John Collum,
If that latest episode of Lifestyles of the Rich and Pompous didn't answer your questions, I suggest we turn back to the actual source material to try and address them. From Whigham's Evangalist of Golf, as reprinted in Bahto's excellent book of the same name:
"Clubs all over the country asked Macdonald to remodel their courses. Since he was every inch an amateur, golf architecture for him was very much a labor of love, and it was quite impossible for him to do all that was asked him. So he used to send Seth Raynor to do the groundwork, and he himself corrected the plans."
While obviously not directly referring to Merion, this provides a good explanation of CBM's general approach for his courses with which he was not directing supervising things. The primary difference with Merion was that CBM was working with Wilson and his Committee, rather than with Raynor. Ironically, CBM's directinvolvement at Merion was apparently more extensive than at some of his courses he designed and built with Raynor. CBM did not just work on the "plans" at Merion, he helped choose the land, he spent two days at NGLA teaching Wison how to lay out the course, and he went to Merion and determined the final routing!
Additionally, the reference to correcting the plans ought to help put to rest this absurd notion that CBM had to have actually been present at Merion in order to have been helping plan it.
Hope this helps.
That is interesting. I was not aware how McDonald generally went about his course design/building
John, one word of caution, this isn't the way he designed all his courses. It wasn't the way he created NGLA for example, or to my understand was it the way he created Mid-Ocean. I understand Whigham to be saying that as his confidence in Raynor grew and the demands on CBM increased, CBM became less directly involved. Lido was later, but like NGLA this was one he apparently took a special interest in. He had a house down there and spent time down there and it seems like he was more involved. One interesting point about CBM's involvement in Merion was that it came very closely on the heels of NGLA, and perhaps this (along with who ran Merion) may have given Merion an edge or inside track on getting as much of CBM's time as they did.
It is ironic that he may have had more involvement at Merion than at some of the courses for which he is sometimes credited.
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I made a crack in my last post about Lifestyles of the Rich and Pompous. While these men were mostly all well-off, just so were clear, I was not referring CBM, HJW, or anyone involved at Merion or NGLA as pompous. My understanding is that most of these these were hard working, interesting, and admirable men.
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If Herbert Barker was one of the Top Designers of golf courses in the country, why in May of 1911 did he advertise that he was simply an expert at placing wooden stakes "on the ground", as in "laying out" golf courses? 
I'll be frank, Mike. This is yet another of these posts that leads me to use words like asinine and nonsense.
How many times will you blatantly misrepresent my understanding of how the phrase "to lay out" was used and understood.
-- Are you actually incapable of comprehending and remembering how I think they used the phrase?
-- Or art you so intellectually dishonest that you will misrepresent my position time and time again to suit your rhetorical purposes, despite knowing better?
Given the number of times I have explained my position, and given the number of times you have blatantly disregarded my position and continued with your over simplistic caricatures, I think these are the only two viable possibilities.