This might both interest and amuse some GOLFCLUBATLASERS but yesterday some of us spent the day at Merion with Gil Hanse, his partner Jim Wagner, and Castle Stuart's Mark Parsinen, Fraser Cromarty, Stuart McColm and Paul Olsen. Wayne hosted a couple of groups for golf that included Merion's Bill Dow and the green chairman.
(Later at a really fine dinner at Gil Hanse's (including perhaps the finest all around conversation amongst a group of really good people on golf architecture I've ever been part of) the participants included wonderful golf writer Jim Finegan and Jeff Silverman (contributor to SI) and Merion former head pro and Hanse Co. partner and perhaps the greastest expert on various eras of Merion, Bill Kittleman).
Mark Parsinen and I just walked around the entire course sort of following next to the groups (and apparently talking so intensely that we may've gotten in the way of another group behind us. Sorry about that!
).
When we arrived at the 17th tee Merion's super Matt Shaeffer was there with Merion East's super (I think Scott Boardman (sorry if I got that name wrong, I'm not great on names and I just met him yesterday. ; )).
Anyway, the group behind ours came up on the 17th tee and one of Merion's members said to me: "Did you happen to notice that old Macdonald material laying in the grass?"
Obviously, some of Merion's members and Merion are sort of following all this although it's complex and detailed enough that they may not understand the underlying meaning of it.
I think I might've discussed this with about 3-4 people at Merion yesterday and I explained to them that the meaning, and conclusion of David Moriarty's piece is that Macdonald/Whigam routed and designed Merion East (with possibly some vestiges of routing or design ideas from the GCGC professional in 1910, one H.H. Barker).
In each case there was silence, followed by some knitted brows and perhaps followed by something like a Hmmmmm?!
Although not a one of them actually responded, my sense was that if it could be actually proved (and obviously that would require a routing map and perhaps hole designs that are as Merion was originally routed and built) that the great C.B. Macdonald routed and designed the original iteration of Merion East that they would probably very much enjoy reinterpreting the architectural history of Merion East and adding to its architetural attribution the "Father of American Golf Architecture", and the "Evanglelist of Golf", one Charles Blair Macdonald (and perhaps his sidekick son-in-law Henry J. Whigam?)!
Even if the curmudgeonly old coot apparently never uttered a word or wrote a word about what he did for Merion, perhaps now this would please him and he will finally get the credit for what he did for Merion that he has always truly deserved.
But to do that, and get Merion to legitimately feel the need to reinterpret and rewrite their early architectural history, some physical evidence of what Macdonald/Whigam, and perhaps H.H. Barker actually did do will need to be produced.
Will David Moriarty produce that next in his Part 2 of his piece "The Missing Faces of Merion"?
I, for one, actually hope so!