Alister MacKenzie (August 30, 1870 – January 6, 1934) was a Scottish surgeon who was internationally known as a golf course architect. During World War I, he also made contributions to military camouflage, which he saw as closely related to golf course design (MacKenzie 1920, pp. 128-131; Behrens 2009).
MacKenzie was born in Wakefield, Yorkshire, England, where he later became a teacher at Queen Elizabeth Grammar School. Initially trained as a me...
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Alister MacKenzie (August 30, 1870 – January 6, 1934) was a Scottish surgeon who was internationally known as a golf course architect. During World War I, he also made contributions to military camouflage, which he saw as closely related to golf course design (MacKenzie 1920, pp. 128-131; Behrens 2009).
MacKenzie was born in Wakefield, Yorkshire, England, where he later became a teacher at Queen Elizabeth Grammar School. Initially trained as a medical doctor, he served as a surgeon with the Somerset Regiment in South Africa during the Second Boer War (Doak 2001).
During his wartime service, MacKenzie became interested in camouflage, which was effectively used by the Boers. As a result, during World War I, when he once again served in the military, he worked not as a surgeon but as a camoufleur. In a lecture he gave on the subject, he said that “The brilliant successes of the Boers [during his service in South Africa] were due to great extent to their making the best use of natural...
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