Why put Wilson on the committee at all, much less at its head if he knew so little. Particularly with Fred Pickering onsite...a man who had built quite a few highly regarded courses at the time.?
Mike, OK, I know I am getting a little jab here. But I have known you (virtually) long enough to know that you must wonder the same thing. And other than your best guesses last week (which were reasonably possible), there really has been no comment or documentation on why it was Wilson. If it has been Travis or Pickering or Colt, we would not really need to wonder, but Wilson?
Andy,
No, actually, that wasn't a jab at all. It was/is a very serious question that I think bears some serious scrutiny and I believe your questions have been very good, as well.
The Macdonaldistas would have us believe that the world of golf course building in 1909/1910 when Merion was wrestling with these issues was not so very much different than today, and that there were already numerous established, renowned, successful architects, and chief among them in renown was one Charles B. Macdonald. All a club had to do was hire the right guy, and presto, poof...instant fame and golfing glory!
This viewpoint is indicative of a sort of intellectual laziness, and really symptomatic of perhaps missing the forest by looking at every cell of bark of a tree and still not understanding what it's made of.
If pressed, Shivas will tell you flat out that he doesn't know much about early architectural history, Patrick admits he doesn't have time for it, and David has been so focused (in my opinion) in trying to come up with something revolutionary elevating M&W's role that I'm betting his research has lots of singular depth, but little breadth or historical perspective.
In any case, none of that really matters. Some oodles of posts ago, I asked David to name all of the great courses and architects who existed in America at the time Merion was faced with this decision.
I asked how many great courses any of the architects had built...Travis...Tillinghast...Macdonald...Emmett...Ross...by 1909/1910.
I asked how all of those men were viewed by their contemporaries at the time...as architects or as fellow competitors and amateur sportsmen.
David completely ignored those questions, citing something about unfounded speculation, but I'm also certain it's because he couldn't answer in a way that would support his essay.
At this time, Walter Travis was not a practicing architect, despite some work on Ekwanok in 1899 with John Duncan Dunn.
Tillinghast was just finishing his first course, Shawnee.
Dev Emmett did Island Golf Links in the late 1890s, later named Garden City, but had since taken up with Macdonald in developing NGLA.
Ross...had done some minor work in Massachusetts and was starting to develop his own private Idaho called Pinehurst.
The most prominent architects were the professional ones...Bendelow...Dunn, Findlay, Mungo Park, but their work was marked by quantity and hardly quality.
After spending the first 20 years of American golf beholden to the idea that one needed a Scottish or British professional at the club who would magically have some inherent idea of how to build a great course had proved less than ideal, and the advent of the new Haskell ball had clubs scrambling to capitalize on the increasing popularity of the game, and thus elevate it's playing fields into something respectable and worthy.
So, men like Macdonald, and Fownes, and Crump, and Leeds, and yes...Wilson, became the driving forces for their clubs and threw themselves into the game and its study as no one had ever done prior, and possibly since.
Lots of people knew Macdonald was working on building his "Ideal golf links", as he was a very prominent, very vocal guy who was ubiquitous in tournament golf and rules committees, etc. at the time, and who even his friends admitted was a cantankerous blowhard at times. He had a spark of genius and stubborn fortitude that allowed him to survive several agronomic failures...much like Crump later, he started building in 1907, and despite constant onsite help from Emmett and Raynor, the course didn't really come to fruition until much later, even though many agreed that his concept of building a template course of great holes was a brilliant idea.
From George Bahto's "The Evangelist of Golf";
"Fully 10 years after the idea of an ideal links first came to its designer and four years after initial construction began, the National Golf Links of America finally opened to membership play in 1910. There were still adjustments and refinements to come, but those would never cease until Macdonald's death."
"The formal opening of the course was officially celebrated in 1911 with the Macdonald Invitational tournament, one of many played at the National."
So, although the members of Merion were well aware of Charley's work, and his study, and probably his failures, as well, they did not know him as some great golf course architect in 1909/1910. They knew him as an amateur sportsman who was trying to build his course, much like Crump, and Fownes, and Leeds, and others would do.
Many, many courses looked internally to their top "expert" golfers to help in this regard, or to design outright. During the research we did on Cobb's Creek, it was an amazing thing to see, but between the years of 1910-1915, a Philadelphia club was seemingly much more likely to look internally for talent than go out and hire an outside (unproven) golf architect.
For example, a club like Huntingdon Valley, which was known as the most competitive golf club in the region, had Ab Smith, a member who had won the first Philly Amateur in 1897, and then again in 1911, as their archtitect. North Hills had a fellow by the name of J. Franklin Meehan, who also designed the first nine holes at Lulu. Aroninimink had a member by the name of AW Tillinghast build their new course, but also in conjunction with fellow members George Klauder and Cecil Calvert. Whitemarsh Valley had a young fellow with an affinity for roses named George Thomas. Most of the work to the original Philly Cricket Club which hosted two US Opens was done by member Samuel Heebner.
A good example of this type of thing was found in a 1911 article in American Golfer by "Hazard" (aka TIllinghast), writing about a new course opening at Moorestown, NJ designed by the members of the Ozone Club, who were prominent Quakers in love with golf who later went on to build Pocono Manor and Buck Hill Falls. Writing about the new course, Tilly wrote;
"Mr. Samuel L. Allen who has really been at the head of the work on the new course at Moorestown, has long been a very close student of the many courses which are famous both in America and abroad. He has introduced many pleasing features in the arrangement of the nine holes."
The article produced earlier also shows that the whole idea of going overseas to study golf courses had become a trendy thing to do between 1906 to 1910. Wilson wasn't alone in that regard, by any stretch, and it was indeed based on Macdonald's example.
However, to stretch the point to say that Macdonald somehow designed Merion, or to suggest that he was viewed as a golf course architect available for hire in 1910 just isn't a historically accurate reflection of the times.
Which comes around to my point. Fred Pickering had "built" quite a number of courses prior, some like "Woodlands" quite well-regarded, for architects like Findlay. He was a guy who knew his grasses and earthmoving.
If Merion had only wanted to find someone to build Macdonald's hypothetical design...
it would have been absolutely ludicrous for them to appoint a committee at all, given Pickering's vast experience.