Merion's Early Timeline

[Patrick_Mucci]

When Bryan, Jeff, Jim, and I were making progress in a very helpful, civil way, despite an occassional green-inked attempt at deflection from Patrick, this was actually beginning to get enjoyable, as we were trying together to solve some of the mysteries.

Mike, your categorization of my questions to you, questions you never seem capable of answering, and my refutation of your erroneous conclusions, aren't diversionary tactics, they're attempt to get the thread back on a fact based track.

However, much as anyone thinks I'm biased, and I am, yesterday's return of David and Tom Mac, much as I enjoy the latter's research if not always his analysis and conclusions, made very clear to me that this would go on forever.  

Mike, you initiated this thread.  Did you think it was everyone's mandated obligation to strictly agree with your presentations and conclusions ?

I'm convinced that a routing map signed by Hugh Wilson could be found and we'd be told by David and TMac that Macdonald and/or Barker and/or Francis and/or ANYBODY but Hugh Wilson had their fingerprints all over it.    

You continue to pull this stunt, time and time again.
Stop telling us what would happen if a future event should occur.

Then thrown in pages full of green-ink stained deflections from Patrick every third day or so and it's simply a trainwreck needing to be cleaned from the tracks.

Let me see if I can rephrase the above sentence.
Patrick's quest for the truth and pointed questions are impeding my (Mike Cirba's) attempts to sanitize history.
Me thinks, Brutus doth protest too much !.

You're constantly calling for an eradication of this thread.  WHY ?
Don't you want the search for the truth to continue ?

I noticed in some of the letters you posted, that those letters referenced "attachments", yet, the attachments weren't included.
By your logic, does that mean that they don't exist ?

I also believe that your definition of the words "prove" and "proof" differs greatly from Webster's.


So, we're at an impasse here, and before we go deeper into the abyss of name-calling, vitriol, and embarrassing ourselves, I'm pulling the plug.

The process of discovering the truth is sometimes fraught with obstacles.
However, like Shivas, I'm begining to think that perhaps you can't handle the truth.

I have no ill will towards anyone here, but this conversation has lost focus, relevance, and once again, civility, and it's time to draw the line.  


The only thing that's seems to be lost is the support for the conclusion you drew before posting this thread.

A great deal of interesting and informative information has been presented by all.

Why do you want to put the brakes on the process of discovering as many of the facts as possible regarding Merion?

[Patrick_Mucci]

Mike,

Certainly, the letters you've been posting are interesting, however, I don't think that a prudent man can agree with your conclusions.

What troubles me is the "selective" posting of documents perceived to be supportive of various positions.

It would seem to be productive if "ALL" of the documents could be posted.

Perhaps, with time, more and more information will be brought forth.

I would ask those tuned in to this thread the following two questions:

1.   Do you know more and have a better understanding of Merion's history, thanks to this thread ?

2.   Would you like to know more ?

[Peter Pallotta]

David: you write that "they decided to purchase the land based on whatever CBM told them".  But my understanding (please correct me if I'm wrong) is that what CBM told them -- at least what we know/have a record of what he told them -- was contained in CBM's letter to Merion in which he writes that the site he saw would prove suitable for a golf course, and in which he proposes a 6,000 yard course, giving the per-hole yardages for the 18 holes. Is that right - is that your understanding too? If it is, and given the absence of more details in the letter itself and the absence (as far as I can tell) of any other related material, I question how we can draw any inferences/conclusions regarding any suggestions about plans/routings that CBM might've provided at that time. (Edit: I just re-read an earlier exchange with Mike, in which he says we've all seen the letter I'm referring to and you say we haven't. Honestly, I could've sworn I've seen that letter on here, and that I couldn't have seen it anywhere else).

Peter

Edit: I went to search for it, because I was sure I'd seen it. If this is the letter in question, TE put it on here on June 1:

“New York, June 29, 1910
Horatio G. Lloyd, Esq.
c/o Messrs. Drexel and Co.
Philadelphia, Pa

Dear Mr. Lloyd:

Mr. Whigham and I discussed the various merits of the land you propose buying, and we think it has some very desirable features.  The quarry and the brooks can be made much of.  What it lacks in abrupt mounds can be largely rectified.

We both think that your soil will produce a firm and durable turf through the fair green quickly.  The putting greens of course will need special treatment, as the grasses are much finer.

The most difficult problem you have to contend with is to get in eighteen holes that will be first class in the acreage you propose buying.  So far as we can judge, without a contour map before us, we are of the opinion that it can be done, provided you get a little more land near where you propose making your Club House.  The opinion that a long course is always the best course has been exploded.  A 6000 yd. course can be made really first class, and to my mind it is more desirable than a 6300 or a 6400 yd. course, particularly where the roll of the ball will not be long, because you cannot help with the soil you have on that property having heavy turf.  Of course it would be very fast when the summer baked it well.

The following is my idea of a  6000 yard course:

One 130 yard hole
One 160    "
One 190    "
One 220 yard to 240 yard hole,
One 500 yard hole,
Six 300 to 340 yard holes,
Five 360 to 420    "
Two 440 to 480    "

As regards drainage and treatment of soil, I think it would be wise for your Committee to confer with the Baltusrol Committee.  They had a very difficult drainage problem.  You have a very simple one.  Their drainage opinions will be valuable to you.  Further, I think their soil is very similar to yours, and it might be wise to learn from them the grasses that have proved most satisfactory though the fair green.

In the meantime, it will do no harm to cut a sod or two and send it to Washington for analysis of the natural grasses, those indigenous to the soil.

We enjoyed our trip to Philadelphia very much, and were very pleased to meet your Committee.

With kindest regards to you all, believe me,

Yours very truly,

(signed)  Charles B. Macdonald

In soil analysis have the expert note particularly amount of carbonate of lime.”

[Tom MacWood]

Mike
Thanks for posting the letters. I noticed you did not post several of the letters. Any particular reason why?

TM

[Tom MacWood]

Mike
You said this letter went out in January, do you know when in January?



Mike/Joe B
This article was posted a few days ago. Do you know the date of the article, and what paper?

[Tom MacWood]

“Your committee desires to report that after laying out many different golf courses on the new ground, they went down to the National course with Mr. Macdonald and spent the evening going over his plans and the various data he had gathered abroad in regard to golf courses. The next day we spent on the ground studying......"

"On our return, we re-arranged the course and laid out five different plans."

Peter,

You said in a post the other day that Lesley was referring to five distinct routings when he referred to "five different plans".

According to Lesley they already have a golf course (or a routing) when they went to the NGLA, one that apparently needed some kind of re-arranging when they returned. Why would you completely scrap that current routing, on which Wilson is actively making preparation for seed, create five new routings, choose one, and then start the whole process of preparing the ground over again? Is that a logical interpretation?

[Mike_Cirba]

David,

Any "backpedaling" is due to actually reading what Hugh Wilson said which is very different from what you've told us all these months when you stated time and again that Wilson said he wasn't involved before 1911.

As you know, he said no such thing.

As far as your continued baiting and insulting of Tom Paul and Wayne, I can tell you that unfortunately neither will ever be back here again. 

If the conversation continues to be this productive, I'll be next, and then perhaps you and TMac can debate as to why he thinks its Barker and you think it's M+W.

 

[Mike_Cirba]

Tom MacWood,

In January to April 1911 do you know what they had on the ground?

A freaking corn field!! 

They hadn't even started plowing down the stalks!!!

Holy cow, you guys are too much.

[Mike_Cirba]

Holy crap; I must be nuts!

I'm arguing with a guy who is telling us there was a golf course in an unplowed corn field!

[Peter Pallotta]

Tom - a few things.

1) I think what I wrote the other day was that I ASSUMED that by five different "plans" they meant five different "routings" -- I don't know that for a fact.

2) I made that assumption partly because of the languge you just quoted, i.e. in the first paragraph (referencing a time prior to the NGLA visit) it says "laying out many different golf courses", and in the second snippet (referencing a post-NGLA visit time frame) it says "we re-arranged the course and laid out five different plans". In both cases, the committee is "laying out" many/five "different" something-or-others, and since the first time they use the phrase that something-or-other is a "golf course", I didn't think it was a stretch to assume that the second time they use the phrase they are still talking about a golf course, as in "five different plans" for that one single golf course...which I take to mean routings.

3) I don't know and/or am not certain enough about the timelines to answer or comment on your last question.

4) The OTHER reason I made the assumption I describe above was because of the language I seemed to remember from the CBM letter (which I have now pasted into my post to David).  As I've mentioned on here before, I make a distinction between hole concepts and hole placements, and while I don't think it's impossible that on his June visit to Merion CBM might've indicated possible locations for certain TYPES of golf holes (based on the great models from the UK), I just can't see that he and Whigham provided any kind of detailed plan for the course, as the numbers he offers (e.g. six holes of between 300 and 340 yards, five holes of between 360  and 420 yards) seem so generic and open-ended as to suggest only the broadest kind of recommendation.

Peter

 

[DMoriarty]

Peter wrote:
David: you write that "they decided to purchase the land based on whatever CBM told them".  
 But my understanding (please correct me if I'm wrong) is that what CBM told them -- at least what we know/have a record of what he told them -- was contained in CBM's letter to Merion in which he writes that the site he saw would prove suitable for a golf course, and in which he proposes a 6,000 yard course, giving the per-hole yardages for the 18 holes. Is that right - is that your understanding too? First Peter, this isn't about what I think or what you think M&W told Lesley and his Committee.  It is about WHAT LESLEY, ON BEHALF OF THE SITE COMMITTEE, WROTE.   Whatever M&W said, it was pretty ijmportant to Lesley and his Committee.  Without looking up the exact quote, Lesley wrote that the site committee's recomendation was based largely on M&W's opinions.   Second, as for your description of what the letter contained, I'll let the transcription of the transcription of the letter speak for itself, but will note that Merion's original course was fairly close to 6000 yards.   If it is, and given the absence of more details in the letter itself and the absence (as far as I can tell) of any other related material, I question how we can draw any inferences/conclusions regarding any suggestions about plans/routings that CBM might've provided at that time. I am not drawing any inferences/conclusions about anything, at least not in this conversation.  I am simply stating that the Site Committee based its recommendations largely upon Macdonald's and Whigham's advice.  I don't need to know the full extent of this advice in order to take Robert Lesley's word for his motivations and basis.  If you have an issue with it, take it up with Lesley.  (Edit: I just re-read an earlier exchange with Mike, in which he says we've all seen the letter I'm referring to and you say we haven't. Honestly, I could've sworn I've seen that letter on here, and that I couldn't have seen it anywhere else).   I think what you saw was presented as the actual letter, but was actually a transcription by Wayne of a transcription of a letter copied into the minutes.  In other words it was not the actual letter, and we don't know whether it had attachments, whether it was one of many, whether it was written with the Board of Governor's in mind so it could be presented to them, or much about it.  Not that it isn't important and helpful, but it leaves most questions unanswered.

As for what else there might or might not be out there, it is irrelevant to this particular discussion.  That being said, I will note that this letter in no way limits what else might be out there, and even indicates that there is probably more out there.   First, we know that Macdonald and Whigham met with the Site Committee during their first visit to Merio..  While we don't know what they discussed, it is a safe bet that they didn't stare at each other in silence.

Second, the letter makes clear M&W were a contour map away of mapping the course and telling them for certain if what they envisioned could fit on their property.   If you were Merion and concerned about whether you could fit a first class golf course on your land and the C.B. Macdonald needed a contour map to answer your question, would you give it to them or ignore them?   Why would you bring them all the way down to inspect your course if you weren't even willing to bother to get them what they needed to answer your questions?  

[Jeff_Brauer]

I find this interesting:

Your committee desires to report that after laying out many different golf courses on the new ground, they went down to the National course with Mr. Macdonald and spent the evening going over his plans and the various data he had gathered abroad in regard to golf courses. The next day we spent on the ground studying"........."On our return, we re-arranged the course and laid out five different plans."

According to David Moriarity, then, MCC built 5 courses, went to NGLA because the phrase "lay out" means to build.  And, according to Tom MacWood, they then came back and built it again 5 times, because if the word "course" is used, it must mean that the course exists on the ground.

I know they figured on improving the course as they went, but according to that interpretation, then they must have changed it about ten times in the first few months of construction!  They were Pete Dye's role model!

Again, not trying to tweak anyone here, but basing anything on anyone's use of words and our ideas of what they might have meant by it seems increasingly fruitless, as compared to using MCC records, or other documeents, and then going with the theory that has most support of such documents, which to me is the MCC committee, with aid and advice to some degree, of CBM.

I would love to know what CBM actually said, and how much he helped them in those three meetings.  I suspect it was pretty substantial.  As I have said before, it was likely at least what they would have gotten from Travis, Barker or any other golf pro doubling as a professional gca in his spare time back in those days.

David,

As to the original length, TMac knows what it was and emailed it to me once. I want to say 6235 yards, but could be wrong.  Since they were debating (apparently from the CBM letter) between 6000 and 6300 yards, I always interpreted it to mean that in that case, the committee sort of went against CBM, believing new balls required a longer course.  And, for CBM to mention the whole topic of total course length indicated to me that it must have been a hot topic of discussion at the first meeting.  It would also account for the strong recommendation of 120 acres over some lesser number.

[DMoriarty]

David,

Any "backpedaling" is due to actually reading what Hugh Wilson said which is very different from what you've told us all these months when you stated time and again that Wilson said he wasn't involved before 1911.

As you know, he said no such thing.

As far as your continued baiting and insulting of Tom Paul and Wayne, I can tell you that unfortunately neither will ever be back here again.  

If the conversation continues to be this productive, I'll be next, and then perhaps you and TMac can debate as to why he thinks its Barker and you think it's M+W.

 

Baiting TomPaul and Wayne?  I'm not baiting them, I am just being honest.  

And I could not care less whether they come back or not.   I can't remember the last VERIFIABLE FACT they gave us, and almost all the second hand information they have given us has been doctored, misleading, or incomplete.  

And Mike. let's quit pretending that they have left us.  TEPaul has almost as many posts since he left than I do since I came back.   Just because he is particpating through you doesnt change the fact that he is still participating.  

As for you, TEPaul would have to find another shill to post for him if you left.  And who will you get to post for you?   Somehow I don't think Joe Bausch would be up to the task of posting for both you and TEPaul.  

[Tom MacWood]

Tom MacWood,

In January to April 1911 do you know what they had on the ground?

A freaking corn field!! 

They hadn't even started plowing down the stalks!!!

Holy cow, you guys are too much.

Mike
Do they grow corn throughout the winter in Philadelphia? When they began plowing in March I assumed it was the areas where they planned placing the fair greens and greens, areas that required fine turf. Oakley recommended they treat the plowed areas with ten tons of manure per acre and two tons of lime.

Is it your understanding that Oakley recommended plowing the entire property and recommended the lime & manure treatment for the entire property? Thats a lot manure.

PS: Is there any particular reason you didn't post several of the letters?

[DMoriarty]

Jeff Wrote:
I find this interesting:

Your committee desires to report that after laying out many different golf courses on the new ground, they went down to the National course with Mr. Macdonald and spent the evening going over his plans and the various data he had gathered abroad in regard to golf courses. The next day we spent on the ground studying"........."On our return, we re-arranged the course and laid out five different plans."

According to David Moriarity, then, MCC built 5 courses, went to NGLA because the phrase "lay out" means to build.  And, according to Tom MacWood, they then came back and built it again 5 times, because if the word "course" is used, it must mean that the course exists on the ground.

I know they figured on improving the course as they went, but according to that interpretation, then they must have changed it about ten times in the first few months of construction!  They were Pete Dye's role model!
Come on Jeff, don't stoop to Mike's level and misrepresent how I think they used the phrase "to lay out."   It is beneath you.

Again, not trying to tweak anyone here, but basing anything on anyone's use of words and our ideas of what they might have meant by it seems increasingly fruitless, as compared to using MCC records, or other documeents, and then going with the theory that has most support of such documents, which to me is the MCC committee, with aid and advice to some degree, of CBM.

I would love to know what CBM actually said, and how much he helped them in those three meetings.  I suspect it was pretty substantial.  As I have said before, it was likely at least what they would have gotten from Travis, Barker or any other golf pro doubling as a professional gca in his spare time back in those days.
Thanks for acknowledging this at least.
David,

As to the original length, TMac knows what it was and emailed it to me once. I want to say 6235 yards, but could be wrong.  Since they were debating (apparently from the CBM letter) between 6000 and 6300 yards, I always interpreted it to mean that in that case, the committee sort of went against CBM, believing new balls required a longer course.  And, for CBM to mention the whole topic of total course length indicated to me that it must have been a hot topic of discussion at the first meeting.  It would also account for the strong recommendation of 120 acres over some lesser number.
I know what they said the original yardage was, but that is not what it was.  They were significantly off for reasons discussed numerious times before.   Measure it if you don't believe me.   Apparently CBM was better at estimating distances than they were at measuring distances (because of their methodology, of course)

[Tom MacWood]

I made that assumption partly because of the languge you just quoted, i.e. in the first paragraph (referencing a time prior to the NGLA visit) it says "laying out many different golf courses", and in the second snippet (referencing a post-NGLA visit time frame) it says "we re-arranged the course and laid out five different plans". In both cases, the committee is "laying out" many/five "different" something-or-others, and since the first time they use the phrase that something-or-other is a "golf course", I didn't think it was a stretch to assume that the second time they use the phrase they are still talking about a golf course, as in "five different plans" for that one single golf course...which I take to mean routings.
 

Peter
If you have an existing routing, which is what Lesley indicates, and they are preparing the ground based on that routing, which is reflected in Wilson's letters, why would they reverse course and create five new routings, choose one, and start the whole process over again? Does that make any sense?

Is there anything in Wilson's letters that indicates the routing was not settled or changed at any point after the NGLA visit? Why would Wilson have ground tested that was not going to used for the golf course?

[Jeff_Brauer]

DM,

I don't recall all the discussions, but do recall TM emailing me the yardage. I figure he wasn't taking TePaul's word for it, but as always, I could be wrong.

As to misrepresenting, perhaps you can explain. To be sure I wasn't misquoting you, I went back again to your essay, which says in part:

Wilson next credited Macdonald and Whigham with giving the committee a “good start in the correct principles of laying out the holes.” In so doing, Wilson was not abruptly changing the topic to golf course design. To the contrary, Wilson was discussing the construction of the course, and was being quite literal. He was charged with laying out the course on the ground. According to Oxford English Dictionary, to “lay out” means to “construct or arrange (buildings or gardens) according to a plan.” This was precisely how Wilson used the phrase. “Our problem was to lay out the course, build, and seed eighteen greens and fifteen fairways.’ The committee had to arrange and build the holes on the ground according to plan, and Macdonald and Whigham gave them a good start in understanding how to do so.

Wilson’s entire discussion of his role focuses not on the planning, but on the building.

However, not too long before that, you also write that

he (Wilson) noted that “fortunately” Macdonald and Whigham had given Wilson and his Committee “a good start in the correct principles of laying out the holes,” thus implying that the Committee’s trip to NGLA occurred at the beginning of their endeavor.

Doubtless that you will replay that all CBM did was tell them how to build holes at this meeting, but also claim that CBM designed the course, too.  To me, this makes no sense.  It seems that CBM, even if he did a previous routing, would have talked design first and then construction, at least for feature designs, and most likely both, since he was their mentor.

If he was just teaching the hole layout, i.e., surveying and measuring, then why take them around NGLA and show them holes based on classic courses?  And why would Wilson say that he helped at the beginning of their endeavor?  Doesn't design come before construction?

I think the meeting went over their many routings, hole concepts as they might apply to their routings, and other possible routings, since they came back and routed 5 more, not to mention the Francis Land Swap which would most likely count as 6.

I also believe that in those days, 2 days with CBM would be all they would get. More, in fact, than if a Barker, Bendelow, Travis, or Ross did a routing and staked it in a day or so.  The basic designs were done then, but CBM's role was to suggest where they might go, and what designs should be included.  We know from some of Mike C's early photos, the the first attempts at bunkering weren't all that good (He showed the 17th.)

So, we aren't too far away in opinion, except for the timing of the routing, but I don't think I mis-characterized your words on the meaning of "lay out" which you used in a very narrow fashion.

[Tom MacWood]

Jeff
Would you have recommended plowing up the entire property and treating it with lime and manure?

[Jeff_Brauer]

Eventually, but not right away.  The problem with srping plowing is that it holds moisture more, and hinders earthwork.  Of cousre, other than the greens, tees and bunkers, there wasn't much earthwork at MCC.  As I said before, they may have plowed cornstalks that never got harvested the year before so they could see where they were going and stake the plan on the ground.  That happened to me this spring at Firekeeper.  It just got to be a hassle to walk through the old corn, and it often happens that when property is sold, the corn isn't harvested from the year before.

Manure was fertilizer, of course.  If they were planning on seeding in spring the fair green areas, then yes, maybe I would recommend it right away.  Usually, you put it in just before seeding.  I do recall something from those letters about the weeds coming up and I don't know what that was all about.

EDIT: - I just read the Oakley/Wilson letters posted.  Oakley recommended plowing later and seeding in fall, just as I would today, but Wilson seemed to have it in his head to plow early.  Also, Oakley recommended 10 tons of manure. I am told that it takes 16 lbs of manure vs 1 lb of modern synthetic fertilizer to produce the same results.  10 tons = 1250 lbs per acre.  Modern practice would be to put out 300-500 lbs initially and then fertilize again somewhere during grow in to get to that amount (at least in similar clay soils), but that might not be possible in those days.  It seems to me that Oakley was pretty sophisticated for the day.

[Peter Pallotta]

David - Jeff said it better than I did (in my answer to Tom M) in his previous postscript to you; for me the line about "the following is my idea for a 6,000 yard course" seems telling, i.e. while I know things work differently today than they did back then, it's hard for me to see why CBM would follow that line with such a generic-seeming set of yardages (even if he had some sense that he'd have a chance at a 'do-over' later on).

Guys - just one little request to all involved; please try to leave out some or all of the most cutting/acerbic/insulting attempts at personally humiliating eachother....after a while, I find that I can't read it anymore without coming to the conclusion that you've started actually HATING eachother.  That's bad enough, hate is, but when the hate keeps getting masked or justified by attempts at getting to the "truth"....well, not to sound too wimpy, but I find I don't have much of a stomach for that anymore

Tom, David - just saw your posts now. Tom, all I can say (based on the only things I'm basing my "sayings" on) is that the snippets you provided sure makes it sound like the committee was busy laying out "many different golf courses" until JUST BEFORE heading to NGLA.  Again, I don't understand or know enough about the timelines to answer your question, but I'm still left to wonder why there'd even be a mention of the different golf courses prior to the NGLA if, as you suggest, there was already a fixed routing in place.

Peter

[Mike_Cirba]

Holy Shit!

He is saying that they had a golf course in a corn field!   

Tom MacWood,

You sent me a bunch of stuff.

If there are one's I missed please let me know which ones and I'll put out here.

[Tom MacWood]

Jeff
They had pre-determined the seeding would be done in the fall. Oakley recommended to plow and treat in late March, and then repeat the process in mid-summer. I was under the impression he was talking about the fairways and green areas. Does that make sense?

The first mention of the rough areas comes closer to autumn when they're considering a type of rough grass that grows naturally on the property of one of the Department of Agriculture associates. The rough was not a high priority.

The opening day yardage at Merion was 6235; NGLA was 6324 - first score card; in 1909 GCGC was 6558.

[Tom MacWood]

These are the dates:

April 3, 1911
April 8, 1911
April 10, 1911
April 11, 1911
April 13, 1911
April 18, 1911 (Wilson)
April 18, 1911 (Oakley)

[Tom MacWood]

David - Jeff said it better than I did (in my answer to Tom M) in his previous postscript to you; for me the line about "the following is my idea for a 6,000 yard course" seems telling, i.e. while I know things work differently today than they did back then, it's hard for me to see why CBM would follow that line with such a generic-seeming set of yardages (even if he had some sense that he'd have a chance at a 'do-over' later on).

Guys - just one little request to all involved; please try to leave out some or all of the most cutting/acerbic/insulting attempts at personally humiliating eachother....after a while, I find that I can't read it anymore without coming to the conclusion that you've started actually HATING eachother.  That's bad enough, hate is, but when the hate keeps getting masked or justified by attempts at getting to the "truth"....well, not to sound too wimpy, but I find I don't have much of a stomach for that anymore

Tom, David - just saw your posts now. Tom, all I can say (based on the only things I'm basing my "sayings" on) is that the snippets you provided sure makes it sound like the committee was busy laying out "many different golf courses" until JUST BEFORE heading to NGLA.  Again, I don't understand or know enough about the timelines to answer your question, but I'm still left to wonder why there'd even be a mention of the different golf courses prior to the NGLA if, as you suggest, there was already a fixed routing in place.

Peter

I see. So you believe they were laying out numerous courses before heading to the NGLA, they eventually pared those down to one, they went the NGLA, and when they returned they re-arranged that course. Actually more than re-arranged the course. You believe they scrapped that course, and laid out five new routings, in essence starting the routing process over. They then ask CBM to select the best of those five routings some time in April. Does that make sense?

Lesley does not indicate when those different golf courses were laid out or by whom. It could be any time between 6/1910 and 3/1911, actually it could have been before June 1910.

[DMoriarty]

Jeff,

I am apparently the only one who understands what I meant in that section of my essay, and have said on many occassions that if I ever get to revise my essay with verifiable information, I will rewrite that section.   I have also explained this numerous times and won't go into great detail here, since every time I do it is just ignored anyway.

I think that, generally, "to lay out" a golf course meant arranging the golf course on the ground, whether staking it out, marking it out, or even by building it.  This is distinquished from planning a golf course, which can be done on the ground as one marks, stakes, or lays out the course, but can also be done on paper, without actually arranging anything out on the ground.  So if all Barker did was to inspect the land and draw out his proposed layout plan, he had not yet not laid out the course.   Sometimes (and I believe this is what happened at Merion) the process of planning the course was seperate from the process of laying out the course.  For example, at Columbia H.H. Barker planned the course but it was laid out later, by someone else. 

While they may have still been planning the lay out at NGLA, or at least working out the details of the plan (as I say in my essay.)  I obviously don't know for certain, but I imagine it was all together . . .  next, a mirrored redan would work on that plateau next to the barn foundation . . . this is what it is and how it works, and tomorrow I will show you what it looks like and explain how to build it.  Then . . . .

So in sum, yes, sometimes "to lay out" referred to building the course, sometimes to staking or marking it out, but almost always involved some sort of arranging fof the course ON THE ACTUAL PROPERTY.  It didn't necessarily involve planning at all, and that is the important point.

So, when Lesley noted that they had laid out many courses on the new grounds I think he probably meant that they had tried to arrange many different courses.   You keep assuming that this was Wilson's Committee, but I have seen no evidence that this was the case.   For all we know, the "many different courses" could have been Barker's, modified, by Francis, modified by M&W.  Or it could have been Barker's modified by M&W modified by Francis modified by-Barker again, modified by Wilson's Committee, modified by M&W.   

The point is, we don't know.

As for the yardage,  I believe the yardage Tom gave you is the stated yardage in at least one of the articles.  I don't know that he measured it himself.    I have measured it, doing as best I could to figure out where the tees were, based on early depictions, descriptions, and sometimes the 1916 schematics, and while it is not an exact science, the course is well short of what was listed.   
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Peter Wrote:
David - Jeff said it better than I did (in my answer to Tom M) in his previous postscript to you; for me the line about "the following is my idea for a 6,000 yard course" seems telling, i.e. while I know things work differently today than they did back then, it's hard for me to see why CBM would follow that line with such a generic-seeming set of yardages (even if he had some sense that he'd have a chance at a 'do-over' later on).
Again Peter, I don't understand your point in this context.  Whatever you think of the alleged letter, the Committee based their recommendation largely on M&W's opinion.   I don't think the letter contains a routing, but I think it contains some clues that M&W had been thinking about where holes should be added, but I've discussed this repeatedly