Sean
What was David's theory?
"While Hugh I. Wilson is credited with designing the great Merion East course that opened in 1912, he did not plan the original layout or conceive of the holes. H.H. Barker first sketched out a routing the summer of 1910, but shortly thereafter Barker’s plans were largely modified or perhaps even completely replaced by the advice provided by the famous amateur golfers, C.B. Macdonald and H.J. Whigham who provided their written opinion of what could be done with the land. Richard Francis and H.G. Lloyd of Merion also contributed to the routing plan. After the course was planned and land finally purchased, Merion appointed Hugh Wilson and his “Construction Committee” to build the golf course. Immediately thereafter, the Construction Committee departed for NGLA so that Macdonald and Whigham could teach them how to build the golf holes at Merion East." - David Moriarty
Tom,
Perhaps you can tell us? Because since David first wrote this as his thesis statement in his white paper, it seems to be a moving target.
First there was a routing in the Macdonald letter. Then that got disproven once the letter was produced and included only vague agronomic recommendations and a hypothetical sporty 6000 yard mythical course.
Then, there had to be a routing in 1910 because the Francis Land Swap had to happen then because the triangle of land atop the property was part of the initial purchase. Then that got disproven as we found the surveyors map was drawn to scale and learned that land was swapped ALONG the road, taking from the top and giving back on the bottom.
Then, it was that Hugh Wilson had absolutely no knowledge of golf courses or golf course construction prior to 1910. Then, that got disproven as Wilson was on the green committee for the brand new Willie Dunn course at Princeton as far back as 1901 and had played all of the best courses of his day throughout college and for the next decade in his amateur competitive days.
Then, it was that M&W must have produced a routing sometime later, only now the Merion Cricket Club minutes clearly show that it was the Merion committee who created multiple routings through the winter/spring of 1911.
Then it was that the Merion Committee must have gone to NGLA to learn how to build the holes that M&W must have layed out for them, only the Merion Cricket Club mintues clearly state exactly what they did on that 2-day trip where the first day they looked at Macdonald's sketches from overseas and the next day walked NGLA and discussed THAT golf course.
Then, in some scrambling effort to pull this thing from the dustbin of history, Tom MacWood started a mission to elevate HH Barker, only it was shown that by June 1910 Barker had almost nothing built that would have impressed the committee with his design skills, and his routing for the course was never mentioned or considered in the MCC minutes. It also seems most of his jobs were "18 stakes on a Sunday afternoon", exactly as he had done for Connell the land developer in an effort to entice Merion to buy his property.
To David (and your's) credit, we learned about Wilson's 1912 trip abroad to study golf courses. It may be that this was his first trip abroad, but we will likely never know.
We have also since learned EXACTLY what Alan Wilson (as well as Hugh Wilson, Robert Lesley, and "Far and Sure") meant when he talked about M&W's "advising as to our planS" (plural emphasized), because they did in fact help them select the best of the five plans that Hugh Wilson and the Merion Committee had developed.
I'm glad David still thinks he got the critical points exactly right, but my lord, that's some stretch.