One Man, a horse and a turf-cutting machine could, under favourable conditions, nick and pare an acre (4,840 square yards) of sods in a day. Dr Alister MacKenzie further maintained that, by hand, a man would rarely cut more than 240 square yards over the same period.

So, the good doctor concluded that in view of demands for higher wages and shorter working hours, the cost of golf-course construction could be reduced by "better methods of organisation and by labour-saving machinery." And by way of emphasising the point, he added: "I have actually had better results with less cost since the Armistice than before and during 1914."

This, of course, is the celebrated golf course architect who went on to design such wonderful courses as Cypress Point, Augusta National, Royal Melbourne, Pasatiempo, Castletown (Isle of Man) and Jockey Club (Buenos Aires). He also had an involvement in Lahinch, Limerick GC and Cork GC in this country.

And according to a recently published book, he might have become a target for a "Sinn FΘin bullet".

In 1927, when he was invited to visit Lahinch with a view to upgrading the course, he also went to Limerick GC at Ballyclough where, we are informed in the club's history, he submitted two plans. The first was considered essential and consisted of laying six greens, the only surviving one of which is the present 16th. His other recommendation was to site new bunkers and lengthen the course through the construction of new tees.

Meanwhile, extensive work has been undertaken recently at Lahinch GC under the guidance of architect Martin Hawtree. This has been aimed largely at restoring the MacKenzie stamp, especially to greens which, we are told, were flattened largely on the instruction of the great local player, John Burke, who found them to be too difficult.

But what's all this about Sinn FΘin? It is contained in The Life and Work of Dr Alister MacKenzie by Tom Doak, James Scott and Ray Haddock, which was published in the US earlier this year by Sleeping Bear Press.

It seems that when MacKenzie was not involved in designing golf courses, he liked to dabble in military camouflage which he first gained experience of as a young man during the Boer War. And it was something he maintained an interest in throughout his life, as we can see in a letter he wrote shortly before his death in 1935, to the president of the US, Franklin D Roosevelt.

The letter read in part: "The League of Nations has failed to stop the China-Japanese War. I am prepared to submit to you, as President of the United States of America, the League of Nations and both the Chinese and Japanese Forces, a means by which the aggressor in land warfare, even if he is ten times as strong as the defending force, is certain to lose.

"These principles do not apply to war at sea or in the air but only to land warfare. I refer to what has become known as camouflage - real camouflage does not exist, as it is popularly supposed, in paint. It consists of concealment of the real fortifications and men and the construction of dummy fortifications to divert the enemy's fire from the real forces. These invisible and dummy fortifications are equally effective when viewed from the ground or the air."

The book tells us that these and other views which MacKenzie held on camouflage, were expressed quite trenchantly in articles which appeared in The Military Engineer after the architect's death. Otherwise, his military service during the First World War seems to have been somewhat inconsequential.

We are then informed: "The strange episode of Alister's later involvement with camouflage in Ireland has received little attention. It happened at a dangerous turning point in Ireland's troubled history and it now stands as an extraordinary story involving the lives of Alister and two other Boer War veterans over 20 years.

"These three not only survived that war, they survived the protracted massacre of the First World War - which was even more remarkable. They then became associated, in different roles, with the internal fighting in Ireland in the early 1920s.

"The senior was Alister's military mentor, General Sir Henry Wilson, the then field marshal who had made possible his move from the medical corps to the engineers. An Irish protestant, Wilson had risen to be the senior officer of the British army from 1918 to 1922. Like Alister, he had been deeply affected by the Battle of Colenso when camouflage won the day for the Boers."

The authors go on to tell us that the second man was none other than Erskine Childers who, like MacKenzie, was born in 1870 and they grew up to be contemporaries at Cambridge University before heading to the war in South Africa. And how in 1903, Childers acquired fame by writing the adventure story The Riddle of the Sands, a fictional account of a German build-up for war.

We are told that the incisive nature of the book meant very favourable treatment for Childers when the conflict commenced. "While most British soldiers had to endure the misery of chronic trench warfare, Childers experienced the excitement of being a passenger on one of the earliest air raids; a sea plane attack on the German naval base at Cuxhaven on Christmas Day, 1914."

Further details are given of Childers' growing "obsession" with Irish republicanism and the landing of his yacht, Asgard, at Howth, with its cargo of German guns for the Irish volunteers. And the authors claim that there were "obvious similarities between MacKenzie and Childers." They explain: "Neither was a professional serviceman but, in war, both were considered 'loose cannons' (for them, the rigid service organisation hardly seemed to exist). Yet, even when holding relatively junior ranks, each seemed to have a mysteriously easy and casual contact with the 'men at the top' - field marshalls or admirals."

The book goes on: "The little drama came to a climax in 1922, the year when Michael Collins, the Republican leader and hero, was assassinated. In February, just a month after the Free State had come into existence, Wilson completed his time as Chief of Staff and, freed from the constraints of military office, entered politics and got elected to parliament for North Down, Ulster. His forthright speeches, pressing for radical measures against terrorism, immediately marked him as an enemy of Sinn FΘin."

But the Unionists welcomed him and sought his advice on military matters. Before MacKenzie could respond to his request for help on camouflage, however, Wilson was shot "by Sinn FΘiners" on the steps of his Belgravia home in London. Later that year, on November 24th, Childers, who had opposed the Treaty, was executed by the Free State forces. The authors conclude: "The bullet that killed Wilson possibly saved MacKenzie's life. Had Wilson lived longer, Alister's loyalty to him was such that he would have done all in his power to provide help. Alister might have then become a target for another Sinn FΘin bullet." And Bobby Jones might never have had such a wonderful collaborator for the creation of Augusta National.