Tom Paul,
I have had 15 people staying at my house all week so I regret not responding to the "off-GCA" thread until just five minutes ago.
Also, I did read David's speculation regarding the green in question, which is why I posted what I did.
I will speculate as well.
We know that Walter Travis was involved in the latter part of the Cobb's Creek construction during the last couple months of 1915. We have two extemporaneous accounts that mention this.
I also know from basically pulling a George Crump and living out there much of the past six months that the portion of the property that took some earthmoving to make "golfable" is the area of todays' 10th and 12h greens (pictured) and 13th tee. It's some very steep land that definitely needed some fill and I'm almost certain that it delayed the original projected opening of Fall 1915.
The green to the left on that photo is today's 10th, but I'm wondering if you agree with me that it has a heckuva lot in common with the original 12th at Garden City.
The weird thing is that it is SOOOOOO out of place at Cobb's Creek, in the same way it was SOOOOOO out of place at Garden City, where both courses have about 95% of their greens simply being extensions of the fairway and natural surrounds, and then all of a sudden....BAM!!!!!, you have this wild, fortresslike (to use David Moriarty's term), obviously constructed, and architecturally interesting, one-off, incongruously wild greensite in their midst. Kinda like the elephant in the room.
If I had to guess at Cobb's Creek, I'd say Travis was involved, but I do also think that David is correct to ask the question...asking us to look at comparisons of the old 10th at Merion versus the greensite pictured above at Cobb's and see what we might uncover.
It was certainly an experimental time and the evolution of the courses we love had LOTS of input from LOTs of people, and I think Fred Pickering's contributions at Woodlands and other courses needs examination as well.
Now if we can just get paid for doing this, and get our significant others to understand our weird obessions.