Mike S.,
This is a Cliffs Note thread, which is good because I don't have time to rehash all that has been covered many times before, but I will try and touch on the highlights.
Sorry for the length, but you ask a lot of questions, some of which I haven't even answered.
It just makes absolutely no sense to me that CB Mac did not toot his own horn in reference to Merion.
The implicit assumption here is that CBM would necessarily have tooted his horn about Merion long after his contribution. But given how he dealt with other projects where we was not in charge of the entire process from beginning through build, I don't think this assumption is sound. Remember, when M&W first saw Merion, Barker had already done a preliminary routing of the course, and after M&W approved the final routing I think their involvement was greatly diminished. Also there were others (including the Committee) involved in the initial design process and through the build. Plus as many have noticed Merion continued to evolve over the years, without CBM's direct involvement.
Given all of this, I wouldn't have expected him to toot his own horn much about Merion, especially almost 30 years later in his book. If anything survived from the Barker routing, do you expect he would have enjoyed sharing credit with Barker, not only a dreaded professional, but also a colleague of Travis, with whom CBM may have just had a falling out?
But all that being said, he apparently did do some horn tooting shortly after his of his involvement. Here is the passage from Tillinghast that Joe Bausch posted, from the May 14 1911 Public Ledger. This was published a few months after CBM determined the final routing at Merion.
Call me crazy but is sure sounds like CBM was bragging about Merion as if it were his own. Tillie apparently thought so.
THIS IS A KEY QUESTION. WHERE WAS RAYNOR? DID CB MAC DO ANY OTHER COURSES WITHOUT RAYNOR?
I believe NGLA was the first course where Raynor worked with CBM. I have never seen any conclusive evidence that Raynor was involved at Merion. But I would never claim that CBM "DID" Merion like he did his other courses with CBM. I have always tried to be very specific about CBM's involvement at Merion, limiting it to routing and hole concepts, and whatever details were discussed at NGLA, and determining the final routing. I've never claimed he was involved in working out every detail, or that he was responsible for drafting detailed plans, or or the construction, or any of the many changes and adjustments that were made. This is part of why i have tried to stay out of disputes about "credit." CBM may have been the major creative force behind the design, but he cannot be given credit for the details or how his visions were carried out.
For example, was the 10th CBM's hole? It was very likely his idea and his placement, but CBM wasn't involved in its construction and may not have been involved in determining many of the details, and I am not so sure that CBM would have wanted to closely associate himself with the final product. He and Whigham did not mention the hole in his article on the Alps in 1914, nor do I believe he mentioned any Alps but Prestwick and NGLA.
I am not even sure CBM ever saw Merion after he determined their final routing in March 1911. Do you really expect him to brag for 20 years about a course he may have never even seen finished? It is not as if he didn't have anything else to brag about.
It appears that you are focused on how Merion hushed up the involvement of CB Mac
This is untrue. I have been falsely accused of this, repeatedly so. But I have never claimed it or believed it. It is yet another rhetorical creation used to manipulate the argument.
My understanding is that there was never a conspiracy, just a series of innocent and understandable misunderstandings. The date of the trip got confused, and the date and IMPORTANCE of the NGLA meeting about the layout got garbled, and eventually M&W didn't seem all that important to the process.
They didn't build the course, were only on site a few times, and since Wilson had studied all this and come up with all of it on his own, then what exactly did M&W do again? I guess they must have advised Wilson what to see on this trip, surely he doesn't deserve credit for Merion based on that . . . And so it goes.
If you have already assumed all of the above, then it is pretty easy to dismiss them as just having had offered a bit of advice here and there. But while they were called advisors, it is a mistake to assume they did not play a crucial role, or that Merion did not recognize this in the beginning. When he announced the courses to the world, Lesley acknowledged M&W right along with the Committee. He called the members part of a "Committee" and M&W "advisors," and later generations have used this to diminish M&W's contribution, but what was he supposed to call them? They weren't members and couldn't have been part of the committee. They didn't build the course. They weren't on site. I don't think there was the phrase "consulting architect" had been invented, nor was there much use of the phrase "golf course architect" at this time. "Advisors" was not a necessarily a diminutive term, and wasn't meant as such, and we shouldn't treat it as such.
Think of all the contributions of those who undoubtedly offered advice in the way we seem to think of the term offering advice. Piper, Oakley, Beale, Pickering, Findlay and others. Yet Lesley only listed
the Committee and M&W as responsible for the course. If Lesley saw fit to include M&W in 1914, we ought to respect that and consider it carefully.
Why did CB Mac allow it to happen? You are talking about a guy who "looked all over the East Coast" for a site for National and he picks one directly next to Shinnecock, a club that he was having issues with? This is not a guy who walks away from controversy. Thus in my mind the only answer is he did not feel emotionally attached to Merion and just saw it as a brief consulting gig. If I am wrong, why did CB Mac allow the Philly guys to push him aside? He lived for roughly 25 years after Merion's opening and yet there are how many references to Merion in his writings?
I don't think he was pushed aside during his lifetime, much of the misunderstanding might have come about with H.W. Wind, and with the Francis article. But I doubt CBM would have cared much if he was "pushed aside." CBM was a very accomplished man, and I don't think that providing a routing and hole concepts and determining the final lay out plan was that big a deal to him. In other words, Merion needed CBM much more than CBM needed Merion. Given that he didn't build it and given that he believed that courses evolved over time, why would he care what they said?
The link to the article on the Redan is here:
www.la84foundation.org/index/GolfIllustratedOutdoorAmerica1915.htmlHere is the excerpt where they mention Merion. Notice they don't mention that they had anything to do with their other courses either.
There are several Redans to be found nowadays on American courses. There is a simplified Redan at Piping Rock, a reversed Redan at Merion Cricket Club (the green being approached from the left hand end of the tableland) and another reversed Redan at Sleepy Hollow where the tee instead of being about level with the green is much higher. A beautiful short hole with the Redan principle will be found on the new Philadelphia course at Pine Valley. Here also the tee is higher than the hole, so that the player overlooks the tableland. The principle can be used with an infinite number of variations on any course. . . . The principle of the Redan cannot be improved upon for a hole of 180 yards.__________________________
Yet Tillie says Wilson designed Merion. What do you make of that?
I think we need to consider the context of the quote. It was long after major redesigns at Merion, and after Wilson has passed. And it was a very pointed statement that Wilson was not being given his due with regard to Merion. Surely Tillie did not have CBM in mind.
To put it bluntly, I think was directed squarely at one of Tillie's major competitors. William Flynn. And to put it just as bluntly, Tillie had a pretty good point. Unless there are facts of which I am not aware, it is a travesty that Flynn is given credit for what Wilson accomplished at Merion before his death.