Duh...sometimes I'm admittedly slow, but tonight this whole thing came crystal clear to me in a flashback to sixth grade.
Alex Findlay is one of my heroes, as I have always admired his passion for the game and the elegant simplicity of his designs, but Tom Paul is correct; he isn't much of a writer.
Despite his literary limitations, Findlay has nevertheless inadvertedly managed to provide considerable first-hand proof almost 100 years after the fact that Hugh Wilson designed Merion and C.B. Macdonald didn't.How's that, you say? Didn't we already confirm that the language in the article is vague at best, indeterminate, confusing, and misleading at worst?
Well...no, I don't believe we have.
For while Findlay's writing is often rambling and certainly not logically organized, his meaning is nevertheless quite clear once we apply Miss Rawlings' Sixth Grade grammar rules.
You see, it was driving home from work tonight that I remembered Miss Rawling's, and how she'd instruct us to always find the actual main subject of any paragraph, no matter how carefully the author has managed to hide it.
Let's start with the first problem with Findlay's writing, paragraph structure. His second paragraph starts with a sentence that was clearly meant to be the concluding thought in his first paragraph, which deals almost entirely with the new, immature Merion golf course. Findlay tells us quite clearly that the course is not ready for in-depth analysis or review. So, with that in mind, let's correct the first paragraph by adding the appropriate last sentence;
"The writer spent a pleasant hour last Wednesday afternoon with Hugh I. Wilson, wandering over the new Merion golf course, which he has spent so much of his time on. His main object is to make this the king-pin course of Pennsylvania. I am not yet prepared to talk about the possibilities of this new place because it is really just growing, and Fred Pickering, the coursemaker, will give it the finishing touches in the late fall. It will then be time to reveal to the world its features, etc." It's very clear that Findlay isn't ready to make any kind of on-the-record assessment of the Merion course or its holes at this early date. He says that to the reader right up front, probably as a bit of journalistic defense against the course possibly failing to meet high expectations and a quite lofty well-publicized goal of becoming one of the country's very best courses.
Findlay then goes on to report on Wilson's recent trip abroad, which he has just spoken to him about in person. In the next two paragraphs I am going to strip out all of the anecdotal sentences talking about golf playing, and scores, about Wilson's "feelings", and bring it to its bare factual bones, which is a discussion about the great courses and great holes Wilson went to see that Macdonald recommended he visit, and the long-term benefits of his golfing education abroad;
"Wilson has just returned from a trip abroad. He visited all the leading courses, gathering what data he could anent the making of good golf holes. I advised him, preparatory to his trip to Scotland, to watch carefully the seventeenth, or Alps hole, at Prestwick. But many of the others, as laid out by Charles B. McDonald, are really great. Wilson became quite fond of Prestwick, Troon, Formby, Hoylake, Sandwich, Deal and Princes, but was sadly disappointed in St. Andrews."
"Wilson had no end of a good time, and is sorry at not having gone over years ago. It certainly broadens one's ideas. He now possesses golf knowledge that will stand him in good stead for many years to come. Wilson made a study of the topography of the whole golfing country, such as H.G. Leeds did before he built our greatest American golf course, Myopia near Boston, and C.B. McDonald and his national course, at Shinnecock Hills, L.I. We need such men like Wilson to help build up the nation's ground for the coming national game of golf."What Findlay is referring to as "really great" that Macdonald "laid out" for Wilson are the various holes and courses in Macdonald's recommended itinerary of "leading courses" and "good golf holes" that made up Wilson's overseas study. "Others" are those holes besides the Alps hole at Prestwick that Findlay questions the applicability of for whatever reason (either he doesn't consider it a great hole, or he doesn't believe it will work on the inland Merion course) and which Wilson now agrees will be a tough challenge to emulate.
Ahhhh....I hear you say....you've taken out the most important part! Those juicy bits where Wilson states his intent to build an Alps Hole, which seemingly proves that Macdonald had his hand firmly in the original design.
Fair enough...let's put it back in and examine it, because once we do, it truly is the best part. Ironically, it's also the exact place where Findlay proves to us who designed Merion.
"I advised him, preparatory to his trip to Scotland, to watch carefully the seventeenth, or Alps hole, at Prestwick, which HE REALLY IMAGINED existed on his new course. He is now convinced that it will take a lot of making to equal that famous old spot. "Read carefully what Findlay is saying. Is he saying "...which CB Macdonald designed", or "...which Wilson needs to construct to Macdonald's plans", or even "...which he plans to construct", or anything remotely implying less than the very act of imaginative creation??...of the very essence of DESIGN??
Who on any golf course project does the "imagining"?
CB Macdonald and his ideal template holes certainly provided some of the inspiration, and impetus, and original direction for the creation of the new Merion course, but who took that ball and ran with it, and imagined the holes, and drew up multiple plans, and then constructed, tinkered, and dreamed and worked until the very original, very naturally based masterpiece was completed?
Alex Findlay makes it all very, very clear, despite his pained prose.