"Are you kidding me? You have been writing repeatedly that the documents prove that the course planning did not start in 1910, but rather the spring of 1911. Now we are down to "the club minutes and supporting letters from 1910 and such don't say anything about that. . . "
Which is it? Do the documents prove that no planning took place in 1910, or are you guys just giving us your version of what you'd like the documents to prove and disprove?"
David Moriarty:
Of course I'm not kidding you.
And I never said on here that the planning of the course by Hugh Wilson and his committee started in the spring of 1911, you're the only one who said I said that so try to interpret what I said correctly or you'll just continue to confuse yourself and everybody else. I haven't yet said when it started as reflected in those meeting minutes but it started before the spring of 1911 but not in 1910----at any time in 1910.
So, it's not a matter of which is it----it's both.
There are no meeting minutes from 1910 that say a single word about the planning of the course in the sense of routing a golf course but they certainly do say quite a lot about what happened in the winter and spring of 1911 and by whom about golf course plans. It's a letter to the president of the club by this man I mentioned who was clearly working in conjunction with Lloyd to create a fairly complex business structure for the course and MCC and MCC Golf Association all of which directly involved Lloyd and the HDC residential real estate land to the west (as I've always suspected) that mentions that no definite course has been planned. That was in the last few days of December. Remember now, he wrote that letter directly to the president of the club and it was reflected in board meeting minutes so I hardly think even you can assign hyperbole to that.
Well, let me belay that thought as it seems you can come up with almost any specious rationale imaginable to try to defend your unsupportable premises in your essay.
What he was suggesting, obviously in conjunction with Lloyd, was how the HDC golf course land was to be received through Lloyd as it related to the HDC residential land to the west which Lloyd controlled. The point of it was all about being able to move boundary lines around in 1911 through Lloyd if necessary with the golf course and the residential development and that is precisely what did take place in 1911 that completely explains what that late night bike ride land swap idea of Francis' was about all about. Why did he go see Lloyd in the middle of the night? Why indeed! We've been trying to explain that to you for weeks but you either dismisss it or ignore it! It is no wonder at all that Francis went to see Lloyd and got his agreement and it was done immediately. But that did not happen in 1910 as you've speculated, it happened in 1911 as I've been trying to explain to you ever since you wrote your essay.
But you just refuse to listen and it is no wonder at all as it's not the truth you are after, you are apparently only after trying to salvage these speculative premises of yours that Macdonald produced a routing before November 15 1910 and Francis and Lloyd "tweaked" it. It's certainly clear to all of us that if you can't do that your whole essay and its conclusion falls apart.
There was no routing 1910 anything like the course got built and there was no Francis bike ride landswap idea in 1910 and these minutes and that letter prove it.
Of course, if and when we get permission to write an essay containing those transcripts to be puy on here you could probably just say what you have about most of the other seminal documents that make up Merion's history like Alan Wilson's report and Richard Francis' landswap story is nothing more than hyperbole.
But I'll tell you right now if you use that ridiculous technique with these letters and meeting minutes the discussion with us will be done. I don't care how much you choose to defend your unsupportable premises men like these do not write a letter to the president of the club proposing a complex financial structure and engage in hyperbole, and these obviously intelligent and effective and powerful men do not sit in board meetings with one another and engage in hyperbole over something they are all trying to accomplish together.
So if you even insinuate something like that in the future when these documents are disseminated, as you have so often in the past, I would be shocked if a single person on this website or anywhere else took you and your essay seriously, not that many seem to now.
Again, there was no routing plan for the course in 1910 that the course would be built to as you have concluded--not by anyone, not by Macdonald/Whigam and not by anyone from Wilson's committee.
I'm just not sure why it is you're having such difficulty grasping this and why you still seem to be speaking about when a Wilson trip abroad took place as if it mattered. As you will see that had nothing to do with it. We cannot explain why Tolhurst wrote that in 1989 but nevertheless it makes no difference to who routed, designed and built Merion East.