Mr. MacWood:
If you think you're so certain Willie Campbell designed the first nine holes of Myopia, you really should produce whatever evidence you have to that effect. Are you even able to describe what those holes were and where they were? If not, why not? For starters, perhaps you might try to prove it by determining when Campbell first arrived in this country. Can you do that?
Would you continue to say Willie Campbell designed the first nine holes at Myopia if it turns out they were already built and in play when he got to this country?
And again, you have offered no opinion on why the club's Secretary, S. Dacre Bush, wrote that Appleton, Merrill and Gardner laid out that original nine. Are you contending the club Secretary lied to the club?
As far as Appleton being the Master of Fox Hounds at that time, it is pretty clear they never would've had golf at Myopia at that time if he was not in that position. The prospect of golf at the Myopia Hunt Club in 1894 was definitely not welcome from the club's polo and fox hunting members.
"Professor Baxter is a caricature probably written into the Run Book by a sarcastic member of the Hunt. The feeling that golf was an unworthy intrusion was widespread and would not subside for years; the horsey members kept to one part of the Club and the golfers in their plus fours to another. A member of the Hunt, when asked if they really had a golf course at Myopia, replied; "I believe some do play a game of that name around here.""
Regarding your contention R. M. Appleton knew nothing of golf or golf courses apparently you do not realize one of the first courses in that area was on "Appleton Farm" in Ipswich probably as early as 1892. The "Appleton Farm" which I visited a few weeks ago is quite a thing---it's approximately 1,000 acres and it is now believed to be the oldest farm retained by a single family in America.
I think you might need to do so additional research on who those people were and what they did back there then.
You also label Campbell as the best architect in America and Robert White as a man with no qualifications. I think one would be interested in knowing where you come up with these opinions and how you can justify them, Mr. MacWood. They seem awful arbitrary to me---eg sort of like "the ongoing history of American Golf Architecture according to Mr. MacWood."
Not much different really from your designating H.H. Barker the second best architect in America in 1910. Perhaps you forgot about Herbert Carey Leeds himself in 1910 (by that point he'd been at it for close to fourteen years!
). Since C.B. Macdonald himself labeled Myopia one of the three best courses in the country previous to NGLA one just might think Leeds should get a bit more consideration, don't you think, Mr. MacWood?