"If that area were not wide enough to even fit a narrow green and tee complex, why did they carve it out on their initial proposed purchase?
Why would this group of extremely successful and accomplished people feel the linchpin to this entire endeavor was finding that little bit of, what may be considered, non-essential width?"
Sully:
I think the answer to your questions is just what I told you yesterday----ie when that Nov. 15, 1910 proposed plan was drawn the club had simply not come up with any layouts for the course at that point, so how could they have known at that point the triangle on that Nov 15, 1910 plan was too narrow for two holes they hadn't even conceived of yet?
But the point is Lloyd had put himself in the position to solve something like that very easily when he took the land into his own name on Dec. 19, 1910 just before the Wilson Committee was appointed (including himself and Francis). Cuylers said two days later that Lloyd had done that simply so boundaries could be moved that easily.
I'm not sure why you can't understand that. It's not as if they made some mistake with that Nov. 15, 1910 proposed plan and that triangle, it's that they prepared themselves to solve it so easily if the need arose and they prepared themselves for that potential eventuality a couple of weeks before the Wilson Committee even began to design holes and a course after the beginning of 1911. I hope I don't have to remind anyone, at this point, who is really following this that the only reason David Moriarty seems to have put Francis (and Lloyd
) out there working on a course routing in 1910 and before Nov. 15, 1910 and EVEN BEFORE Wilson and the rest of the committee was even APPOINTED YET
is that is THE ONLY WAY he can explain the Francis story itself against that Nov. 15, 1910 triangle that appears on that Nov. 15, 1910 plan!! He HAS TO maintain that Francis's idea and the swap happened before Nov. 15, 1910 and even before the rest of the committee was APPOINTED
otherwise he couldn't claim the Francis land swap created that entire triangle.
But It just didn't do that and we have proven that now about ten ways to Sunday. It just had not happened at that point. It probably didn't happen until about five months later (around the end of March or beginning of April 1911) and after the Wilson Committee had already done the first thirteen holes as Francis's story also says it had.
It's no problem at all scaling the widths as that triangle moves north from the base up to behind the 15th green and 16th tee where the land goes west to east at the base of the MacFadden (Van Arkle) and Hall properties. I have those width dimensions off the Nov. 15, 1910 plan. I might go over there anyway this afternoon and I'll just park up there and walk off what those dimensions are now up along that road and get back to you.
It was right around this time last year while driving past the now Hall and Van Arkle properties above the 15th green and 16th tee and while looking at the hard right and west deliniation of that road now and how far that turn goes west around the 15th green that it first hit my how this Francis land swap thing actually happened. And of course the key to understanding how it got netted out was when I recognized how far east that road goes down along #14 compared to the line of that proposed road on the Nov. 15, 1910 plan.