I'll throw this out there for comment:
If April 6, 1911 didn't generate a committee meeting, with at least a quorum of the Construction Committee members present, then considering who these guys were, barring most of them having massively important (and historically documentable, BTW, hint, hint...) prior engagements, the fact that they did NOT have a meeting would lead to certain conclusions:
1. CMB coming down for the day wasn't that big of a deal because his role was minor.
I don't suppose you are joking again, are you? Didn't think so. You need to get out more, you've got boardroom on the brain.
First, I think you may not yet be fully comprehending what is going on here. My understanding is that Wilson's Construction Committee was an ad hoc, temporary committee that did not necessarily stick with the formalities one might expect from the board.
How would we know if they had a meeting or not? I don't have the documents, but from what has been leaked, I am unaware of any minutes from their ad hoc Committee meetings, or even any formal reports. TEPaul suggests that Wilson wrote a report and that this report was presented to the board by Leslie. I have a sneaking suspicion that this is speculation on their part, and they have no such report and/or cannot say for certain whether Wilson drafted any such written report.
Second, even ignoring this, I think your analysis is seriously flawed. Your basis seems to be "who these men were . . . .;" and that seems to be a bit of a sub-theme around here; who these men were. In a recent thread TEPaul referred to those who appointed Wilson as
"those men of Merion who were essentially the Kings of the Universe." This seems a bit of a stretch to me, but I doubt anyone is surprised that he found the Kings of the Universe around Philadelphia. In fairness to TEPaul, not doubt these were very important men, especially those on Merion's Board. As for the Construction Committee they were also impressive, and some were very important and came from very important families and they were distinguished in their own arenas. That being said I am not sure I would put the Construction Committee as a whole on a much higher pedestal than Macdonald and Whigham.
In fact, if you throw in Macdonald's and Whigham's reputations as golfers and golf course experts, then the opposite argument makes much more sense than yours.
Given who Macdonald and Whigham were, the two of them would necessarily have been calling the shots when it came to the final hole concepts and routing at Merion, and Merion's Construction Committee would have been thrilled to have them and would have hung on every word. Not that this is necessarily what happened, but if you want to throw around speculation based on "who these men were" then let's look at the other side of the coin, as well.
But more seriously, "who these men were" does give us a few things to consider:
- If M&W were not at Ardmore to finalize the lay out plan, then why did Merion bring them all the way down there?
- And if they were not there to finalize the lay out plan, why would M&W bothered to make the trip, which at the time wasn't all that simple?
- And if M&W were not there calling the shots and finalizing the routing, then why would Lesley have given them such a prominent role in his report to the Board? (Or at least in what we have been told about it?)
- And if W&W did nothing but rubber stamp plans created wholly independently of them, then why did H.J. Whigham write that CBM planned the course?
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What the record shows and is not speculation is that after visiting Ardmore in June 1910 Macdonald wrote MCC a letter dated June 29, 1910 about his visit with Whigam to Ardmore. We have that letter, it was found this year by Wayne at MCC and made available on here. Other than that letter I don’t know of any communication with Macdonald and MCC until early March, 1911 when Wilson and apparently his committee went to NGLA for a two day visit.
. . .
We do know MCC got a contour map at least by early 1911. The first evidence of that is in a letter from Wilson to Russell Oakley on Feb 1, 1911 in which he mentions he is enclosing the topo contour map of the property for the US Dept of Agriculture to analyze for agronomic reasons. It may be difficult for Moriarty to believe they kept it from CBM or did not show it to him but the fact is it has never been mentioned anywhere at any time that MCC showed CBM any survey contour map or plan of the property or “plans” they had done until April 6, 1911.
TEPaul,
So by your reasoning, if the meeting minutes do not document it, then it did not happen? Were all of the day-to-day activities of the Construction Committee recorded in the minutes? How about each letter between Wilson and the turf guys? Surely you wouldn't expect the Board meetings to cover this kind of minutiae, would you? Surely those "King's of the Universe" were not concerning themselves with Hugh Wilson's preparations for the golf course, were they?
By the way, Tom, you suggest that the Francis Land Swap occurred just prior to Macdonald's visit. What do the minutes say about the Land Swap?
We do know that and it was recorded twice (both times seemingly by Wilson himself) specifically what they did both days while at NGLA and there is no mention whatsoever that a MCC survey contour map or any plan for the Ardmore property was produced or discussed at NGLA. Wilson’s report is specific on what they did during those two days at NGLA----eg they studied Macdonald’s drawings and plans done of holes abroad in preparation for NGLA and the next day was spent on the golf course (NGLA) studying it with Macdonald and Whigam.
Really? I mean rrreally? Are you
really suggesting that while Wilson and his Committee were busy trying to plan the course they traveled all the way to NGLA so they could meet with M&W for two days and see his course and his drawings from Scotland? Really? And they didn't bother to discuss what they should do at Merion? Oh, realllly? And Wilson did not bring even a contour map? Really? No contour? None? Reeeally? That's really what happened? And really, let me guess; they left their preliminary plans at home as well?? Rrreally? Really really? Really really really? I mean, come on, REALLY?!?
More seriously, you mention Wilson's report. Are you referring to the chapter published in the P&O Turf book?
What do the meeting minutes say about the NGLA meeting?
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Peter.
- "Some months" did not pass between the NGLA meeting and M&W's course visit. It was around three weeks.
- Your description of what happened at NGLA is inaccurate and incomplete. Hugh Wilson and common sense tell us so. Given that they met with CBM for two days and that he had already seen the site, do you really think they never bothered to discuss what he thought would the best plan for Merion?
- I wouldn't assume that the course was routed 5 completely different ways. I've seen no evidence of this, at least. More likely the plans shared much in common, and they were drafting potential solutions to resolve one or a few unresolved issues.
- Maybe Wilson did tell us, and we just have to read it carefully.