiden effort and how relevant they remain today given the breadth of changes in how the game is played.
Alwoodley, through its unwavering quality and consistency of invigoration continues to stand the test of time as one of the world’s finest inland layouts.