Alister MacKenzie's Cypress Point Club
What is so immediately stunning about this visual biography of one of  golf's great physical masterpieces is the photography itself: it's all archival,  and it's all black and white. It lendsAlister MacKenzie's Cypress Point  Cluba deeply personal feeling. It seems to carry with it a sense of past,  permanence, and inherent artistry, as if it were a valued family heirloom. In a  sense, this volume is the family album of a cherished golf course, the  photographic and historical record of the people who brought the course to  life--including MacKenzie, the titular designer who would later coax Augusta  National from the landscape, and Marion Hollins, one of the most formidable  women ever to master a mashie--and how they collaborated to accomplish  their ideal.Though overshadowed by Pebble Beach, its more famous Monterey Peninsula  neighbor, Cypress Point remains one of the true crown jewels in American golf.  Its pedigree is second to none, and its 16th hole--a long par 3 over the  ocean--is generally acclaimed as the premier one-shotter in existence.  Shackelford, a prolific historian of golf course architecture and designers,  spends the first third of the volume affectionately introducing us to Cypress  Point's founders, its planners, the ideas that went into creating the club, and  the work that went into building the course. Then he takes us through Cypress  Point hole by hole, with his own informative text augmented by theoretical and  site-specific insights from MacKenzie and his assistant, Robert Hunter, all  gift-wrapped with stunningly dramatic photos from the 1920s and '30s.Alister MacKenzie's Cypress Point Clubis a truly lovely volume,  historically fascinating and visually pleasing. To the golf-obsessed among us,  the surprising story behind the birth of No. 16 should alone be worth the greens  fees. But like No. 16 itself, the story is just part of an overall whole, and  there's much inCypress Pointto beguile anyone who can appreciate the  splendid connection between an ancient game and an environment that gorgeously  elevates it.--Jeff Silverman