Bradley.
out much of a difference, don't you think?"
David, I just don't see how all of this could have escaped the general knowledge of so many people? That is the question that I am most interested in. If that is what happened, then why wasn't it reported that way? And what motive would Wilson and Committee have in hiding this or in taking credit for someone else's work?
First and most importantly, so far as I know Wilson never took credit for planning the routing or for coming up with the hole concepts, and I don't think he ever claimed to have designed the original version of Merion East.
Second, I don't think that this escaped the general knowledge of anyone in a position to know.
H.J. Whigham was there, and he credited CBM with designing the course.
Hugh Wilson himself said that M&W taught them how to apply the underlying principles of the great golf holes to Merion's natural conditions.
Robert Lesley was on Merion Board and head of their site committee, here is what he said:
The ground was found adapted for golf and a course was laid out upon it about three years ago by the following committee: Hugh I. Wilson, chairman, R. S. Francis, H. G. Lloyd, R. E. Griscom, and Dr. Hal Toulmin, who had as advisers, Charles B. Macdonald and H. J. Whigham. The ground was found adapted for golf? Who adapted it for golf? (Notice, Rich, how he used the phrase "laid out.") The committee was made up of members of Merion, the advisors were not, but given who these men were and the extent of their involvement, I don't think we can diminish their role simply because they were called advisors.
Here is what Tillinghast had to say on May 14, 1911 in the Public Ledger (posted by Joe Bausch)
He "was very active in working with the committee," so much so that Tillinghast thinks his level of involvement would make it "only natural" to brag about the course. Keep in mind this was CBM we are talking about; wasn't the theory supposed to be that if he designed Merion he would have been bragging about it? Well, he was bragging about it. Also note that this is less than a month after the course was approved, but Macdonald is familiar enough with the holes that he can describe them to Tillinghast.
Third, at the time golf course architecture was still in its infancy in America, and those in charge of laying the course out upon the ground were the ones who often received the majority of the credit for creating the course, especially if those individuals were club members, and the initial planners were not.
David, for me it all comes down to this: historical narrative, when told by more than one party, is always inconsistent with the facts. But that doesn't mean that the story is wrong. You can drive yourself mad trying to construct a theory based on how the various accounts don't match up with perfect consistency. So you just have to trust what the people who were closest to the events believed about what really happened.
Bradley, I think Merion's historical narrative is largely a modern creation. In another thread there was a link to Merion's website and their abbreviated history, and I was amazed at how different the story was than what actually happened, and that is not even considering what it still reasonably in dispute (like the degree to which M&W were involved in coming up with the holes.) I've focused almost totally on what was written at the time, and can sort of see how the Merion legend grew and where the misunderstandings occurred, but the story they were telling then is different than now.
Plus, Bradley, how can you or anyone else just throw out the words of someone like H.J. Whigham, who was there and who told us that Merion East was a CBM course?
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Dave
I understand what you think, and respect your right to think as you do, but given the absence of any evidence to the contrary, I do not think that M&W were the driving creative force at Merion. Show me some evidence and I might think otherwise.
Absence of evidence? Hmmm. Perhaps you just aren't familiar with the evidence.
If not M&W, then who? I've seen no verifiable evidence that Wilson had a thing to do with the original routing or even that he was involved in the project at the time the original routing was most likely considered. And once he did become involved I am not so sure that the did much of anything until he consulted with an expert or three. It wasn't his nature to have resource like CBM and not use it. CBM chose the final routing. That's evidence of something, isn't it?
Are there some facts that I don't know about? Or are you just sticking with the old legend even though substantial portions of it have been disproven?
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Mike,
The facts to which I refer are the facts indicating that 1) Wilson built the hole to be an Alps hole, and 2) that mound behind the hole was part of the Alps hole that Wilson built.
As for the mound, see M&W's 1914 article on Alps holes and you will understand why an embankment in back of the green (whether or not artificially built) was a component of his Alps hole concept.
How do we know Findlay didn't give Wilson the idea??
What? Do you think about this stuff before you write it, or does it just flow out of your fingers?
Was Findlay involved in the project before the course was initially built and seeded? Because the mound was already there in November 1911. Did Findlay have a time machine?
Mike, as I said, the facts indicate that the hole was built to be an Alps, and the mound was part of the Alps concept. Accept it or don't, but it has been discussed to death, so no use going on about it.