Here's the reality of good research as opposed to rumor and supposition---and the distinction, of course, is hugely important!
In the last few days I was asked by GAP to write a short bio on George Thomas for the GAP magazine. The reason for the GAP magazine bio on Thomas is this year ('08) is the centennial of Whitemarsh GC (1908), Geo Thomas's first 18 hole design and Whitemarsh is the venue for this year's (2008) Philadelphia Amateur Championship.
When I was asked to do a bio on Thomas my first reaction was that Geoff Shackelford should do it, since, in my opinion, no one knows Thomas better than he does.
But since I can't seem to get in touch with Geoff Shackelford these days I asked a mutual friend to ask him if he'd like to do it and I was told through that intermediary that he couldn't do it and so I should. And so I did.
To do it I hit all my research material on Thomas certainly including GeoffShac's books "The Golden Age of Golf Course Architecture", "The Captain" and Thomas' own book "Golf Course Architecture in America." And there was also some other research entities and material available to me that I'll explain later.
I called Mike Cirba to tell him I believed that Thomas was also involved in the design of Cobbs Creek which he and the Cobbs committee apparently did not know.
I told him that I'd gotten the Thomas involvement out of GeoffShac's book and that I believed GeoffShac was one of the best researchers I know. I told Cirba and Bausch that I thought I'd read that Thomas spent two weeks at Cobbs, even if in a learning mode, and that I thought Thomas himself wrote that.
When I checked my source material here's all it said:
"Thomas spent considerable time studying Hugh Wilson's work during the construction of Merion Cricket Club's East course in 1912, its West course in 1914 and at a municipal course in Philadelphia, now Cobbs Creek."
There's no mention of two weeks in that quote and it's obviously not a quote from Thomas but from Shackelford, so where did I get what I told Cirba and Bausch? Obviously from a vivid or "positivist" imagination.
Did Thomas spend that kind of time at Cobb's Creek with Wilson and Crump and the others, and most important where did Shackelford get that information that Thomas had even been there since Shackelford wrote that book in 1996?
Thomas, himself, in his own book written in the 1920s gave Hugh Wilson more credit than anyone else he dealt with along the way as a mentor and tutor on golf architecture. Thomas himself said he felt Wilson might be the best architecture out there, amateur or professional.
This post is really about how we try to do our research and how we always need to keep checking ourselves for the accuracy of the things we assume and conclude and say. We want to be as certain as we can be before we put something out there but always we realize something might come up to prove us wrong or steer us in some other direction. And of course when those things happen we want to always be willing to admit our errors in research and opinion.
In 1915-16 when Cobbs Creek was designing and building was Thomas there and for a considerable time even if he considered, at that time, that he was still in a learning mode on architecture despite having designed Whitemarsh up to seven years before that?
Since the so-called "Philadelphia School" of architecture was primarily made up of those app. four "amateur/sportsmen" architects that included Crump and Wilson and Thomas and perhaps even Tillinghast, at that time, all who knew each other really well and apparently collaborated all the time, is it reasonable to assume from all the foregoing that Thomas spent a good deal of time with the rest at Cobbs Creek?
If I were a betting man, which I'm not, I would bet a lot of money that he was there at Cobbs Creek for a considerable time with the rest but I can't absolutely prove it.
