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Perhaps I missed it...where in that Wilson report does he discuss the important process of laying out the golf course?”
Tom MacWood:
Perhaps you did miss it. He discusses it in that report thusly;
‘‘”Our problem was to lay out the course, build and seed eighteen greens and fifteen fairways. Three fairways were old pasture turf…..’
“I'd be curious when that process began and how many days it took?”
It appears from that report that it took from what he describes as the spring of 1911 until September 1st through the 15th, 1911, when he mentions they sowed the course with grass for golf! At that point they apparently let the course grow in and opened it for play on Sept 14, 1912. (in case you didn't realize it when a course is seeded and allowed to grow in that can be assumed that the architectural construction on that phase is finished!).
“Did they use a topo map?”
If they did, and as I’ve said numerous times on here that topo and Wilson’s sketches or whatever they may have used to design and construct the course apparently has been lost. So far, as hard as we’ve looked and others have looked in and around Merion golf club and the Cricket Club and in other likely places in the last few years we can find nothing left from this first phase about the architecture except a report like this one from Hugh Wilson---This is so unlike the next phase from which we have so much.
“Did Wilson lay out the course himself or was it a group effort among all or some of the committee members?”
Again, there’s very little left on that kind of detail from that first phase. From a few accounts that remain, particularly Richard Francis----it seems to have been a group effort.
“Did they seek advice while laying out the course?”
You can see from what Wilson said in that report that all he said is they sought advice from local committees and greenskeepers!
Once again, here’s the extent of what Wilson said in that report about that period of app six months of the architectural creation of the first phase of Merion East.
“…..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….”
Hugh Wilson, 1916
I suppose you think or are trying to suggest on here that if they didn’t record exactly who did what or if we can’t now find that record that that indicates they didn’t do it. Well, Tom, you may look at the history of the creation of a golf course like Merion East that way but I most certainly do not! They were the ones charged with designing and building a golf course and that’s what they did. If they, for whatever reason, decided not to do that and to get someone else to do it, one can logically assume the record would show that! The thing I find so comical about the way you seem to go about this is you seem to suggest if they didn’t keep a detailed record or we can’t find it that that must mean somehow they didn’t do it and that someone else must have. That’s a very odd way to look at the history of a golf course that does not have an elaborately detailed record of the time of the first phase of its creation!