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Michael Wharton-Palmer

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re:1916 Amateur @ Merion
« Reply #50 on: December 14, 2004, 10:26:51 AM »
I think Old Tom Morris was also involved because one of the collaberators once read something he wrote while on the pot after a vindaloo curry!!!!

Fellas..is it really that serious, and is it worth getting into a pissing contest about who did or did not say something..Merion like Pine Valley is a great work with a good deal of input from the great architects around at that time.
Clearly Wilson gets most of the credit in the same way that Crump does at Pine Valley, my ignorant guesss for that is because they were the "main men" so to speak.
I am sure their respective world comcepts were shaped by all those architects who came before them, just as todays hotshots are influenced by the great ones from the past..we will never know who said what and when, so just get on with it..Merion is a masterpiece..we are lucky to have it..enjoy it..and long live the work of the Philly Dudes.

wsmorrison

Re:1916 Amateur @ Merion
« Reply #51 on: December 14, 2004, 10:48:41 AM »
You know, that's what it really does come down to.  Merion is great.  And I never want to lose sight of this.  It is the course I have the most affection for.  

Merion achieved greatness over a long period of time.  It was this long and devoted process which in fact helped make it great.  A number of people were involved and all deserve our thanks.  

It is just that some of us are a bit nutty about figuring out who did what and when.  But we should not miss the forest for the trees, so to speak  8)
« Last Edit: December 14, 2004, 10:49:24 AM by Wayne Morrison »

TEPaul

Re:1916 Amateur @ Merion
« Reply #52 on: December 14, 2004, 11:37:16 AM »
Tom MacWood:

Obvously you can extrapolate what the specific meaning of "advice" was from Macdonald and Whigam anyway you want to but the fact is its just speculation on your part. It seems most odd to me if Macdonald or Whigam really did get involved in conceiving of and perhaps designing the holea and course of Merion East in that first construction phase between spring 1911 and fall 1911 Wilson and the Merion committee were curiously silent about that. In my opinion that doesn't exactly square with how appreciative they all were (which is well recorded by them) about what he contributed in advice in those two days at NGLA BEFORE Wilson went to Europe.

You say you think Wilson was a novice. After spending seven solid months studying and sketching in Europe he probably wasn't any more a novice in architecture than Macdonald was when he did the same thing in preparation for NGLA a number of years previous.

Did you say Macdonald, Raynor and Whigam were involved in a number of courses previous to advising Merion in 1910 or 1911? What courses were those? All they'd done together at that point was NGLA.

You said:

"….after all Wilson and the rest of committee were novices, and Macdonald & Whigham had been involved in the design and construction of a number of courses together and separately…including what many considered the greatest design in the world."
« Last Edit: December 14, 2004, 11:39:37 AM by TEPaul »

SPDB

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re:1916 Amateur @ Merion
« Reply #53 on: December 14, 2004, 12:12:05 PM »
Pat -
Would you say that Donald Ross advised on the design of Augusta National?

Mike_Sweeney

Re:1916 Amateur @ Merion
« Reply #54 on: December 14, 2004, 12:33:59 PM »
You know, that's what it really does come down to.  Merion is great.  And I never want to lose sight of this.  It is the course I have the most affection for.  

Merion achieved greatness over a long period of time.  It was this long and devoted process which in fact helped make it great.  A number of people were involved and all deserve our thanks.  

It is just that some of us are a bit nutty about figuring out who did what and when.  But we should not miss the forest for the trees, so to speak  8)

Wayne,

I agree, and it has been interesting for me to read this thread. My basic summary would be that many (not all) of the old great courses may have somehow become great due to collaborations as opposed to modern courses where we seem to give all the credit to the one architect.

Doug Braunsdorf

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re:1916 Amateur @ Merion
« Reply #55 on: December 14, 2004, 12:41:49 PM »
TE
By the way the quote that begins, “It is too early to attempt an analytical criticism of the various holes...." was not written by Tillinghast, it was written by Far & Sure, who I suspect was Travis.

Tom-
Just a quick question: did various writers/architects write articles in American Golfer under pseudonyms, much like those written in the Philadelphia Gazette and Poor Richard's Almananc years earlier by another famous Philadelphian, Benjamin Franklin?  

Thanks

-DRB
"Never approach a bull from the front, a horse from the rear, or a fool from any direction."

SPDB

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re:1916 Amateur @ Merion
« Reply #56 on: December 14, 2004, 01:49:54 PM »
Tom - Who was the Peripatetic Golfer?

mike_malone

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re:1916 Amateur @ Merion
« Reply #57 on: December 14, 2004, 01:54:48 PM »
 I still think the movement of the tees on the two par threes on the front is a significant change. That is if the greens were not changed.
  I have a question on the famous #11. Was the green moved to the other side of the creek after this date? Wow that is big.
« Last Edit: December 14, 2004, 01:56:42 PM by Mike_Malone »
AKA Mayday

wsmorrison

Re:1916 Amateur @ Merion
« Reply #58 on: December 14, 2004, 04:13:23 PM »
"I have a question on the famous #11. Was the green moved to the other side of the creek after this date? Wow that is big."

What date are you talking about?  10, 11 and 12 were rebuilt in 1922 when the added acreage was acquired.  The 13th was changed in 1924.

mike_malone

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re:1916 Amateur @ Merion
« Reply #59 on: December 14, 2004, 05:05:57 PM »
 the pictures shown on this thread re#11,so I guess they moved in 1922
AKA Mayday

Dan Kelly

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re:1916 Amateur @ Merion
« Reply #60 on: December 14, 2004, 05:10:10 PM »
Wayne --

You write that "some of us are a bit nutty about figuring out who did what and when."

I mean this question completely respectfully:

What is to be gained from figuring out who did what and when -- presuming such a thing is possible, in an enterprise you concede was collegial?

Dan


"There's no money in doing less." -- Joe Hancock, 11/25/2010
"Rankings are silly and subjective..." -- Tom Doak, 3/12/2016

Mike_Cirba

Re:1916 Amateur @ Merion
« Reply #61 on: December 14, 2004, 05:19:23 PM »
Wayne --

You write that "some of us are a bit nutty about figuring out who did what and when."

I mean this question completely respectfully:

What is to be gained from figuring out who did what and when -- presuming such a thing is possible, in an enterprise you concede was collegial?

Dan




Dan;

As someone who has spent an inordinate amount of my time researching the "who did what" at various courses great and small over the years, I can't even begin to describe the rationale to someone not similarly afflicted.  

Why does it matter that, say John Gehman designed the Butter Valley Golf Port in PA in 1968, or that Willie Tucker designed the first nine holes at Bonneville GC in Utah in 1927?  I don't know, but I dug it up anyway because I was curious.  

Personally, I blame Cornish and Whitten for getting me hooked on this stuff about 15 years ago.  

SPDB

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re:1916 Amateur @ Merion
« Reply #62 on: December 14, 2004, 05:45:25 PM »
Is the creek that meanders back to the current 11 green artificially diverted?

Dan Kelly

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re:1916 Amateur @ Merion
« Reply #63 on: December 14, 2004, 05:50:12 PM »
Mike --

Thanks for the answer.

Is this a proper paraphrase of what you said: "It's got to be the going, not the getting there, that's good"?

-------------

Let me add a question:

How do you know, really, that "John Gehman designed the Butter Valley Golf Port in PA in 1968, or that Willie Tucker designed the first nine holes at Bonneville GC in Utah in 1927?"

You may know that Mr. Gehman and Mr. Tucker were in charge -- but how do you know that all of their best ideas didn't come from some Burbeckian underling? (Seems to me a given, in collegial enterprises, that the officially attributed credits and blames for ideas, good and bad, rarely tell the full, true story...and that the full, true story is rarely recoverable -- even the next year, much less most of a century later.)

Don't you think this Merion investigation might be attempting to reconstruct the unreconstructable?
« Last Edit: December 14, 2004, 06:02:13 PM by Dan Kelly »
"There's no money in doing less." -- Joe Hancock, 11/25/2010
"Rankings are silly and subjective..." -- Tom Doak, 3/12/2016

wsmorrison

Re:1916 Amateur @ Merion
« Reply #64 on: December 14, 2004, 06:24:23 PM »
"What is to be gained from figuring out who did what and when -- presuming such a thing is possible, in an enterprise you concede was collegial?"

Dan,

What is to be gained is rather meaningless to most.  But that is true of most anything historical.  Does the person taking a flu vaccine care who were the ones that created it and where individual credit should go?  Of course not.  Does an understanding of the technical side of making frescoes on the Sistine Chapel give one a greater appreciation for the artistry?  Doubtful.  But what is meaningless to some is meaningful to others.  

I guess it requires a love of history and a desire to understand the timeline of events.  I am curious where new and interesting expressions of golf design originate.  I'm writing a book on Flynn with Tom Paul and we are searching for truths on many levels related to his work that some may find interesting.  Others may care only for the pretty pictures or their club profile.  Others may just want the book so they can meet Tom Paul at the book signing  ;)

wsmorrison

Re:1916 Amateur @ Merion
« Reply #65 on: December 14, 2004, 06:26:01 PM »
"the pictures shown on this thread re#11,so I guess they moved in 1922 "

Mike, no need to guess.  I told you  ;D

TEPaul

Re:1916 Amateur @ Merion
« Reply #66 on: December 14, 2004, 06:31:12 PM »
Dan Kelly asked;

"Don't you think this Merion investigation might be attempting to reconstruct the unreconstructable?"

Dan:

I think that certainly is a distinct possibility, or perhaps I should say it's extremely likely that this is attempting to reconstruct the unreconstructable. Wayne and I have always said determining who actually conceived of and designed the particulars of Merion East in the Spring and summer of 1911 will probably never be provable because the record has been lost or never really existed. The record is pretty complete in the second phase in the late teens and 1920s and 1930s though.

So without a record of who did what Wayne and I are pretty much going on what we think is the most logical assumption of who did that first phase from what is known.

Tom MacWood seems to be trying to imply that Merion East may've been to some extent routed and perhaps even designed by Macdonald and Whigam. If he does not think that then we probably agree. For all we know or he knows Macdonald and Whigam could've been advising Merion on agronomy.

But we do know Wilson and the Merion committee went to see Macdonald at NGLA for two days for a crash course in architecture before Wilson went to Europe for seven solid months to study and sketch architecture.

If Tom MacWood thinks or is suggesting that Wilson was such a novice when he returned as to basically not be capable of leading a committee in the design and construction of a golf course then why the hell does Tom MacWood think Wilson bothered to travel all the way to Europe and spend seven months there in preparation for leading a committee to build the course? If Macdonald was relied upon by Wilson and the Merion Committee to the extent MacWood may be implying they were then why didn't Wilson just stay at home, save the trip and the seven months in Europe and ask Macdonald and Whigam to come down to Philadelphia and route and lay out the course for him and them?

It seems Tom MacWood cannot really believe Wilson could have conceived of and designed Merion because he was too much of a novice. This is where I completely disagree with Tom MacWood and frankly think him to be a pretty poor researcher. He basically tries to make too much out of something that just doesn't seem logical---eg the reporting of "advice" he's trying to probably imply meant routing and designing. And if he's not implying that then one would think he'd concede that it must have been Wilson and his committee and probably the young greenkeeper William Flynn.

Tom MacWood should face what seems to be logical fact about some of these people he calls novices----eg Wilson, Crump, Fownes, Leeds etc when they built the courses their names have now become famous for. None of them had done anything previous to Merion, PVGC, Oakmont, and Myopia. These were amateurs who'd never conceived of or built a course before but not only could they do it, they did do it, in my opinion, despite how much a guy like Tom MacWood seems to be looking to give architectural attribution to others he thinks were more qualified.

TEPaul

Re:1916 Amateur @ Merion
« Reply #67 on: December 14, 2004, 06:40:07 PM »
Tom MacWood:

When did you first come to believe that Merion was trying to imply that Hugh Wilson and committee was more responsible for the design of Merion East than you believe they were? And when did you first come to believe that PVGC has been trying to imply that Crump was more responsible for the design of PVGC than you believe he was?

Patrick_Mucci

Re:1916 Amateur @ Merion
« Reply #68 on: December 14, 2004, 08:47:05 PM »
Dan Kelly,

If a golf course had undergone a number of changes over the years, at the hands of others, and wanted to return to its roots, its original architecture, wouldn't it be important to determine who did what to the golf course, and when, such that they could reconstruct and restore the golf course to the original architects features, rather then those of intervening green committees, superintendents and other architects ?

What harm does the knowledge bring with it ?

TEPaul

Re:1916 Amateur @ Merion
« Reply #69 on: December 14, 2004, 09:07:48 PM »
Tom MacWood:

How much time did Macdonald and Whigam spend at Merion East during it's construction in 1911?

Dan Kelly

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re:1916 Amateur @ Merion
« Reply #70 on: December 14, 2004, 09:31:46 PM »

If Tom MacWood thinks or is suggesting that Wilson was such a novice when he returned as to basically not be capable of leading a committee in the design and construction of a golf course then why the hell does Tom MacWood think Wilson bothered to travel all the way to Europe and spend seven months there in preparation for leading a committee to build the course? If Macdonald was relied upon by Wilson and the Merion Committee to the extent MacWood may be implying they were then why didn't Wilson just stay at home, save the trip and the seven months in Europe and ask Macdonald and Whigam to come down to Philadelphia and route and lay out the course for him and them?

Tom --

Thanks for the backgrounder.

That's an awfully persuasive (to me) question you ask there.

Does Mr. MacWood (or anyone) have a good answer?

Dan
"There's no money in doing less." -- Joe Hancock, 11/25/2010
"Rankings are silly and subjective..." -- Tom Doak, 3/12/2016

Dan Kelly

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re:1916 Amateur @ Merion
« Reply #71 on: December 14, 2004, 09:34:49 PM »
Dan Kelly,

If a golf course had undergone a number of changes over the years, at the hands of others, and wanted to return to its roots, its original architecture, wouldn't it be important to determine who did what to the golf course, and when, such that they could reconstruct and restore the golf course to the original architects features, rather then those of intervening green committees, superintendents and other architects ?

What harm does the knowledge bring with it ?

None. Absolutely none. I certainly was not suggesting that inquiries such as this do any harm.

I was asking what benefit we hope to gain from knowing exactly who did what during the youth and adolescence of Merion.
"There's no money in doing less." -- Joe Hancock, 11/25/2010
"Rankings are silly and subjective..." -- Tom Doak, 3/12/2016

T_MacWood

Re:1916 Amateur @ Merion
« Reply #72 on: December 14, 2004, 09:50:28 PM »
Dan
That is pretty persuasive, but than again I've never said Macdonald designed Merion, he only advised the committee. TE gets advice confused with design.

I reckon there are more than a few GCA participents who have spent in excess of 7 months playing and studying overseas. If their goal was to construct a golf course, the smart ones would seek the advise of an architect. Wilson was a smart man.
« Last Edit: December 14, 2004, 09:54:53 PM by Tom MacWood »

TEPaul

Re:1916 Amateur @ Merion
« Reply #73 on: December 15, 2004, 05:39:35 AM »
I asked Tom MacWood:

“Tom MacWood:
How much time did Macdonald and Whigam spend at Merion East during it's construction in 1911?”

Tom MacWood replied;

“I don't know. I'm not sure how much time the individual members of the committee spent on site either.”

Apparently you aren’t. Apparently you’ve never read the report Hugh Wilson wrote about the creation of Merion East at the behest of Charles Piper. It’s a 10 page report written in 1916 but as I mentioned on this thread earlier most of the ten page report is about issues of the early agronomy of the golf course. This part however is indicative of the actual architectural creation of the course between the spring of 1911 and approximately September 1911. The ‘our problem’ and the ‘we’ Wilson mentions is obvious the Merion committee, and those that worked for them, including Pickering, the foreman, Flynn the greenkeeper and Toomey the engineer.

‘”Our problem was to lay out the course, build and seed eighteen greens and fifteen fairways. Three fairways were old pasture turf…..we collected all the information we could from local committees and greenkeepers, and we started in the spring of 1911 to construct the course on ground which had largely been farmland…..After completing construction of the greens, and thoroughly harrowing and breaking up the soil on both fairways and greens, we allowed the weeds to germinate and harrowed them in about every three weeks. We sowed from September first to fifteenth 1911) and made a remarkably good catch due to two things—good weather conditions and thorough preparation of the soil. …..We opened the course September 14, 1912….”

As we can see that architectural work took about six months. We know it was the charge from the club to Wilson and committee to build the golf course so since the course was build in app six months I think we can probably assume all those men mentioned above, either individually or together were there to do it. Certainly they didn’t record which of them did every detail, perhaps they just didn’t understand or think of the importance of doing that but we do have some of the more interesting details recorded such as Richard Francis’s idea of how to solve the problem in the #15 and #16 area that managed to create the famous #16 quarry hole.

As Dan Kelly mentioned in that important question above---(Is it possible to reconstruct the unreconstructable at this point?), but the thing that strikes me as interesting is we definitely do know that Wilson and the Merion Committee were certainly most appreciative towards Macdonald (and Whigam) for their help and advice in 1910 before Wilson traveled to Europe. One would think that if Macdonald and Whigam had come to Philadelphia and offered a real helping hand in both routing and designing the golf course that both Wilson and the Merion Committee certainly would have mentioned it! Our perhaps you really do think at that point between spring 1911 and September 1911 Wilson and the committee had suddenly decided it was time to begin to glorify themselves through the exclusion of others!

For you to virtually overlook or at least seriously minimize what men like Wilson and his committee were doing practically every day during the construction of the course both in that early phase and then Wilson and Flynn in the years to come----as well as what a man such as Crump was doing practically every day for five years at PVGC is one of the primary reasons I think you’re not a very good golf architectural analyst. For some reason you seem to totally miss the obvious and you tend to try to maximize the importance of generalities in newspaper articles about men from New York when you don’t even know if they spent more than a day or two there.

From post #90:

"Dan
That is pretty persuasive, but than again I've never said Macdonald designed Merion, he only advised the committee. TE gets advice confused with design.
I reckon there are more than a few GCA participents who have spent in excess of 7 months playing and studying overseas. If their goal was to construct a golf course, the smart ones would seek the advise of an architect. Wilson was a smart man."

Tom MacWood:

I certainly don't get advice confused with designing but it appears you do. Everyone knows Wilson and the Merion committee got advice on designing from Macdonald. They certainly all went to great lengths to thank him for it too. That was when they spend two days with him at NGLA in 1910 before Wilson sailed for Europe. When Wilson returned it appears from the evidence that's left that he and his committee were ready to route and design and construct Merion East which they did in about six months.

Again, Tom, if they'd been so appreciative towards Macdonald for those two days at NGLA why do you supposed they mentioned nothing much more about his advise when Wilson returned and began to design and build?

Don't bother to answer that because I think I know why you suppose that---you think it was the beginning of this massive decades long campaign on the part of Philadelphians to glorify what they did at the exclusion of others!  ;)

What a joke that is and, again, the reason I think you're a poor golf analyst and even an historical revisionist which is much worse,in my opinion---you just keep trying to make things out of some generalities that just don't have much meaning---in this case the mention in some articles about "advice". The irony is that advice probably is nothing much more than the advice he gave them BEFORE they built the course and even more ironically the advice they were so appreciative of that's so much part of the record of Merion East.
« Last Edit: December 15, 2004, 05:56:54 AM by TEPaul »

T_MacWood

Re:1916 Amateur @ Merion
« Reply #74 on: December 15, 2004, 06:11:22 AM »
TE
Perhaps I missed it...where in that Wilson report does he discuss the important process of laying out the golf course. I'd be curious when that process began and how many days it took? Did they use a topo map? Did Wilson lay out the course himself or was it a group effort among all or some of the committee members? Did they seek advice while laying out the course?

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