"Tom,
What was your recent realization about the Macdonald letter you've mentioned recently?"
Michael Frobusher Cirba;
My recent realization follows and it proves beyond a reasonable doubt what an "expert researcher/gca historical analyst" I am!
Very recently an old Philadelphia newspaper article or two was uncovered somewhere out in the hinterlands! It was shown to Merion asking for its help and advice as to what it may mean. The newspaper articles chronicled a list of real estate transfers back in 1909 in the Main Line.
One of those land transfers appears to have been for a 130 acre piece somewhere overlooking the Schuykill River. It appears that land may've been purchased by our Robert Lesley of all people, the chairman of our MCC new golf grounds search committee. Later Lesley writes of a piece of ground somewhere north of "the road" that was an alternative site for MCC's interest in the land that is now Merion East! As we know the Lesley report to the MCC board on July 1, 1910 mentions other or another alternative site to Ardmore.
WEELLL, inquiring minds would like to know where that alternative site may have been!!! Perhaps inquiring minds would like to know where it is so, among other things, we could have about 17 threads of 39 pages each discussing and debating if MCC made the right choice on land and what MERION EAST would've been like had that alternative site been chosen over Ardmore!
Not a bad thought and question actually for us Uber GCA history geeks that number 117 the world over but may increase to 120.1 when we actually formally approve an increase of an additional three Uber-GCA history geeks via a formal GOLFCLUBATLAS.com board of governors motion known as the Morrissett Resolution!!
So, for my recent immaculate realization and revelation;
Charlie M and Whig-for-Brains were taking the early morning train from New York to Philadelphia on June 23, 1910 to meet the MCC search committee at the invitation of Rodman E. Griscom. The plan apparently was to meet at the Ardmore site in the late a.m. check out its ground and natural characteristics and potential acreage and agronomy possibilities and then to hie over to the alternative site in the p.m. and do the same thing.
Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on anyone’s particular perspective on these kinds of things, Charlie and his son-in-law Herbie were out pretty late the night before in Gotham with some really hot moonlighting New York showgirls just dancing their buns off, drinking and just carrying on into other unmentionables into the wee hours of the morn.
So on the early morning train ride from NYC to Philly on which they were actually in the PRR Drexel/Morgan special HH railroad parlor car (HH was the designation for Huge Honcho) there was a great Welsh butler who got Charlie and Whig-for-Brains started on this “hair of the dog” that looked something like small bright red fire hydrants with a garden of celery growing out of the top of them.
By the time the train with its special PRR H.H. parlor car pulled into Philadelphia Charlie Blair Macd and Herbie Jenks Whigs were acting something like those cool kites that the Wright Brothers had been experimenting with in Kitty Hawk N.C. before actually taking flight in one of them themselves.
The Drexel & Co limo was waiting for them at the curb at the 30th Street station and the German chauffeur asked them which site they wanted to go to first. At this point, Charlie was about half passed out in the back of the limo fondling the cushions so Herbie Whigout started fumbling through his pockets looking for the directions to the Ardmore site and that alternative site looking over the Schuykill River. He couldn’t find them and so he started fumbling through all Charlie’s pockets too causing Charlie B. to come to like a light bulb and shreek: “What the hell, boy, did my daughter marry some kind of a faggot?!? Whigs said; “Sorry Dad, but we need to find the directions to where we’re supposed to go to design and route a course and be the driving force in a single day behind this new place these Philadelphia MCC novices are trying to do.”
Then C.B remembered he had stashed the directions to the two sites in the super-secret back left pocket of his special custom made tear-off silk Brooks Brothers underpants; and THEN they were off in a flash in that mammoth Drexel & Co Rolls Royce limo (with the initials HGL-H.H monogrammed on all doors).
Only trouble was they went to the alternative 130 acre site overlooking the Schuykill River first that Lesley may’ve bought himself in 1909 that was described by Lesley later as ‘north of the road.’ (What “ROAD?” I’ll get into that some other time).
In the meantime Lesley and Lloyd and the rest of the MCC search committee were waiting for M/W impatiently on the Ardmore site!!
So they arrived at the alternative site and lo and behold who do they find wandering around aimlessly but E.J. Stotesbury who would shortly become the managing partner of Drexel & Co. (Remember Stotesbury, Michael? He was that bigwig goofball looking guy in that old photo hitting the first golf ball off the first tee of Philadelphia Country Club who looked like the pro needed to line him up in the right direction or he might’ve dribbled the first tee shot right at the clubhouse and the spectators instead of the fairway)
Charlie and Whigs knowing that Lloyd was a bigwig partner at Drexel asked Stotesbury if he was a partner of Drexel so of course he said yes because he was. So C.B. and Whig-for-Brains thought Stotesbury must be Lloyd of the MCC search committee so they commenced to doing their thing of checking out the natural characteristics of the ground, the acreage, the turf for agronomic purposes and whatnot. It took them a couple of hours and as they left they yelled over to Stotesbury who was still standing there with a blank expression staring at the sun that they would write him a full report on this site and send it to him in a few days and that they would see him over at the Ardmore site. Stotesbury mumbled; “Whatever.”
The limo was waiting so Charlie and Herbie said: “On to the next site Hans!” But the chauffeur said he just got a message on his blackberry that he had to take Mr. Lloyd to the office shortly. Charlie and Herbie looked at each other non-plussed and said to each other simultaneously “Take Mr. Lloyd to the office?!?” Figuring Stotesbury who they thought was Lloyd must have canceled the appointment for the next site at Ardmore they returned in the limo to the 30th Street Station and took the 3:17pm back to NYC.
In the meantime Lesley and Lloyd and the MCC search committee boys figured they’d been stood up by Macdonald and Whigam and so they all just left. But a few days later Lloyd got a letter from Macdonald with a full blown report, routing and complete hole design for the alternative property. Being the gentlemen they were they just filed it in a report to the board (Exhibit A---the actual Macdonald letter found within the last year at MCC by Wyno Morrision).
So, if you have not figured this all out yet, what it means is what is today Philadelphia Country Club is a total routing and design by Macdonald and Whigam! Did I hear you say, what about the PCC Flynn attribution? Oh, don’t worry about that----that has always obviously been a big mistake or some kind of massive Philly hyperbole trumped up story all these years. Just Philadelphians trying to glorify their own again, you know?!
Do you want to make the call to PCC to tell them they are a full-blown Macdonald (Whigam) golf course Michael or would you prefer I do it?
I’m some kind of "expert GCA researcher/historical analyst", don’t you think? (BTW--do you realize there is an old quarry on PCC's property?
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