"Merion Memories" by Richard S. Francis

[Mike_Cirba]

Patrick,

Of course Tom Paul is not impartial, but you guys are the ones asking him to put forward information to Bryan that might prove or disprove both the location and the timeframe of the Francis Land Swap.

I've suggested that impartial observers can ask questions and challenge contentions.

My assumption is that David would find a way to have his questions surface through an impartial intermediary, but since he's once again proven that he can't discuss this without hurling insults at everyone who challenges him, perhaps that translation will serve to moderate and temper things down to actual facts and the exploration of same?

[Patrick_Mucci]

Patrick,

Of course Tom Paul is not impartial,

Finally, we agree.

but you guys are the ones asking him to put forward information to Bryan that might prove or disprove both the location and the timeframe of the Francis Land Swap.

What the hell does that have to do with anything ?
TEPaul has that information in his possession, yet he constantly refuses to provide the data to Bryan, someone who even you claim is impartial.
How in the hell can you defend TEPaul' repeated failure to produce the Metes and Bounds ?
It's intellectually dishonest, anti-scholarship and downright WRONG.

AND, YOU DON'T SEE THAT ?  ?  ?


I've suggested that impartial observers can ask questions and challenge contentions.

TEPaul WON'T answer the question about the Metes and Bounds.
Now you want to put the inmates in charge of the asylum ?  ?  ?
What the hell is wrong with you ?

My assumption is that David would find a way to have his questions surface through an impartial intermediary, but since he's once again proven that he can't discuss this without hurling insults at everyone who challenges him, perhaps that translation will serve to moderate and temper things down to actual facts and the exploration of same?

Please STOP.
You demonize David and grant TEPaul a pass ? ? ?   Have you lost your marbles.
TEPaul accused him of being involved in a capital murder and you don't see why David is pissed ?

David hasn't been an angel, but, this is no one sided cat fight.

Mike, you're so invested in Wilson that you can't see straight and worse yet, you can't think straight.

Please STOP with these inane suggestions of appointing TEPaul a moderator.
He's not a disinterested, impartial, arms length observer.  He's as partial as you can get, and that's OK when it comes to him putting forth his views, but, it disqualifies him from being a fair moderator.
Next you'll be suggesting Wayne Morrisson.

[Mike_Cirba]

Patrick,

This is crazy.   When Tom Paul went way over the top on David the other night I called him out on it.

No one should ever have to defend themselves either on a personal or a professional basis on this site and it was wrong.   

What this has to do with letting Tom and Bryan finish their discussion on the Land Swap issues I have no idea.

They seemed to be making good progress this morning.

Why doesn't everyone just shut up and let them come to conclusion??

What are people afraid of???

[DMoriarty]

There is no need for any of this garbage.

It is simple.

1. Remain civil.
2. Back up your theories and claims with verifiable facts.



If TEPaul can manage that, then he will have no problem with me. 

Is this request really so unreasonable?

[Patrick_Mucci]

Mike,

Let's get the Metes and Bounds for Bryan, let him do his calculation and announce his results, then lets see where that leaves/takes us.

One step at a time.

[Rich Goodale]

Rich,

Don't you think the discussion and discovery process would be sped up if TEPaul provided Bryan Izatt with the Metes and Bounds ?

I honestly do not know and honestly see no reason why I should care.

[Niall C]

Niall, they were never "engaged."  They were amateurs and they were just trying to help those who really thought they needed help.   

They went to NGLA in March 1911, at a crucial moment in the planning process when Wilson was anxious to get to preparing ground for the golf course.   The time had long passed for general and vague discussion of great holes.   The time had long passed for any general discussion.   They needed M&W's specific help in understanding what could be done at Merion, and how to do it.   

Keep in mind that according to reports at the time many of the holes at Merion were based on the great holes abroad (almost all the holes, by one report.)   Yet Wilson had never even seen these holes, and there is no indication that anyone on the committee knew a lick about them at all, much less in the kind of detail that would allow the committee to try to base their course on them!   

Yet you think that all M&W did was wax philosophically, giving general advice?  And based on this they returned to Merion and whipped out an incredible routing and 18 hole designs based on some rather subtle principles from holes that CBM had only described to them generally and that they had never seen?

Call be crazy, but it seems more likely that they had been trying to figure out how to fit what M&W had wanted on their land, and they went to the source for detailed help about where and why these holes should go, and how they should build them, and then they went back and came up with five attempts at carrying this out, and then M&W came down and chose the best one, maybe adjusting it further along the way.

_________________________________


As for whether or not it was noted in the MINUTES, the Minutes note that  M&W chose the land for the course, and that they determined the final layout plan.   

I have trouble imagining just how much more noted they could have been!

David,

I take your point regarding M&W's status, point duly noted. However in the same way that a professional will only provide a service in accordance with his/her instructions I doubt whether M&W would have jumped in and designed the course for them without asking. Again I come to the point I'm interested in which is did M&W design the course or just tell Wilson and his committee how to design and build the course ? I'm not sure that anyone else is interested in this but I certainly am. That MacDonald had a significant influence on the design at Merion, is clear to me, but I think there is a big difference in saying he was an influence and saying he designed the course.

Y

In your own words above "they needed M&W's specific help in understanding what could be done at Merion, and how to do it." That could be read as M&W telling them the type of template holes they could fit in, what they looked like and to go about building them. That to my mind doesn't constitute providing a design for Merion. Now I'm sure that my interpretation of your words isn't they way you intended them to be interpreted but it does show

[Niall C]

sorry guys, premature ejaculation !

didn't quite finish my post before pressing the button.

David,

I was going to go on and say that in terms of general advice I was thinking of MacDonald explaining the principles behind the classic holes, as well as advice on ideal hole lengths etc. That doesn't seem to be all that different to what you are suggesting ?

Niall

[Dan Herrmann]

Good morning,
David - I was trying to inject some humor with my rebus.  The previous 2 posts had mentioned sticking to facts or similar issues.  I thought of the iconic Californian "facts" guy, Jack Webb, and tried to make a joke.

Too bad you didn't see it that way.  C'est la vie.

[DMoriarty]

David,

I take your point regarding M&W's status, point duly noted. However in the same way that a professional will only provide a service in accordance with his/her instructions I doubt whether M&W would have jumped in and designed the course for them without asking. Again I come to the point I'm interested in which is did M&W design the course or just tell Wilson and his committee how to design and build the course ? I'm not sure that anyone else is interested in this but I certainly am. That MacDonald had a significant influence on the design at Merion, is clear to me, but I think there is a big difference in saying he was an influence and saying he designed the course.

To my mind, whether they "designed the course" versus "told Wilson and his committee how to design and build the course" is a distinction without a difference.     This is especially so since they M&W were brought down to determine the final routing.

In your own words above "they needed M&W's specific help in understanding what could be done at Merion, and how to do it." That could be read as M&W telling them the type of template holes they could fit in, what they looked like and to go about building them. That to my mind doesn't constitute providing a design for Merion.

If you think M&W told them the type of holes that could fit on Merion's land, what those hole looked like, and how to build them, then our disagreement is purely semantics.

I've intentionally tried to avoid this discussion of whether M&W "designed" the course because that is definitional and not I am not interested arguing the semantics of what "design" means at all.  I am only interested in how M&W influenced what was created on the ground at Merion, and think you have it about right above (except perhaps for your notion of how "template holes" were applied to the land at Merion or NGLA for that matter.)

I was going to go on and say that in terms of general advice I was thinking of MacDonald explaining the principles behind the classic holes, as well as advice on ideal hole lengths etc. That doesn't seem to be all that different to what you are suggesting ?

Not all that different, but this conversation was taking place in the context of what could and needed to be done at Merion.   To give you a purely hypothetical example, it is one thing to talk generally about the redan concept and quite another to talk about how the plateau next to the old barn would make an excellent spot for redan green and here's why . . . .  Given all of the factors mentioned above and more, to assume it was of the former type and nothing more is untenable.

_______________________________________________________________________________

Good morning,
David - I was trying to inject some humor with my rebus.  The previous 2 posts had mentioned sticking to facts or similar issues.  I thought of the iconic Californian "facts" guy, Jack Webb, and tried to make a joke.

Too bad you didn't see it that way.  C'est la vie.

Understood, but surely you can understand that your attempt at humor had a message attached, and how I might find that message somewhat annoying given your repeated insistence that you have no dog in this fight.

Also Dan, it would be refreshing if you or anyone of TEPaul's supposed friends would just once ask him to stick to the facts, or even to provide a single verifiable fact to the conversation.   His endless games in this regard (combined with his ceaseless rudeness and boorishness) are the obvious reasons that these conversations are so unproductive.  Yet we only hear from you and others to cheer him on or to caution me about my tone and implore me to stick to the facts.   Why is that, exactly, and how does that help advance the conversation?

Anyone who considers himself TEPaul's friend ought to be humiliated by TEPaul's behavior and ought to try to get him some help or at least get him to control himself.   If he was my friend (and he isn't) I would smack him down myself.   But then maybe I am unusual in that I don't base my friendships solely on how my friends treat me, but also consider how they treat others. 

You guys do him no favors by constantly looking the other way and pretending nothing ever happened like one would with the drunken uncle at the family reunion.

[TEPaul]

"Quote from: Niall Carlton on Today at 03:36:00 AM

David,

I take your point regarding M&W's status, point duly noted. However in the same way that a professional will only provide a service in accordance with his/her instructions I doubt whether M&W would have jumped in and designed the course for them without asking. Again I come to the point I'm interested in which is did M&W design the course or just tell Wilson and his committee how to design and build the course ? I'm not sure that anyone else is interested in this but I certainly am. That MacDonald had a significant influence on the design at Merion, is clear to me, but I think there is a big difference in saying he was an influence and saying he designed the course.


David Moriarty response:
To my mind, whether they "designed the course" versus "told Wilson and his committee how to design and build the course" is a distinction without a difference.     This is especially so since they M&W were brought down to determine the final routing.



Niall:

You make some very good points above and you ask one very good question. The point is, as well as part of the point of your question is-----did MCC EVER even ASK Macdonald/Whigam to actually route and design Merion East or even ASK him to actually and physically help them route and design their course?

From every single bit of actual PHYSICAL and FACTUAL evidence and information anyone has from MCC and Merion itself it is telling us that no they never did ask them to do either of those things. It appears from the actual factual evidence and information that they only asked Macdonald to look over a proposed property for purchase and to tell them what he thought about it for a golf course. Macdonald's only letter to MCC very much suggests that to be the case; Macdonald actually said to them in his letter; "The most difficult problem YOU have to contend with is to get in eighteen holes in the acreage you propose buying that will be first class."

CLEARLY, that suggests that in that single day visit in June 1910 to Ardmore, to which he would not return again for ten months, Macdonald looked at the problem (routing and design) as THEIR problem and not HIS problem. Had they actually ASKED him to spend the appropriate time to route and design their course or even actually show them how to do it then it would very much have been HIS problem as well which he obviously would have realized, but that is not at all what he said, is it?

Moriarty apparently has no idea what a distinction or difference even means. And he surely has little idea of the distinction or difference between real factual evidence and completly manufacturered conjecture, speculation and fallaciousness. For God's Sake, now he is trying to tell us that Macdonald and Wilson must have been communicating all the time even though even HE knows there is not a shred of physical or factual evidence of that. Just another example of his odd rationale of; "Well, you can't prove it is impossible, can you?" 

After a while his fall back modus operandi and argument always devolves down to his questions like that one or; "Well can you prove it's not impossible?" And he's the one trying to get us to believe that he's relying on FACTS and we aren't?!? It really is unbelievable the way he's been conducting this year long charade. Was there EVER a question or mystery in a whole century of who designed Merion East? Of course not and if there was show me where. Moriarty created the entire mystery and question out of thin air and via this entire charade of his----with a little help and advice from Tom MacWood, of course.

That is really not the point here with Merion, Macdonald or Wilson, it never has been in a century until Moriarty and MacWood (or now HenryE or whatever ) came along and it's not really anyone's interest either. It gets down to simply circular and nonproductive arguments on the degrees of fallacy.

Unbelievably, six and a half years ago, Tom MacWood started this whole Merion/Macdonald charade off by starting a thread asking us if we could tell him who specifically designed each and every hole or concept of Merion East and we told him we simply didn't know that and never could know that because that was never recorded in the first place but that the accurate history of Merion was that "In the main, Hugh Wilson was that architect of the East and West courses" and to a man every member of his committee said so!

It should've been left at that because that's the truth but it wasn't left at that.

[Dan Herrmann]

David,
I don't think Tom Paul needs any advice from me.  If anything, it's the other way around.   He's forgotten more about GCA and golf and golf rules and golf clubs, etc.  than I'll ever know.

[DMoriarty]

David,
I don't think Tom Paul needs any advice from me.  If anything, it's the other way around.   He's forgotten more about GCA and golf and golf rules and golf clubs, etc.  than I'll ever know.

Yet I need advice from you?   Interesting.

You think it is your place to advise me on my behavior, yet TEPaul is supposedly your friend yet you don't think he needs advice from you on his behavior?

Fascinating.

[Dan Herrmann]

Guess I"m just a fascinatin' guy

[TEPaul]

Danderino Herrmann, you are a fascinatin' guy and don't you ever forget it!

[Mike_Cirba]

Mike I am pretty sure I have provided the sources on numerous occasions, plus cited them in my essay.  The primary article I mentioned was from the April 14, 1912 article int the Philadelphia Inquirer.    A September 15, 1912 article from the same paper noted that nearly every hole was patterned after some famous hole abroad.

David,

Thanks for those article dates.   I went to Joe Bausch and he pulled them from his rather impressive vault of historical articles.

I'll put them out there for everyone's perusal, and because Pat Mucci says I only post articles that bolster my position.   

Frankly, I think these articles actually do indeed support my position, but let's just slap them on the board for now...

Unfortunately, I'm not sure who the golf writer at the Inquirer was at the time...perhaps Joe knows?

I was hoping it was Tilly or William Evans, because then I'd be sure that it was "insider" knowledge....I'm not sure from reading the articles how deeply knowledgeable the writer was, but for discussion purposes let's just take him at face value.

Thanks, Joe...

Just to date each one;

April 14th, 1912 - Hugh Wilson went to Europe about a month prior and would return in early May.   Thirteen months prior the Merion Committee and Wilson went to NGLA to visit Macdonald, and about a year prior the club approved a finalized design plan and began constructoin.



September 15/1912 - The new Merion golf course had just opened the previous day and the following two articles reflect that.






 

[Mike_Cirba]

As I think about it...

CB Macdonald's first of two visits to Merion was in June of 1910.

David would lead us to believe that either HH Barker or CB Macdonald designed Merion between June 1910 and November 15, 1910.

Is there a single article anywhere in any news paper or otherwise documented account that states that Merion will be designing holes based on famous holes overseas during those months?   

For that matter, is there a single article anywhere in any news paper or otherwise documented account that states that Merion is designing any golf holes AT ALL during THAT PERIOD??

Hugh Wilson was appointed to chair the committee in early 1911.

The MCC Minutes tell us that Wilson and Committee then created many plans for the golf course.

In the second week of March, 1911, Wilson and his committee went to NGLA where they spent the first evening going over Macdonald sketches of famous holes from abroad and the next day going over his replicas of those holes on his course at NGLA.

The MCC Minutes tell us that upon their return, Wilson and Committee created "five different plans".

On April 6th, 1911, Macdonald and Whigham came down to Merion for a single day and helped Hugh Wilson and the committee pick out the best of their five plans that went to the board for approval and subsequent construction on April 19th, 1911.

These articles are from 1912, a full year later.


I have to wonder, and I'm speculating here a bit admittedly...if the committee wasn't influenced by M&W to attempt to build more copies of holes abroad than they inevitably did.

We know their few attempts were not necessarily the zenith of the Merion design.

The Alps hole...well...we've seen the Alps hole.

The redan...has a green the goes back to front.

The Eden Green...well, evidently it was sloped so severely that golfers would roll the approach up in front of the green rather than risk going past.

Any other copies of holes from abroad anyone can think of??   Uh...well...that would be a stretch in any league.

I have to wonder if at some point Merion just realized that trying to turn each hole into something it clearly was not meant to be was an ultimately fruitless exercise and just went with building the best holes they could build.

[DMoriarty]

Thanks for posting the articles Mike.

[Niall C]

David,

I take your point regarding M&W's status, point duly noted. However in the same way that a professional will only provide a service in accordance with his/her instructions I doubt whether M&W would have jumped in and designed the course for them without asking. Again I come to the point I'm interested in which is did M&W design the course or just tell Wilson and his committee how to design and build the course ? I'm not sure that anyone else is interested in this but I certainly am. That MacDonald had a significant influence on the design at Merion, is clear to me, but I think there is a big difference in saying he was an influence and saying he designed the course.

To my mind, whether they "designed the course" versus "told Wilson and his committee how to design and build the course" is a distinction without a difference.     This is especially so since they M&W were brought down to determine the final routing.

In your own words above "they needed M&W's specific help in understanding what could be done at Merion, and how to do it." That could be read as M&W telling them the type of template holes they could fit in, what they looked like and to go about building them. That to my mind doesn't constitute providing a design for Merion.

If you think M&W told them the type of holes that could fit on Merion's land, what those hole looked like, and how to build them, then our disagreement is purely semantics.

I've intentionally tried to avoid this discussion of whether M&W "designed" the course because that is definitional and not I am not interested arguing the semantics of what "design" means at all.  I am only interested in how M&W influenced what was created on the ground at Merion, and think you have it about right above (except perhaps for your notion of how "template holes" were applied to the land at Merion or NGLA for that matter.)

I was going to go on and say that in terms of general advice I was thinking of MacDonald explaining the principles behind the classic holes, as well as advice on ideal hole lengths etc. That doesn't seem to be all that different to what you are suggesting ?

Not all that different, but this conversation was taking place in the context of what could and needed to be done at Merion.   To give you a purely hypothetical example, it is one thing to talk generally about the redan concept and quite another to talk about how the plateau next to the old barn would make an excellent spot for redan green and here's why . . . .  Given all of the factors mentioned above and more, to assume it was of the former type and nothing more is untenable.

_______________________________________________________________________________

David

Personally I think there is a world of difference between designing a course and giving someone advice about how to go about designing a course. Therefore I don't understand your comment of it being a distinction without a difference. As stated previously, my interest is in determining whether MacDonald actually did play an active part in designing the course. The hypothetical example you give of placing the Redan green beside the barn etc is what I mean about whether MacDonald (or Whigam) actually had that kind of input.

You are suggesting that it would be untenable to think that they couldn't have had this kind of involvement. Again it comes down to interpretation and conjecture on the facts of the contents of MacDonalds letter to Merion, the committees visit to NGLA and how that was recorded in Merions minutes. To my mind I don't think there is anything in there that makes a contention that MacDonald/Whigam didn't have that kind of input as untenable which is why I originally asked the question as to what documentation there was to support your theory.

As I understand it, no one has unearthed minutes to Wilsons committee meetings (or maybe they have in which case I apologise and perhaps someone could let me know what they say) which I've got to think would probably answer the question one way or the other. Even an ad hoc committee would surely have meetings and keep minutes, no ?

Niall

  

[Niall C]

Niall,

A reason that the committee would meet Macdonald at NGLA is to OBSERVE the great holes at NGLA, the holes supposedly representing the best the UK had to offer.

If I was a committee member I'd like to see the work of the fellows who were helping me route and design my course, wouldn't you ?

Patrick

Fair point but would you not have a look at their work before you gave them the job ? ]

Niall,

I think you're looking at the issue in the context of 2009 instead of 100+ years earlier, circa 1906-1911.
In 1874 there wasn't a single 18 hole golf course in all of America

CBM was an Icon of American Golf, a larger than life figure.
His credentials were beyond impressive.
He was one of the best American golfers winning the first U.S.G.A. Amateur Championship.
He was intimately involved with the formation of the USGA.
He served as Vice President of the USGA.
The USGA put he and Laurence Curtis in charge of interpreting the rules
He had traveled extensively in the UK studying golf courses
He had previously designed the first 18 hole golf courses in America, at Belmont and Wheaton, IL, circa 1992/3.

So, to answer your question, his resume was both incredibly impressive and impeccable.

I think I'm right in saying Davids theory is that M&W were already engaged.

David is better equiped to explain his theory/ies

On the other hand perhaps Wilson and his committee were only going to NGLA to get some general advice on course design and construction.
To me that seems a more plausible explanation but I accept it does come down to how you interperet what was the reason for their visit.
Again the report in the Merion minutes suggests to me that they were going to find out how a course was designed and built.


I don't know the entirety of the reasons that the committee visited NGLA, but, that's not the linchpin of David's premise/s

If the land swap occured prior to Wilson coming on board and steering the committee, then I think you have to agree with David that the course had previously been routed by someone else.

Could that be Barker, M&W or the other committee members or a combination of all of them ?  
I don't think you can rule out any of the above, but, that's secondary to the issue of the timing of the land swap.

Hopefully, additional research will lead us to the point where VERIFIABLE FACTS and PRUDENT, NOT BIASED MINDS can draw reasonable conclusions.

Patrick

Thanks for that. In my defence I should say I'm not totally ignorant on american golf and not only do I have Scotlands Gift but I've actually read it as well ! Seriously, I am aware of MacDonalds standing then and now. My response was not intended to suggest that MacDonald had anything to prove but was pointing out the timing in response to you suggestion that the committee were going to have a look at previous work of the guy who they had asked to desgn there course.

With regards the land swap happening before Wilson involvement, you suggest that I have to agree with David that the course must have been routed by someone else. The land may have been swapped because someone did a routing that included the swapped land, it may also have been for agronomy reasons ie poor drainage, or for development purposes etc. There are a variety of potential reasons of which a prior routing of the course is one. I don't know the land and therefore don't know which of the above is likely to be valid but let me ask this question, do you need to do a full routing to get an idea that a parcel of ground big enough to form part of a course might be better adapted for golf than a similarly sized parcel elsewhere ?

The land swap may give a pointer or a hint to support Davids theory (or then again maybe it doesn't) but I respectively suggest that it doesn't provide proof.

Niall

Niall

[DMoriarty]

Niall,

I'm not sure I understand your last post to me.  If you don't want to call what they were doing "design" then that is fine with me.    I am more concerned with figuring out how they influenced the course.  

In this regard, and again purely hypothetical as to the specifics, I think that CBM and Whigham were communicating to the Committee such things as
 - a redan green would work perfectly on that plateau against that old barn, and if you tear out the barn you've got a perfect redan bunker already built. As you will see tomorrow, angle is important so you need to put the tee over on the hillside next to the tee for the . . ."
 - or,  you guys really ought to secure that land behind the clubhouse, because you need a long dogleg hole and this would be a good place for one.  Plus, further on, the curve of the stream creates a very good place for a Do-or-Die plateau green appropriate for a short hole of only about 130 yards.  Tomorrow I will show you what I mean; mine is surrounded by sand and you should put sand on the 4th side of yours, but as for the creek f it you should take what nature was kind enough to give you.

etc.  

Given all the factors I listed above, and given the course the committee built, I think it is untenable that the communication is any more general than the type described above, whether it be in person, in writing, or in plan.  It may or may not have been more specific, but I don't think there was any way it would have been more general than this.

Understand what I am trying to say?  

[DMoriarty]

Mike,

Speaking of articles, and since you are still taking shots at HHBarker, you at one point mentioned that he was a one day player who did one day designs for $25.   Could you provide your source for your claim?   Thanks.

[TEPaul]

Michael Frobusher Cirba:

Read that Sep, 15, 1912 article you posted again. See that guy Paul D. Mills, the great Yale athlete how married a daughter of James W. Paul?

James W. Paul who was the managing partner of Drexel and Co. built the massive place known as something like Woodcrest or Woodmont or Crestmont or something that is now Cabrini College in Wayne. Part of that place became St. Davids GC.

I don't know which one of the daughters of James W. Paul that Paul Denkla Mills married but one of Paul's daughter apparently got caught in the massive stables of that place like up in the hay with one of the buff young grooms. As the story goes Paul got so pissed he killed the groom and that is why that stables are notoriously haunted. I went over there one time and was talking to some of the students who told me lots of people say they've seen the ghost of that young groom walking around there. I think his name was Michael Frobusher.

[TEPaul]

"Speaking of articles, and since you are still taking shots at HHBarker, you at one point mentioned that he was a one day player who did one day designs for $25.   Could you provide your source for your claim?   Thanks."


Since the Lesley report says Barker was paid on Connell's (HDC) account, and since you and your research buddy are so high on HH Barker, maybe you could do some research, or farm it out to your assistant and look into the HDC financial records of June 1910 to see what the real estate developer, Connell, paid Barker for that single day job. If it was more than $25 I'd be surprised. 

[Mike_Cirba]

Mike,

Speaking of articles, and since you are still taking shots at HHBarker, you at one point mentioned that he was a one day player who did one day designs for $25.   Could you provide your source for your claim?   Thanks.

David,

I'm speaking about his "design for Merion", be it as it may, where he spent a single dayin June 1910 at Joseph Connell's request, sand ketched out a rough draft of a routing in pencil which he then sent to Connell.

Specifically, we know he drew a routing of a course based on his single-day view of some unpurchased land that HDC owned, certainly for the purpose of furthering  Connell's goal of getting Merion interested in his property for their new golf course.

Earlier I introduced a 1910 article talking about a pro at an established eastern club who was in demand and designing courses through the south and as far west as Oregon, etc., and how he used that to supplement his other income to the tune of about 5k a year.   If you know the courses Barker built, the article is almost certainly referring to him.

This was no disgrace, David...this is how these early pros got along, and guys like Bendelow and Dunn, and Barker, Mungo Park and Willie Campbell, and John Reid, and others mostly worked.   It's all very well documented in the early accounts and most clubs didn't know they needed them for more than a day's service anyway, because these guys were the presumed "experts" in everything golf.   $25 was a nice purse for a day's work, certainly, and whether Barker got $15 or $50, it's irrespective to the larger point.

The larger point is that guys like Macdonald looked around at what these early pros were building and said that the very soul of golf shrieked!!  

That's why HE did it a different way, and I firmly believe that the best advice Macdonald ever gave to Merion was to break out of that disproven old mold and take their time, learn what they wanted, and then do it themselves, exactly as he did.