Alex Findlay Meets with Hugh Wilson / AWT chats with CBM

[Mike_Cirba]

Mike Malone,

Yes, once again I believe David is left with once again trying to discredit an eye-witness....or perhaps like he did with another eyewitness, A.W. Tillinghast, he'll just put his hands over his ears, shut his eyes tight, purse his lips, and ignore it.

Patrick,

Interesting in all of the pictures of mine you copied you ignored these two;



This of course shows the bottom line of the back bunker clearly visible from well BELOW the approach area.



This picture shows that the bottom line of that bunker behind the green is about at the level of the crouching putting golfer's waistline...and about thigh high on the standing golfer in white on the left.

If this approach was completely blind, as in Macdonald's Alps holes, how can we see the bottom line of the back bunker in a photo from well below the area of the approach shot.   

Very, very convenient omissions, on your part, Patrick. 

[DMoriarty]

Shivas, Take a look at my post above about the problems with TEPaul's use of the Alan Wilson documents.   Sometimes important information gets lost in Cirba hyperbola.

_________________________

Ulrich,

Interesting reading.   I agree with much of it, especially the part about the possibility Findlay puffing a bit.   There is the reference to his man Pickering, which is sort of beside the point of the article.  I think that Findlay often worked with Pickering, so praising Pickering played into Findlay's self-interest.    As for him implying they should have gotten a professional; I don't disagree but read it a bit more narrowly;  he may have been subtly trying to one-up both Wilson and the great Amateur CBM.  Wilson had attempted a CBM-type Alps hole, and according to Findlay he thought he had one worthy of comparison to Prestwick.   Findlay brags that he set Wilson straight, and by implication he set CBM straight as well.  That is, if it was a CBM hole.   Findlay drives the point home by contrasting the 10th with many of the others, which were really great.  

As you might expect, I do disagree with one portion of your understanding of the article.  

You wrote:  

However, in my eyes the reading that "others" refers to other holes at Merion does not make sense either. Findlay is not talking about the holes at Merion, he says previously that it is much too early to talk about them. To me it appears that he simply wants to jump on the bus by describing his personal contribution to the design of a course likely to be great.

Findlay wrote he was not going to get into the golf holes, but nonetheless, he was discussing Merion's 10th.  

Wilson really imagined that Merion's 10th was really an Alps hole.   Findlay apparently disagreed with Wilson about Merion's 10th, so he told him to check out Prestwick's Alps.   After seeing Prestwick, Wilson was convinced that it would take a lot to make Merion's 10th equal to that old spot.    

The entire passage you quote is about whether Merion's 10th.   More specifically, it is Findlay bragging about how he convinced Wilson that, if Wilson wanted Merion's 10th to compare favorably to Prestwick's Alps, then Merion's 10th needed a lot of work.  

It boils down to:  

Merion's 10th hole needs a lot of work, but many of the others are really great.  

And he throws that the holes were laid out by CBM to get the dig in there.  

[Patrick_Mucci]

DSchmidt,

Here's the article and schematic that Flynn drew.

Please read the article as it describes the topography of the hole, something Mike and others want to dismiss.

It is the topography of the hole combined with the fronting bunker complex that sat above the putting surface that made the putting surface blind from the DZ.

[Mike_Cirba]

Shivas, Take a look at my post above about the problems with TEPaul's use of the Alan Wilson documents.   Sometimes important information gets lost in Cirba hyperbola.

_________________________

Smoke and mirrors, David, smoke and mirrors...

Obfuscate, confuse, deflect, mislead, refuse to answer direct questions and then do it again and again and the circus wheel keeps spinning....

All I provided were direct quotes that are irrefutable.

All I asked of you are direct questions that you avoid.

This is a joke.

[Ulrich Mayring]

Findlay wrote he was not going to get into the golf holes, but nonetheless, he was discussing Merion's 10th.

David, I believe he wasn't discussing Merion's 10th. He was trying to jump on the Merion bus or, as you suggested, trying to one-up Wilson and perhaps even CBM. So he depicts himself as someone, who knew better all along. He demonstrates his superiority by saying that Wilson came around to his point of view after he saw Prestwick's 17th and had to admit that it was WAY DIFFERENT from his own version, which he basically designed on the basis of hear-say. Findlay stresses this point again later, where he says that Wilson wishes he had been over earlier (like he, Findlay, undoubtedly has, being an expert whose fame spreads across two continents).

If Findlay truly had been interested to discuss the 10th hole at Merion and perhaps boast that it was made better through his suggestion to go see Prestwick's 17th, then he, Findlay, would have specifically identified the 10th hole as the one that he contributed to. Or, in your interpretation, if he were interested to trash the 10th hole to make Wilson look bad, he would certainly have identified it.

As it is Findlay just says that Wilson "imagined it exists on his course". If Findlay really were interested to discuss the merits of the hole, he would have identified it, so that his readers could validate his appraisal.

Another indicator is that in the later Findlay article about the opening of the course, where he is actually prepared and willing to talk about the holes, he specifically describes the 10th as having an "Alps like approach shot", but doesn't criticize the hole in the least. This suggests that he didn't actually hate the hole, but simply used its being (unbeknownst to Wilson) WAY DIFFERENT from the 17th at Prestwick to demonstrate his superior knowledge.

Ulrich

[Mike_Cirba]

Ulrich,

I'm not sure I understand your reading of the article, although it's clearly a fresh perspective.

What "others" as laid out by Macdonald are "really great", in your opinion?

[DMoriarty]

Mike.

I am not going to share all my theories about CBM's influence with you.  Your wish is not my command.  Given your righteous indignation about me and my theories throughout, you've some nerve demanding I share my conclusions with you.   Don't worry, you will likely find out at some point, maybe in Part II. 

As for your other questions, I've answered them.  You just don't like my answers. 

Mike Malone,

Yes, once again I believe David is left with once again trying to discredit an eye-witness....or perhaps like he did with another eyewitness, A.W. Tillinghast, he'll just put his hands over his ears, shut his eyes tight, purse his lips, and ignore it.

Mike, do you have any idea what "eye-witness" even means?    Could you please explain why you call Tillinghast or Alan Wilson an eye-witness?    What exactly did they witness?  Were they on site with M&W in June 1910?  How about with Barker?   Did they travel to NGLA in March 1911?   Were they there when M&W returned to Merion to choose the final routing?   

You call them eye-witnesses.  Of what, exactly? 

You are positive that "Far and Sure" was Tillinghast, right?  When did "Far and Sure" first see Merion East? 
__________________________________________

Uhrlich,

I don't necessarily disagree with your theory on the subtext or on Findlay's implicit message in the article.  In fact, I don't think my reading and your reading necessarily contradict each other.    I think that while you are figuring out Findlay's subtextual message, I am focusing on the text.  Whatever subtextual message Findlay is sending, he does it through a discussion of Merion's 10th. But in the actual text was discussing Merion's 10th, even if he was only doing so to make some larger point or send some implicit message.   

I hope you don't mind but I've gone Mucci on you and added references to where I think Findlay is referring to Merion's 10th into your post.

David, I believe he wasn't discussing Merion's 10th. He was trying to jump on the Merion bus or, as you suggested, trying to one-up Wilson and perhaps even CBM. So he depicts himself as someone, who knew better all along. He demonstrates his superiority by saying that Wilson came around to his point of view about Merion's 10th after he saw Prestwick's 17th and had to admit that it was WAY DIFFERENT from Merion's 10th . . .

 


Isn't this an accurate depiction of what the text says?   Aren't they talking about Merion's 10th?

Whatever the subtext, it seems clear that on the surface he was discussing Merion's 10th.   Wilson thought Merion's 10th was already an Alps hole.  Findlay didnt think Merion's 10th was an Alps.   By sending Wilson to see the Alps at Prestwick, Findlay convinced Wilson that Merion's 10th needed a lot of work to match Prestwick's Alps.   Wilson improved Merion's 10th and by the opening Findlay thought it worthy of comparison to Prestwick's Alps.

If Findlay truly had been interested to discuss the 10th hole at Merion and perhaps boast that it was made better through his suggestion to go see Prestwick's 17th, then he, Findlay, would have specifically identified the 10th hole as the one that he contributed to. Or, in your interpretation, if he were interested to trash the 10th hole to make Wilson look bad, he would certainly have identified it.

Aha! Maybe this is where we have our signals crossed.  Findlay does identify the hole; it was Wilson's attempt at an Alps hole at Merion, the Alps "which [Wilson] really imagined existed on his new course."   Remember, Wilson had already built the course and seeded the fairways and greens at this point.  Moreover, he had built some of the features, including the giant berm behind the 10th which was a key component of a CBM-style Alps hole.   He doesn't provide the hole number (given Merion's back and forth with the hole numbers early on it may not have been assigned a number yet) but he was referring to Wilson's attempt at a CBM Alps hole, and that was Merion's 10th. 

Maybe I am misunderstanding?    What do you mean he never identified the hole?   

As it is Findlay just says that Wilson "imagined it exists on his course". If Findlay really were interested to discuss the merits of the hole, he would have identified it, so that his readers could validate his appraisal.

It did exist.  By this time, Wilson built a real golf hole and he apparently thought he had built a CBM-type Alps hole.  According to Findlay, Wilson thought that he had already built an Alps hole equal to Prestwick's, but Findlay disagreed, which is why Findlay wrote that Wilson "really imagined" already had an Alps.   

Also, I don't think we should read too much into the fact that Findlay did not get into a specific description of the hole.   He said that he did not intend to.   Also, given that Wilson went to work on the hole, it wouldn't have made much sense, would it?    And it would have made less sense to have readers validate his appraisal, when the hole would be changed before the course opened.     

Another indicator is that in the later Findlay article about the opening of the course, where he is actually prepared and willing to talk about the holes, he specifically describes the 10th as having an "Alps like approach shot", but doesn't criticize the hole in the least. This suggests that he didn't actually hate the hole, but simply used its being (unbeknownst to Wilson) WAY DIFFERENT from the 17th at Prestwick to demonstrate his superior knowledge.

I think the later praise of the hole was probably Findlay's way of saying I convinced him it needed work, he listened and fixed it, now look at how great the hole is.  Man, I am great.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Patrick,

Interesting in all of the pictures of mine you copied you ignored these two;



This of course shows the bottom line of the back bunker clearly visible from well BELOW the approach area.

That's pure nonsense.
The photo is taken from a VERY HIGH ELEVATION, well above the the elevation of the putting surface, fairway and galleryites.



This picture shows that the bottom line of that bunker behind the green is about at the level of the crouching putting golfer's waistline...and about thigh high on the standing golfer in white on the left.


More nonsense.
Anyone can see that the back of the green slopes upward to form the base of the berm that houses the bunker.

The putting surface is WELL below the bunker.

But, we both know that the view depicted in the above photo isn't from the golfer's eye as he plays the hole.  It conveniently omits the elevated fronting bunker complex that obscures the putting surface from the view from the DZ.

In addition, the article you posted, along with Flynn's schematic, clearly states that the fairway sloped up from beneath the tee to a point 250 yards distant, where it leveled off.

Drives of 200-225 yards would be totally blind without a fronting bunker complex.

Drives of 250 or more would also be unable to see the putting surface due to the intervening elevated bunker complex, the one you posted a photo of, that shows spectators reclining and looking DOWN on the golfers on the putting surface.

For you to deny the physical evidence, evidence you presented, indicates that you're incapable of seeing the facts and accepting the truth.
 
If this approach was completely blind, as in Macdonald's Alps holes, how can we see the bottom line of the back bunker in a photo from well below the area of the approach shot.

Mike, you should be embarrased to ask that question since you KNOW that the bunker was elevated WELL ABOVE the putting surface.

Secondly, you know that the first photo you posted above was taken from a highly elevated point, one that's well above everything below it.

Lastly, you completely ignore the elevated fronting bunker complex AND the upsloping topography cited in the article you posted.

I have to tell you that your adherence to the "party line" is disturbing and calls into question your ability to be objective.  It also undermines your credibility.

How can you deny that the bunker complex in the photo YOU posted sits above the putting surface ?

Especially when spectators are reclining in that bunker and looking DOWN on the golfers on the putting surface.   

Very, very convenient omissions, on your part, Patrick. 

Mike, I addressed those photos and offered my analysis.
Those photos only confirm that the putting surface sat below the fronting bunker complex, that the rear bunker was elevated well above the green, and that the view of the putting surface from the DZ was obscured by the fronting bunker complex.

Your failure to admit that the configuration of the features obscured the putting surface erodes your credibility, which I assume you'd like to preserve.

If so, rigid denial of the facts and logic won't cut it.
 

[DMoriarty]

John Stiles,

Sorry I missed your post, it got temporarily lost in the shuffle.   

Not sure what arguments or documents you are relying on to reach your conclusions, so I will just let them be and focus on your questions.

So my question is,  exploring from another angle previously discussed but now I have forgotten,   did Macdonald or Whigham ever take credit for anything at Merion ?

After Macdonald passed away in 1939, H. J. Whigham (his son-in-law) authored an obituary for Country Life Magazine, in which he discussed NGLA in detail then listed some other of the best-known courses designed by one or both of Macdonald and Raynor.   Here is the passage, with my bolds added:

"The Macdonald-Raynor courses became famous all over America.  Among the most famous are Piping Rock, the Merion Cricket Club at Philadelphia, the Country Club of Saint Louis, two beautiful courses at White Sulphur, the Lido (literally poured out of the lagoon), and that equally amazing Yale course at New Haven, which was hewn out of rock and forest at the expense of some seven hundred thousand dollars."

H.J. Whigham was the 1896 United States Amateur Champion Golfer and one of the foremost authors and experts on golf courses in America and abroad.   He helped Macdonald route NGLA and was involved in its creation.  The two of them co-authored the 1914 series on ideal golf holes (including the Alps and the Redan) for Golf Illustrated.  Outside of golf, he was an expert, author, and commentator on foreign affairs, a reporter, a war correspondent, an author on architecture, editor of Metropolitan Magazine and Town and Country, and golf editor of Country Life.   I am sure there is more, but I don't know it offhand. 

More importantly, H.J. Whigham was there.
- He was there with June 1910 when Merion brought H.J. Whigham and C.B. Macdonald in to inspect the potential golf site.
- He was there at NGLA in March 1911, when Wilson and his Committee traveled to NGLA so that CBM and HJW could teach them about the underlying fundamental principles of the great golf holes, and how these kinds of holes fit onto the natural features in at Ardmore. 
- He was there in April 1911 when Merion brought CBM and HJW back to Ardmore to review the land again and to choose the final routing.   

Bottom line is that H.J. Whigham knew first-hand who came up with the hole concepts and placement for Merion East.  He knew first-hand that CB Macdonald was the creative driving force behind the routing and hole concepts.   We have no reason to doubt him. 
-  So far as I know, Hugh Wilson never claimed to have come up with the hole concepts or the routing.
-  So far as I know, Hugh Wilson never wrote anything that contradicts Whigham on this issue.  In fact, while Hugh Wilson's 1916 work doesnt ever directly address the issue of who was primarily responsible for the routing and hole concepts, his account is entirely consistent with Whigham's.   
-  No one who was there contradicts Whigham wrote anything necessarily contradicting Whigham. 

Some dismiss Whigham's word as the emotional blubbering of a grief-stricken son-in-law [Ironically, these same people hold up the Alan Wilson letter, written after his younger brother's untimely death, as a holy grail.]  They obviously haven't considered the man or his life experiences.  Whigham didn't just sob out his father-in-law's eulogy, he authored important obituaries for such notable men as President Theodore Roosevelt.   

So yes, there is written proof that Merion East is a CBM course.   H.J. Whigham, tell us so.   He was not only there, he was knew what was going on, and he knew how to accurately describe it.   Discarding his word is a sham.

Did they (M or W) ever say the Merion lads built a great Alps hole, or the  Merion lads used our routing,  or the Merion boys should have used our routing, or anything  ?

In Macdonald's and Whigham's article on NGLA's Redan in Golf Illustrated, they list Merion's "reverse redan" along with the Redan at Piping Rock and the Redan at Sleepy Hollow (both CBM courses.)    The only other American course they mention was a short hole at the unfinished Pine Valley, which utilized the Redan principle.    I don't know whether CBM or Whigham had even seen Merion's finished Redan hole when they wrote this.    [An aside.  Whigham's treatment of Pine Valley is an interesting contrast to his treatment of Merion.   If I recall correctly, Whigham noted that CBM had visited Pine Valley's site and made a number of recommendations, but that only a few of them had been followed, and that Pine Valley was primarily a Crump course, and that CBM felt that it was NGLA's main competitor for best course in the country.  Whigham knew that a site visit and recommendations did not make it CBM's course, even if a few were followed.  Query whether the "redan principle" green was one of CBM's suggestions that Pine Valley followed.]

CBM and HJW's article on the Alps does not mention Merion's Alps, but I don't think it mentions any Alps except the ones at NGLA and Prestwick.

Would have to believe that Macdonald, being such a headstrong individual, would have taken credit if he really thought that he deserved credit.   By the time he wrote 'Scotland's Gift - Golf' published in 1928,  wasn't it true that Wilson was credited with the architecture of Merion East ?

I don't think your assumptions are supported by the facts. 

I have no reason to believe that CBM would have taken credit or sought credit.   Contrary to the caricature that Wayne and TEPaul and others have created, I don't think he was only in it for his own aggrandizement.   Don't get me wrong, he was headstrong, opinionated, and had an ego, but he also cared about Golf in America, and seems to have tried to act in its best interests.   Remember, he was an amateur, so whatever he did for Merion or any other club, it he did it for some other reason than compensation.

I have a few reasons to think that he would NOT have sought credit in the manner you suggest.   First, I believe I have read that he designed or helped design other courses, but I don't think he ever sought or took credit for a course that he and Raynor did not build.   He didn't build Merion.   Second, in Scotland's Gift, Macdonald does NOT discuss all of his courses, nor does he provide any lists of his courses or his designs.  So I wouldn't have expected him to Mention Merion.

David is only working with a dozen lines (counting newspaper articles)  about  M&W, and then it only mentions their visits to help or some such.

I am definitely at a disadvantage with the documents, especially because many of the most important documents are being concealed from me by Wayne and TEPaul.   But I am at a big advantage in that my concern is getting at the truth, no matter what it is, so in the long run I am already dormy.   I feel very good about what I know and what I don't know. 

There is plenty of information out there, and it is just a matter of putting the pieces together.    Even the fact that Tom and Wayne are trying to hide certain things helps me more than they realize.

Anyway, thanks for the questions.  I hadn't thought about H.J. Whigham in a while, and he was one hell of an impressive person, so it is always fun to share what little I have read or heard about him.   

I hope my answers have helped.   

DM

[Ulrich Mayring]

What "others" as laid out by Macdonald are "really great", in your opinion?

Mike, I have no satisfactory explanation at this point and thus would have to propose that Findlay was either drunk or the article heavily edited

What do you mean he never identified the hole?

He never told his readers which of the (presumably) 18 holes that Wilson built was supposed to be modelled after Prestwick's 17th. He did not give the hole number, neither did he identify the hole by its location on the site or by its features. It is clear to us - and any template design experts at the time - that only the 10th hole could have been meant. But Findlay's readers, a general audience of sports enthusiasts, could not have had any idea what an "Alps hole" actually is.

Therefore, if Findlay wanted to discuss the merits of Wilson's design (with the subtext of presenting himself as a better architect), then he would have described the hole in a way so that his readers could go to Merion, identify the hole and verify Findlay's assessment.

My reading, however, is that Findlay wasn't prepared to discuss the merits of Wilson's design, because after the course tour he already sensed it might become a great course. He certainly didn't want to go on record as a nay-sayer, when everyone else would likely agree on Merion's greatness. So instead of discussing the merits of the design, he focused on an area, where he felt he was safe from criticism: foreign experience. He tried to present himself as something of a mentor to young and inexperienced Hugh Wilson. He was trying to elevate himself, so praising someone else's holes at Merion would not be compatible with this intention.

Wilson improved Merion's 10th and by the opening Findlay thought it worthy of comparison to Prestwick's Alps.

If that were true, then I would give your interpretation (Findlay hated the 10th and convinced Wilson to make it more like the original, so that it would be of the same standard as the other CBM holes on the course) some credibility. Is there is any evidence that Wilson came back from Prestwick and immediately set out to work on the 10th?

Ulrich

[Mike_Cirba]

Patrick,

There is NO spot on the hillside above the right side of the 9th green that is as high an elevation point as the landing area for #10.

None.

Here we see the full picture this snippet is taken from, down just overlooking the valley of the 9th green.   Anyone familiar with the golf course should know better than to have made such a statement, Patrick.



Your credibility is tainted with your blind adulation of CB Macdonald.   For ten years here I think about 90% of your threads have been about NGLA.   You also love bantering with Tom Paul.

It's no wonder you're trying to side with David here but you're on a sinking ship....again.   

David,

You keep talking about "CBM-Style Alps" hole, yet no one else ever mentioned that term...they talk about Prestwick's Alps hole.

By your own argument Macdonald only had built one at NGLA by that time and it's very clear that the 10th hole at Merion and the 3rd at NGLA are as common as pickles and bowling balls.

Your diarreahic blizzard of words fails to answer a single direct question and it's rhetorical masturbation.

John Stiles,

H.J. Whigham was either a liar, or mis-spoke, or his memory was beginning to fade when he made that single statement for the first time in his life 28 years after the fact and after everyone else was long since dead.

I suspect the former, but perhaps he can be forgiven for the latter.

Why?

Because his statement is not only historically incorrect, and wholly unsubstantiated, but it's also demonstrably untrue.

At the time Whigham made that statement, Merion was a world-class course that had hosted 2 US Amateurs, 1 US Open (where Tillinghast made the statement that it was sad so few new that Hugh Wilson was the architect of Merion), and a host of other events.   It was also nothing remotely like the course that was built in 1912.

Although we don't know ALL of the details, we know the original Merion course opened with very few bunkers.   If you think of the Macdonald template holes, almost every one is defined by a rote, pre-defined bunkering pattern.   

We don't know exactly which holes had which bunkers in 1912, except for a few cases.   We also know that the course that hosted the US Amateur in 1916 had NO OTHER MACDONALD ROTE BUNKER Patterns for holes, despite David's avoiding this entire line of questioning.

What we do know is that of the course that opened in 1912 at Merion, holes 1, 2, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, and 17 were either wholly or substantially different by 1939, the majority of them having been fundamentally changed by 1924, fifteen years before Whigham made his outlandish statement.   We also know that many other holes had entire bunkering strategies created, revised, and recreated over the next 22 years by first Wilson, then Wilson/Flynn, and then William Flynn.   We also know that much of the routing was fundamentally changed. 

What's more, if Whigham had even a tangential relationship to the game for the previous 22 years when he made that statement, he would have known all of that.  His statement is either a lie, as mistatement, or, he was beginning to fade softly in that good night memory-wise himself.

For Whigham in 1939 to call Merion a Macdonald/Raynor course is a worse sin than if Tommy Fazio in 20 years called Stonewall a "Tom Fazio" course.   

It's more like me in 20 years calling Rustic Canyon a Tom Paul course because he had more experience than Geoff Shackelford and visited for a day and offered some advice and suggestions!   

Heyyy....wait a sec.....   

[TEPaul]

"Your diarreahic blizzard of words......."


Good Lord Mr. Cirba YOU really ARE a writer, aren't you? Good stuff there; Oscar Wilde might even have cozied up to you had he actually heard you say that!! 

[Patrick_Mucci]

Patrick,

There is NO spot on the hillside above the right side of the 9th green that is as high an elevation point as the landing area for #10.

None.

Mike, I'm afraid you're confused.

The 10th fairway starts low and rises until it reaches a point 250 yards distant from the tee, whereupon it levels out.

In 1911 I don't believe I'd describe a distance 250 yards removed from the tee as the landing zone.
That's pure BS.  No one was carrying the ball 250 yards, even with an elevated tee.  The landing zone was far to the right of the 250 mark.

Evidently you didn't LOOK carefully at the picture or you would have noticed the mounds in the left side photo, which appear to rise above the fairway.

That you would make the quantum leap that the hole wasn't blind, based on a photo taken from an angle completely foreign to the golfer's eye reflects on the lengths you and Wayno will go to deny the obvious.

How do you reconcile that you previously admitted that the hole was blind ?

In addition, the photo on the right is higher than the photo on the left.
Just look at the corner of the rightside fairway bunker and you'll see that they don't match, the right side photo needs to be adjusted downward in order to match the features in the left side photo

Here we see the full picture this snippet is taken from, down just overlooking the valley of the 9th green.   Anyone familiar with the golf course should know better than to have made such a statement, Patrick.

Not only am I familiar with the golf course, but, the gentleman who wrote the article that accompanied the Flynn schematic YOU POSTED was familiar with the golf course.  He stated that the fairway sloped up until it reached the 250 yard mark, where it leveled out.



Your credibility is tainted with your blind adulation of CB Macdonald.   

Evidently the folks at Merion had that same blind adulation.
They invited him down to help them design their golf course and
they visited him and studied his masterpiece at NGLA.

For ten years here I think about 90% of your threads have been about NGLA.   


Mike, if you really believe that, then I've lost all respect for your intellectual honesty.
Nothing could be further from the truth.

You also love bantering with Tom Paul.

Why wouldn't I ?
He provides me with my daily form of entertainment, and, he does so at NO COST to me.
You'd have to pay a lot of money to get into a comedy club that measures up to his performances.

It's no wonder you're trying to side with David here but you're on a sinking ship....again.   


Speaking of sinking ships, wasn't it you who vehemently denied David's claim that Wilson NEVER sailed to the UK prior to 1912 ?  How did that position work out for you ?

You keep talking about "CBM-Style Alps" hole, yet no one else ever mentioned that term...they talk about Prestwick's Alps hole.

Would you cite for me where I used the term "CBM-Style Alps" and the context in which I used it ?

By your own argument Macdonald only had built one at NGLA by that time and it's very clear that the 10th hole at Merion and the 3rd at NGLA are as common as pickles and bowling balls.

That's because Wilson was inept at recreating an "Alps" on that land.
One only has to read Findlay's comments to understand that Wilson's "Alps" was sorely lacking.

Your diarreahic blizzard of words fails to answer a single direct question and it's rhetorical masturbation.

I've addressed and answered every question in great detail.
It is you who have failed to answer the questions I posed.

John Stiles,

H.J. Whigham was either a liar, or mis-spoke, or his memory was beginning to fade when he made that single statement for the first time in his life 28 years after the fact and after everyone else was long since dead.

Mike, why is it that when anyone is directly cited, and that citation disagrees with your stated position, that you label them a liar or that they mis-spoke ?  How can you casually and selectively dismiss words written by someone who was intimately involved in the project ?

[TEPaul]

“Mike, why is it that when anyone is directly cited, and that citation disagrees with your stated position, that you label them a liar or that they mis-spoke ?  How can you casually and selectively dismiss words written by someone who was intimately involved in the project ?”



"The Macdonald-Raynor courses became famous all over America.  Among the most famous are Piping Rock, the Merion Cricket Club at Philadelphia, the Country Club of Saint Louis, two beautiful courses at White Sulphur, the Lido (literally poured out of the lagoon), and that equally amazing Yale course at New Haven, which was hewn out of rock and forest at the expense of some seven hundred thousand dollars."





Patrick:

Look, I would never think of calling Whigam a liar----eg the guy was obviously a very fine, honest and upstanding man but with his mention of Merion Cricket Club at Philadelphia he mentioned in that eulogisitic article in 1939 almost thirty years after the fact that it was a Macdonald-Raynor design, for starters. So far as I’m aware noone but nobody EVER put Raynor on site at Ardmore in 1910 or 1911 or even at NGLA in 1911 with he and Macdonald and the Merion Wilson Committee so what the hell is that about but perhaps a pretty faulty memory over a long period of time or just an inaccurate misstatement?

Furthermore, he has Yale costing $700,000, a full $250,000 MORE than Macdonald himself said it cost all-in. What’s going on there Patrick if not a pretty glaring misstatement on someone’s part?

[Dan Herrmann]

Shivas,
The committee led by Hugh Wilson, right?

[TEPaul]

"If anything, the piece indicates to me that the credit for the original routing and design of Merion should be "Done by committee" and leave it at that."


Shivas:

That's true but you have to read the rest as well and what it all means. He did say the committee LAID OUT the two courses and since we now know from the MCC minutes that LAID OUT the way MCC and the Wilson Committee used the term had to be routing and hole designing on the ground and on paper because they reported that BEFORE, and considerable so, any construction or BUILDING took place, at least on the East Course.

So it certainly was a committee effort but we can't ignore that Alan Wilson also said that the rest of the Wilson Committee TOLD HIM in the MAIN Hugh Wilson was reponsible for the ARCHITECTURE of the East and West courses. Do you really think THEY ALL (the rest of the Wilson Committee) who had been there with him throughout were mistaken somehow? They were all there, noone is denying that so THEY better than anyone should've know who did what, don't you think? I mean they were there right at Merion in the timespan of this entire process for about two and a half years compared to Whigam who was there for a grand total of two days max. Who do you suppose might know what really happened the best?

If you've never realized it before routing and hole designing BEFORE construction begins is certainly part of ARCHITECTURE! 

We also can't really discount Alan Wilson himself. Even though he wasn't on his brother's committee he was one of the founders of "The MCC Golf Association" and don't forget he worked with his brother everyday in their insurance business. For that reason alone there's no conceivable way he could've missed what Hugh was doing at Merion or talked about it all the time throughout those years.

[Ulrich Mayring]

This Alan Wilson report unfortunately loses some credibility due to its fabrication of a timeline that happens to promote a "hero story" about the author's brother.

This is really unfortunate, because otherwise the report is pretty clear about the roles of Wilson, committee and CBM / Whigam. As it is, it must be taken with a grain of salt.

Ulrich

[TEPaul]

Shivas:


Mike Cirba cut the picture in half???

Good lord, what the hell are you talking about now? Why don't you come over here for about five years, get familiar with everything about Merion on the ground etc and then come back and start questioning this? I would recommend the same thing for that other guy too. Throw Patrick in there too. 

[Mike_Cirba]

Shivas,

The committee was concerned with the original building of the golf course(s), the same study as David's essay.

They dissolved afterwards, and were not involved in subsequent changes to the course up to and including Alan Wilson's 1926 letter.

Also,

I had posted that picture prior.   It's on a 2-page spread of Golf Illustrated, and I had to copy each page into a separate image and then try to post them together here.

I'm no photoshop expert, that's for sure.

Sorry if you think I was doing something dubious...

[TEPaul]

Ulrich:

I hate to say it at this point because I really don't think it's very important due to all the rest of the material we've found fairly recently about what the Wilson Committee did in the beginning of 1911 but there isn't exactly any thing dispositive (as these lawyers on here like to say) that proves Hugh Wilson was not abroad at some point towards the end of 1910 and despite what it says in that vein in Findlay's article.

I think the essayist in question believes that because neither he nor anyone else has found some ship passenger manifest for Wilson earlier than 1912 that that proves he was never abroad earlier. For a guy like that there were definitely ways of getting over there that may not show up NOW on some ship passenger manifest that is findable.

We definitely aren't claiming that but who is really to say it isn't possible, particularly when you have a man in the wings like Clement Griscom who was the chairman of the famous "Shipping Trust" and there were a couple of MCC members and friends who had transatlantic private yachts the size of small commercial ocean liners?  

[Ulrich Mayring]

Obviously we can never know for sure, it is next to mathematically impossible to prove that something didn't happen. All we can do is point to the existing evidence and go with probabilities. Even if we found a statement by CBM that gave all credit for the routing to Wilson, it might still be wrong. But scientifically we would accept it as "the best currently available knowledge". Unless CBM was proved to be a liar in other regards, then his testimony's relevance would decrease.

Ulrich

[Dale Jackson]

As a newcomer, can I call a time out for a minute and ask a serious question because try as I might I am having trouble understanding and following all this.

Are the main contributors to this thread carrying on a rhetorical conversation that is full of inside humour, jests and long-standing good natured barbs, or is this a real discussion? 

If the former then maybe I will keep paying attention and try to understand the comedy.  If the latter then I urge all to move on.  Surely the, not inconsiderable, brain power needed to come up with more and more ways of saying the same thing over and over and over could be put to better use.

This I say with all due respect to my esteemed senior contributors. 

[DMoriarty]

Dale  Jackson,  You may have it about right.  But unfortunately we are not all here with the same purposes.  Some of us would like to move on, but with this crowd it is very much two steps forward and three or four steps back.

So what is one to do if one actually wants to have some novel discussions about Merion?  It takes two to tango, and around here anyone can cut in at any time. 

_____________________________

Shivas.

YES!   

I am not sure where you are going and chances are I will vehemently disagree with your conclusion, but THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for taking Hugh Wilson's words seriously and at least trying to figure out what exactly happened at NGLA!!   Obviously it is one of the most crucial events of this entire story.   

I take back about 20% of the bad things I have said about you!

I don't want to break your train of thought, so I'll leave you be.

[Mike_Cirba]

Here's the picture thankfully (thanks Joe Bausch) pasted together electronically;

[DMoriarty]

Dave, I really don't have a train of thought.  I just went back to the passage and that sentence in particular and started asking myself "what modifies what here?" and that's what I came up with.  So I thought I'd share it.  No axe to grind, and I'm fully prepared to be reminded that I'm endlessly parsing grammar like Mrs. Havisham the English teacher or the uber-lawyer that I am certainly not ... 

No train of thought? No agenda?  No axe to grind?   Then you are obviosly on the wrong thread.  I rescind two-thirds of the 20% I took back of the bad things I previously said about you behind your back, but because of the suprising novelty of your open-mind approach here, I also take another 15% of the bad things I previously said about you  behind your back back, notwithstanding and not including the two-thirds of the the 20% of the things I had said behind your back and then rescinded taking back.  Back.   Plus I just said a couple bad things about you because of your bizzare  infatuation with sentence structure.  I still think you come out ahead, but am not sure.  Could you diagram it and get back to me? 

A few things you may want to consider:

1.   When TEPaul calls you to scold you for snooping around what really happened at NGLA, say 'hey' for me.  Also, please try to find out whether the MCC minutes actually say whether or not the Committee was examining old, pre-drawn sketches from Scotland, NGLA, or anywhere else?

2.  Along those same lines, is there anything in Wilson's passage above necessarily indicating that the sketches preexisted the NGLA meetings?  The explanations were obviously live, real time, contemporaneous, happening then and there.    So why not the sketches?    Could some person or persons have been sketching and explaining on the spot?   

3.  As for what exactly they were explaining and perhaps even sketching, you may want to take another look at what Wilson said they learned.   

DM