Merion's Early Timeline

[RJ_Daley]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlSVZyxcozo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlSVZyxcozo

[Mike_Cirba]

David,

The problem with your interpretation of Richard Francis and your subsequent contentions that 1) the Land Swap encompassed the entire 130x190 triangular plot of land and 2) that the Swap took place sometime prior to November 1910 is that both are demonstrably and undeniably untrue, based wholly on physical evidence originally submitted by you.

The unassailable and uneraseable fact is that the triangle of land on the "to-scale" Nov 1910 land plan is measurably only 70% as large as what Francis said they required in total and what he and the rest of the Merion Committee eventually used...four or five months later AFTER he came up with his late night idea.

This was the cornerstone to your entire theory and as I said here previously, it was a mistake very easy to make.   I'm sure once you saw a triangular piece of land on that 1910 Land Plan you made several understandably related assumptions whilch by definition turned out to be also incorrect because they were based on a faulty premise and timeline.     

Unfortunately, Francis was not precise in his wording, he was clearly referring to the entire dimensions of the land they needed and not the parcel they swapped for, and your physical evidence clearly demonstrates that his Land Swap had most assuredly not happened prior to November 1910.

As far as continuing the discussion without some additional or groundbreaking new evidence, I'd simply say this;  even the diligent and defiantly dogged defense team of Shivas and Patrick have left the court, David...let's please move on. 

[TEPaul]

"I am glad to hear this, Tom.   Given that MCC and Merion are fine with you divulging the information, then lets get to vetting your claims. 

Where to you want to start? "


David Moriarty:

I'd like to start by having you answer the question in the last paragraph of Post #41. If you want to understand when the Francis land swap and the idea of it happened that would be the best place to start. But if you continue to refuse to consider that Francis's idea did not create that entire triangle on the Nov. 15, 1910 plan then I don't see any reason to start again. To us it doesn't appear you're interested in getting to the truth of what happened at Merion back then. It only seems like you're interested in continuing to try to defend some unfactual and inaccurate premises and contentions in your essay and I think we've all had about enough of that in the last year. We've shown you some factual physical evidence and if you're only going to continue to disregard its value simply to defend your inaccurate essay there's no reason to continue. But if your interested in the truth you need to reanalyze it.

[Mike Sweeney]

Mike Sweeney,

I get it now.  You don't know care a lick about the merits of my argument.    

Not true. I have learned a bunch about the history of Merion as a result of your initial "In My Opinion" piece. It left many open questions and it obviously prompted the "Philly Guys" here on GCA to do a bunch of digging.

You are here to take another swipe at my reputation.

Well that's true, but come on you are a LA lawyer, it can't be a first!

Three years ago you spread false gossip about my supposed snail's pace of play, and how I clogged up the entire course.   

I don't remember commenting on your pace of play. Merion can be obsessive about their pace of play, so you would not be the first or last that wants to take it all in at Merion on their first trip.

You were speaking out of school, rumor mongering with complete disregard for the truth and for my reputation.  We've come full circle.

Oh David come on. I am the one that has to listen to my friends and others ask me when I show up at Merion if any of my hickory buddies from GCA are with me. When you go to high school with guys, it is part of the landscape. The fact that you get thrown under the bus is just an added bonus!

You'll get no discussion from me about private conversations and arrangements concerning that round, my choice of clubs, or anything else that doesn't concern you.   

1.  I don't discuss or or defend my private dealings in a public forum, even in the face of vulgar rumors.

2.  It is none of your god damned business.

Your public post about a private matter (a matter that doesn't concern you) speaks loudly as to your character and integrity.  Not mine. 

David, then why are you asking, some would say demanding, a private club to publish their private documents on a public forum? The GCA Double Standard lives on!

[TEPaul]

Mike Sweeney:

Your last question is a very good one. I've been asking him the same question in various ways for a long time now. He mostly claims he doesn't understand the question or just disregards it. To some golf clubs the idea of access doesn't just come in one form----eg somebody trying to play the course. Demanding access of a club's private records is a form of access demand that is far worse than that by a factor of maybe a 1000. It's worse for this site and for a club's members and friends etc.

Wayne tried to explain that with little to no satisfaction on here on a thread he started before he left. I've tried to explain it on here. For some reason some don't seem to understand that at all; certainly David Moriarty doesn't.

It seems like what has happened here is a guy who admitted he didn't understand the history of Merion very well in the first place, writes some far-fetched idea about the architectural history of the club that relied on very little source material from the club, puts it on here in the "In My Opinion" section, has his essay critiqued and criticized by others who've known a lot more about the history of the club for years and then he demands access to material he was not able to get in the first place from Merion BECAUSE his essay got criticized on here by others who know more about it than he did or apparently even could.

That's a pretty novel approach to trying to gain access to material he did not have when he wrote his essay but certainly should have had if he even intended to write an accurate account of Merion's history. I guess one might call that the old back door approach! 

We've given him a lot of good information he never had before but he only seems to disregard it, claim it can't be right and refuses to take our word for anything we say that disagrees with the inaccurate premises and conclusions in his essay.

It's a pretty novel approach for sure and it sure isn't lost on us or on Merion. Frankly, I think he's a pretty clever guy and he understands all this and has for a long time; and the only reason he's carried on as he has and continues to is because he just can't admit on here how he was wrong with his essay. I guess he really does think this whole thing is just about his reputation or something like that.

Then he even claims I've put Merion in a horrible position for saying what I have on here about what my opinions are on what some of the material I have from Merion says. Since he doesn't know anyone at Merion I wonder how he knows that. If I put something on here Merion or MCC is unhappy with I'm the one who will hear from them about it, not Moriarty. I've probably known a couple hundred people at those clubs for the last thirty years including those who have run them, so if I put something on here they think puts them in a horrible position, I'm the one who runs the personal and reputation risk with them, not him. He doesn't have a thing at risk here personally and that's probably been most of the problem with these kinds of threads like the Merion ones with the way he's going about them.

But if you have any additional interest or questions about this Francis land swap idea or the timeline of it, MikeS, just fire away; I don't think we need David Moriarty's participation any longer to have a productive discussion on it and its details, unless your only interest with it is defending, despite everything else to the contrary, the inaccuracies in his essay.

[TEPaul]

"I think you missed my point.   Absent hard facts to the contrary, I take the entire Francis statement to be true and accurate.   And if there is an apparent inconsistency or error in his statement, then the first thing I do is reexamine my understanding of the related facts."


David Moriarty:

No, I haven't missed your point at all. I've been aware of your point for about a year. Since you just said your point is that absent hard facts to the contrary, you take Francis' statement to be true and accurate, we submit that we have been and continue to offer to you hard facts but you continue to either ignore them or dismiss them as inaccurate or wrong and you continue to refuse to reexamine them and your understanding of them.

I think anyone on here can appreciate that your automatic dismissal of a professionally drawn TO SCALE property plan of Merion by claiming that it must be wrong because it does not support what you think Francis said is definitely NOT reexaming YOUR UNDERSTANDING of related facts. 

The only reason you refuse to reexamine it and to reconsider your understanding of it is because you're aware that it can prove your contention in your essay of the Francis land swap to be wrong!

[DMoriarty]

Mike Sweeney.

Good on Merion for being obsessive about pace of play.   I am the same way about my pace own of play, which is why I found your false gossip so offensive.   As for my use of hickories, I am glad that after all these years my round continues to provide you and your high school buddies with entertainment.  Must be pretty quiet on the Main Line these days.

David, then why are you asking, some would say demanding, a private club to publish their private documents on a public forum? The GCA Double Standard lives on!

I have no quarrel with either Merion or MCC and never have.   Obviously, they can do with their documents as they see fit.  If they want to keep their information out of this or any other public forum, then that is their prerogative.   But then this is obviously not the case here.   

Wayne and TEPaul (and now even Mike Cirba) have been using MCC's records as rhetorical fodder to try to shoot down my theories since the day Wayne finally went over to MCC.  This, combined with TEPaul's increasingly bizarre ultimatums, demands, and prerequisites make it pretty obvious that all of this has nothing to do with respecting the clubs' or their privacy concerns.  The privacy issue has become a contrivance to keep others from vetting the very information Wayne and TEPaul use to attack my analysis and bolster their own story.  This is unacceptable under any reasonable standard of discourse.  They cannot have it both ways.   

Don't get me wrong.  The clubs can still do what the want with their documents, despite TEPaul's shell game.  And while we both know that these clubs probably have no idea that TEPaul is playing fast and loose with their reputations,  that is beside the point.   Even if the clubs are behind TEPaul's song and dance (and I don't believe they are) the same reasonable standards of civil discourse would still apply.  All of our theories and ideas must stand or fall based on the merits.  And while the clubs could choose to allow TEPaul and Wayne to selectively scatter their information here and there to try and make rhetorical points, I have no idea why they would given that TEPaul’s selective smatterings of unconfirmed information do little to advance the conversation or get to what really happened.

Wayne agrees that vetting must be allowed to take place, or at least he has in the past.  He has long insisted that we all must be very careful what we say about Merion, and we had better be able to back up our statements and theories with the facts.  He has been writing this for years, and just about any time Merion comes up.   

[DMoriarty]

"I am glad to hear this, Tom.   Given that MCC and Merion are fine with you divulging the information, then lets get to vetting your claims. 

Where to you want to start? "


David Moriarty:

I'd like to start by having you answer the question in the last paragraph of Post #41.

Okay.  Here is the second to last  paragraphs of Post #41.

However, if we are even going to attempt to have this discussion again I'm going to ask you first to consider that your interpretation of what Francis meant when he mentioned the dimensions of that triangle in his story thirty nine years after the fact is not the ONLY interpretation of what actually happened.

Here is what Francis wrote:

"The land now covered by fine homes along Golf Course Road was exchanged for land about 130 yards by 190 yards long - the present location of the 15th green and 16th tee."

Nothing at all to be confused about.  According to Francis Merion received the entire 130 x 190 yard triangle.   There is no other reasonable interpretation. 

But you think Francis must have been wrong and you want me to discard his unambiguous description and replace it with your theory. 

Fine.  Give me HARD FACTS that prove Francis wrong, and I too will discard Francis' description of the land that was swapped.

But Tom, your loose interpretations of the source material won''t cut it as hard fact.  I need to know what is in the source material.  I won't substitute your interpretation for my own.

[Mike_Cirba]

David,

Is the land on the November 1910 map 130 yards wide or is it about 70% of that?

Then the land swap must have happened after that time.

He doesn't say what the dimensions were of the land originally that he swapped for...he just says that they swapped for land and then gives the entire final dimension of the land, post-swap, without clarifying that they only swapped for a part of it.

I understand how you made a mistake.   Francis's words in relation to the land that was swapped for don't shed much light, however....

Instead, Hard Facts DO, most importantly the piece of physical evidence we have in the form of the drawn to scale Land Plan.

I also understand that you're trying to goad Tom into providing more of the minutes, but it's a single half-sentence that just talks about an adjustment to the road boundary or some such language.   

No biggie...I'm sure I won't deter you.

[Mike Sweeney]

Mike Sweeney.

Good on Merion for being obsessive about pace of play.   I am the same way about my pace own of play, which is why I found your false gossip so offensive.   As for my use of hickories, I am glad that after all these years my round continues to provide you and your high school buddies with entertainment.  Must be pretty quiet on the Main Line these days.

David,

It appears that you like to be the center of attention. Golf Club Atlas, St Joe's Prep and now Max's Lounge. I got a bunch of emails with copies of "A Shout Out to Tom Paul." I only compared you to LA Lawyers, I won't repeat here who they were comparing you to over on Max's Lounge.

I doubt you can take down St Joe's Prep, but you seem pretty self absorbed and intent on ruining two discussion groups.

Tommy,

No need to call me. There are tons of people sending post from Max's Lounge around. Whatever I received you have to assume that Jaka received twice as many. Be realistic about the people on your board and please I have no interest in being part of your Security Department.

[Jeff_Brauer]

David,

Actually, your theory could be true as to the time line of the swap.  That Nov. 15 map could have been drawn AFTER the land swap, and the "approximate" road reconfigured a bit later as necessary when the golf holes developed.  But, to confirm, that would require another map prior to 11-1910 with a more geometric L shape parcel that ended at Haverford College, that was replaced with a "quickie" 11-1910 map before the road was finalized and the Merion minutes would have to mention the land swap prior to April 1911.

I can see your logic tree there and your desire to see the Merion minutes and other documents.  But, based on what we think we know and the documents we have heard snippets of, right now, I have to side with the Philly boys based on the totality of the information and evidence, not just Francis' words.  Weren't they actually recorded much later?  And is it possible that they are dramatized a bit, just like the Hugh Wilson trip to Scotland was for the club history?

Besides, the long arguments here and your basic theory wouldn't be proven with a distinct timeline or new documents.  As Mike Cirba says in the opening post of this thread,

4)   We can also confidently surmise that their trip to NGLA had some very beneficial impact, as the evidence suggests that whatever they learned they seemingly felt it was important enough to revise their plans accordingly, but again, is this creative authorship deserving architectural attribution or did they simply provide valuable consulting advice as the Merion records have always contended? 

Both sides are too firmly entrenched to settle that question!  We know CBM had an influence, I am more interested in the details than the credit.  We know that they went to him for the hole designs, and whether the routing was finalized in 1910 or 11, we know CBM reviewed them and made suggestions.  We just don't know what or how many.  I would love to see a document of the NGLA meeting surface, perhaps some handwritten notes from CBM's assistant saying something like:

 "Old Charlie was really piss faced that night, but so were half the MCC Committee.....you should have seen the look on their faces when he used layouts 2 and 3 as toilet paper, pretty much sticking them with layout 5 as the final routing since they didn't make copies!  It's too bad that layout was too short on its bottom leg but Charlie (and the gin) told them they could solve the problem by getting more land up near the end of it, since one of them was the developer and two more were probably on the Haverford College Board......And old CBM had a lot of  fun when it came to hole designs.  At first, they wanted to do a run up shot on the 10th until CB suggested the Alps hole would create an aerial shot, which is desireable as cars drive by just in front of the green!

And, maybe that is just how it happened, accounting for the fact that Merion is reluctant to release the full record to protect the reputations of those astute founders even though long since dead.

Just trying to interject some humor.........

[TEPaul]

“But you think Francis must have been wrong and you want me to discard his unambiguous description and replace it with your theory. 

Fine.  Give me HARD FACTS that prove Francis wrong, and I too will discard Francis' description of the land that was swapped.”


David Moriarty:

I don’t think Francis was wrong at all in what he said thirty nine later about the dimensions of that triangle. The only thing I think is wrong is YOUR INTERPRETATION of what he meant. I have been aware for over a year now how you are trying to go about defending your interpretation of what Francis meant with the dimensions of that triangle. First of all you are LIMITING you interpretation of the time of his idea and the land swap to only his remark in his story about the dimensions of that triangle. That is not a constructive way to analyze what he meant. One needs to look at the rest of what he said in his story and compare it to your interpretation of the timing of that idea and land swap vs what really happened at Merion and WHEN with both Francis and a number of other events THAT PROVABLY TOOK PLACE LATER that make YOUR INTERPRETATION that Francis’s idea and the land swap could have happened before Nov. 15 1910 highly unlikely, highly illogical to just plain practically impossible.

Today I’m going to go through those recorded events in chronological order that took place AFTER Nov. 15 1910 (the date on that land plan you say leads you to your interpretation of WHEN Francis’s idea and the land swap took place) and I believe they will all show why Francis’s idea and the land swap could not have taken place before Nov 15, 1910 which your essay contends and apparently you still contend.

[JESII]

A couple of questions:

1) If the little triangle up there was too narrow to fit anything useful for golf into, why did they have it carved out in the first place?
     1a) Why couldn't the 15th green and 16th tee still fit in there if it were the original size (70% of the current width according to the number Mike C has been using)? It may have been tight, but these were the 1910's...this sort of thing was done all the time, no?

2) Why does the land plan show the proposed road going all the way to College Ave when the current point of the triangle is 60 or 80 yards shy of that intersection? In other words, Golf House Road weaves its way up from Ardmore Ave. just how the pictures show, but right behind the 16th tee it turns straight North for a short bit to College Ave.


Not sure any of it means anything, just thoughts that occurred to me while reading...

[Dan Herrmann]

Jeff Brauer  - Classic post (#60).  Loved it!

[John_Cullum]

It is rather difficult to keep up with all of these Merion disputes, so maybe this has been discussed, but has anyone ever considered searching the county real estate records to see exactly what land was swapped? There would have to be a deed and likely a reference to some survey

[Mike_Cirba]

If any or all of the course was laid out prior to 1911, why would the committee have created many routing plams between Jan and Apr 1911?

[Jeff_Brauer]

Mike,

Making last minute routing changes (or continual rourting refinements) happens.  Just ask Pete Dye! 

We know there was at least one routing (Barker) by June 1910.  Even though Barkers work was discarded, some of his ideas might have survived or nearly survived into the framework of the final routing, even though the Dallas Estate changed some alignments.  Again, its clear that there were enough parcel changes later that Barker's quickie doesn't count for architectural credit.  But it would be interesting to see that routing surface just to compare.

I  don't want to continue to speculate. It certainly doesn't add closure to those passionate about this issue. I will say that I think serious Merion historians should focus on CBM's toliet paper consumption!

[Mike_Cirba]

Jeff,

That's not what the minutes say, however.

There is no talk of tweaks or any existing plan.  INstead, they talk of creating many plans and five different plans.

Surely these men had more important things to do with their time than add little smidgeons to someone else'4 routing...if they wanted to use Barker or Macdonald;s plans why would they be out there in the first place? 

We also know that Barker's routing was for a course on 100 of the 300 some acres that Connell held at the time but we have no idea what parcels he considered.

[Mike_Cirba]

Jeff,

As I think about it more, why would they be ceating multiple new plans and layouts in 1911 if the Francis Land swap already took place by the middle of Nov 1910?

After all, didn't Francis,s idea bring the routing to a conclusion as he clearly tells us?  He stated they already had the first 13 done and were struggling with the last five.  If that was already done, what do you think those fellows were doing out there during the harsh winter of 1911, avoiding their wives? 

[Jeff_Brauer]

Mike,

If you and TePaul signed on to the MCC back in the day, and had a copy of Barker's routing, are you telling me you wouldn't be doing stick routing variations every morning while eating cornflakes?  That is the kind of thing I was imagiining and I doubt that kind of thing would make it into anyone's minutes.

I find it quite possible that the committee, having never routed a course, wouldn't have at least looked at Barkers routing, perhaps vowing to use this and avoid that, etc.  Perhaps it had an influence, but we will probably never know and its really not important, just interesting to contemplate.

As to the land swap, when I said to David it was possible in post 60, I said it was possible IF another plan surfaced with a different configuration of clubhouse road/triangle prior to 11-15-1910, not that it actually happened.  I sided with you, but was trying to do so in a nice way to DM.

[JESII]

I also wonder about the comment that the first 13 holes all fit into the upright portion of the L "with the help of some land to the North of Ardmore Ave..."

Of those first 13, two entire holes, most of a third and small portions of two other were North of Ardmore Ave...that seems alot of help to me...not that we need to dissect that nuance either, just interesting reading.

[TEPaul]

Sully:

Francis's remark did not say the first thirteen holes ALL fit into the upright part of the L. He just said; "....it was not very diffcult to get the first 13 holes into the upright portion---with the help of a little ground on the north side of Ardmore Avenue--but the last five holes were another question."

There is a difference between the 3 acres that was railroad land in 1911 (matter of fact the railroad actually owned it until 1968) and Francis's land swap idea and both are reflected in the resolution offered at the board meeting. These two land adjustment IDEAS did not necessarily occur to the Wilson Committee at the same time or even necessarily relate to one another.

[TEPaul]

"It is rather difficult to keep up with all of these Merion disputes, so maybe this has been discussed, but has anyone ever considered searching the county real estate records to see exactly what land was swapped? There would have to be a deed and likely a reference to some survey."

JohnC:

Merion G.C. has all the deeds of any and every land transaction going all the way back to the beginning and up until to date and at this point I have every one of them on my computer. There're quite a few over the years.

[Jeff_Brauer]

That statement could actually be interpreted to mean they tried to get 13 holes fully on one side of Ardmore and had at least some concerns about crossing the road with the 10th hole and 11th tee, couldn't it?  Or, it could just mean that they fit the small par 3 13th in the RR land.

[JESII]

Understood, Tom...I need Shivas to help with my sentence structuring because my focus / emphasis is more on "WITH A LITTLE HELP..." than the word ALL.

Two complete holes (#'s 1 and 13), most of a third (#12) and portions of two others (#'s 10 and 11) seems more than "a little".

No accusation of dishonesty in the least, just curious.



Does the wording in anything you have make it indisputably clear that the land swap was only to widen out the top portion by 40 yards or so while giving some back down lower?