[Joe Bausch]

No, this isn't a detailed description of his routing of Merion.   

But in May 1909 he penned a long article with the title "The Ideal Golf Links" in Scribner's Magazine.  It is basically about the upcoming NGLA.  There are many neat drawings as well.

Enjoy!

[Rich Goodale]

That is your best find yet, Joe.  Keep up the great work!

Rich

[Joe Bausch]

Can I assume that NGLA has the original drawings by Booth hanging in their clubhouse somewhere?

[Steve_ Shaffer]

I am intrigued by the illustrations of Franklin Booth in this article. As a big fan of N.C. Wyeth's work housed in the nearby Brandywine River Museum,I decided to find out more about Booth:

http://www.bpib.com/booth.htm

He was among those who practiced in the Golden Age(1880-1930) of illustration art :

http://withaviewto.blogspot.com/2009/02/fantastic-color-works-by-franklin-booth.html

[BCrosby]

Great find Joe.

Of interest is that Whigham wrote a book in 1898 (or thereabouts) in which there is a chapter on gca. That chapter has almost nothing in common with the 1909 piece above.

Bob

[Mike_Cirba]

Joe,

Another awesome find!

Its also heartning to see that my good buddy Whigham agrees with me about the key principle of an Alps Hole.

[DMoriarty]

Joe,

Thanks for posting this entire article.    I am pretty sure we've discussed the article before, but given that H.J. Whigham was a very impressive figure it is definitely worth a read for anyone who hasn't read it and perhaps worth discussing again.  

This is especially so given the despicable treatment this man has received on this website.  

ADDED:  Actually I should have written "the despicable treatment this man STILL receives . . . "    Mike Cirba's post reminded me that just in the last week or so, Mike repeatedly accused H.J. Whigham of being a "F*cking Liar" or some such thing. 

___________________________________


Bob Crosby,

I have a copy of that chapter somewhere, and I will post it tonight for all to see of others aren't already familiar with it.

It is pretty amazing how his views changed (and admittedly so) from the time of his book until this article.   This was very much a transitional time in golf design and his the changes in his views reflect this.

___________

[Mike_Cirba]

David

The recent NGLA articles seem to suggest that Horace Hutchinson had a lot to do with M+W's education in that regard...would you agree?

[George_Bahto]

This article has been in the USGA Rare Edition Section (or whatever they call it - :-)) which is where I first saw it - probably 12 years ago.

Three years ago a very good friend of mine purchased a perfect original copy of the magazine and was kind enough to allow me copy it.

It is one of my most treasured articles, because of the text, wh wrote it and of course the line drawings.

Great find Joe

the club does not have the original drawings

[TEPaul]

George:

Like you I saw that article a number of years ago via the USGA. It is really cool with those drawings, billowy clouds etc. EVOCATIVE.

Some of the the magazine articles of Whigam are marvelous. One surfaced a couple of years ago about The Creek Club that taught us a ton about how Raynor looked at a couple of holes there such as #6 and #10.

[TEPaul]

"This is especially so given the despicable treatment this man has received on this website.   

ADDED:  Actually I should have written "the despicable treatment this man STILL receives . . . "    Mike Cirba's post reminded me that just in the last week or so, Mike repeatedly accused H.J. Whigham of being a "F*cking Liar" or some such thing."



David Moriarty;

That kind of totally useless editorial comment on here which seems to be about all you've been capable of for the last week or so is what's really despicable.

What's the point other than another spigot of your pathetic venom and animosity on here? That one needs to get cut and pasted to Ran Morrissett too like a number of others of yours on those Merion threads were today. Perhaps you may want to think about making a few amends on here for the things you've been doing and saying on here recently before things change dramatically for you. 

That is all I want to say or will say on this subject on this really good thread of Joe's. Why don't you take that part off on your post #6 and when it's gone I will alter this post to just an exclamation!

[George_Bahto]

I'm going to contact the club

my copies are so good they could easily be blown up without much loss in quality

I love the one of Sahara with the water tower in the background

also it is very interesting the way the Bottle hole was drawn up (from the original tee) - its labeled the 17th but is today's 8th

also note the Cape hole labeled the 5th - present 14th

i think I have one of CBM's original sketches in my book of how he wanted to lengthen the present 17th which he drew on a notepad of his from his NY office    (I have to get around to reading "my" book one day   - similar to the Leven hole drawing in the posted article

[Mike_Cirba]

This is especially so given the despicable treatment this man has received on this website.  

ADDED:  Actually I should have written "the despicable treatment this man STILL receives . . . "    Mike Cirba's post reminded me that just in the last week or so, Mike repeatedly accused H.J. Whigham of being a "F*cking Liar" or some such thing. 

David,

Yep, I think Mr. Whigham was knowingly fudging the truth in 1938 when he said after Macdonald's death that among the most famous of Macdonald's courses was the Merion Cricket Club.

Great architect, great player, golf pioneer no matter what he was he was still human and fallible.

The fact is, even if your theory is 100% correct and Macdonald & Whigham routed Merion during their total of two days onsite during the 858 days between looking at the property and the course opening, which it most certainly is not, even then there was no reason for Mr. Whigham in 1938 to try and glom on the wonderful history of a course that had hosted 3 US Amateur, 1 US Open, and which almost half the routing was different, where over a hundred bunkers had been added, where several complete holes were redesigned and new greens built....and most of that was already in the first 12 years the course was opened!

At the time Whigham made that statement, most of the major protagonists including Hugh Wilson and CB Macdonald had gone to their great reward, and Whigham knew full well that there was never another account anywhere that suggested Macdonald designed Merion...in fact, Tillinghast had just made his statement a few years prior that Hugh Wilson both planned and developed Merion.

So, whatever hyperbole Mr. Whigham was engaging in out of sadness for the loss of his father-in-law, he knew he was lying when he added Merion to the list of courses he called "Macdonald/Raynor courses".

That doesn't make him a bad man, or diminish the great things he accomplished in his life.

It just makes him human, and he told a big fish story.

...and frankly...I think this thread should be here to glorify an excellent article, an excellent find by Joe, and I don't feel that any honest human comment I make in a discussion on an unrelated topic should follow any of us around on this site.

It's a cheap tactic, and it's also a desperate one.

[TEPaul]

MikeC:

Are you familiar with what C.B. himself said in "Scotland's Gift Golf" about what Hutchinson told and/or showed him in 1910 about creating great random contours in putting greens? It might lead one to believe that it may've inspired Macdonald to redo plenty of his green contours in 1910 and after which was sometime after the course was basically built and into its "grow-in" phase! Of course, we know that Macdonald, like the other well known "amateur/sportsmen" architects, worked on improving his pet course for about the next thirty years after beginning it.

[Mike_Cirba]

MikeC:

Are you completely familiar with what C.B. himself said in "Scotland's Gift Golf" about what Hutchinson told and/or showed him in 1910 about creating great random contours in putting greens?

Tom,

Yes, I am...in fact, I read it in George's book.

One of the real ironies of these Merion wars is that I'm somehow cast as being anti-Macdonald/Raynor.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

I've played a ton of golf courses, and NGLA is one of perhaps five courses I've ever played that I consider a perfect 10. 

There is no course I have fonder memories of than Mid-Ocean, and Sleepy Hollow, particularly after the work that Gil and George did recently is just out of this world good.

I had the great privilege of playing both Yale and Yeaman's Hall WITH George, and if that wasn't an education in golf course architecture, I don't know what is!

But, I also believe that much of early golf was indeed design by Committee, and this business of trying to attribute design credit to anyone of any architectural note on any course they ever visited for a day or so is not only poor revisionist history and shabby research, it is also deeply discrediting to the people who were there who did that work every single day.

A great example is listed above.

Here Whigham at least credits HC Leeds with Myopia, but discussions in recent years tried to give architectural credit to Willie Campbell, presumably because he had some professional affiliation with the course for a brief period.   I saw no other proof...did anyone?

I have no doubt that some of the recorded architectural history of the game is wrong...we've seen that in Philadelphia and some of the stuff Joe Bausch has found recently show us that...

but when the people who were there back then give credit to someone, well, then that tells me a lot.

And at some point they deserve the final word.

[TEPaul]

Mike:

No need to get explanatory of Whigam's mistake of assigning Merion East to Macdonald in a eulogy about 37 years after the fact. Let's just say everyone is entitled to a mistake like that and thankfully for Whigam and Charlie's funeral it's a damn good thing there weren't 1497 GOLFCLUBATLASER.comer's in the pews to hoot him down! Believe me the 1497 would've been more than capable of drowning out the cheers of the three 3M revisionists, MacWood, Moriarty and Mucci!  


By the way, I forgot to tell you the incredible revelation about that June 1910 visit of Macdonald/Whigam that I have realized via a really peripheral newspaper find of Tom MacWood or perhaps his pseudonym HenryE.

That will come semi-shortly.

[Jim_Kennedy]

Mike Cirba,
When I met you at the Baltusrol gathering I immediately felt you were a person with a cheery disposition and highly motivated by your hobby, i.e., GCA.

Since you now always seem to be in attack mode, and obssessed rather than motivated, I am wondering if my first impression (and last, as we have never met since) was wrong.

I hope not, before making that judgement I hadn't been wrong since 1969.  

[Mike_Cirba]

Mike Cirba,
When I met you at the Baltusrol gathering I immediately felt you were a person with a cheery disposition and highly motivated by your hobby, i.e., GCA.

Since you now always seem to be in attack mode, and obssessed rather than motivated, I am wondering if my first impression (and last, as we have never met since) was wrong.

I hope not, before making that judgement I hadn't been wrong since 1969.  

Jim,

Every family has its squabbles.

And yes, I feel very strongly about the topic that has led to so much combativeness here.   

I'm sorry you feel that your good judgement of me was in error.   I hope to correct that impression in person someday. 

[Jim_Kennedy]

I'm sorry you feel that your good judgement of me was in error.

I never said that Mike.

[Mike_Cirba]

Jim,

I understand what you mean and where you're coming from.

I'm really, really, really hoping that these Merion threads will wrap up very soon, with perhaps some of the early maps making things very clear and then we can move on to more productive and agreeable discussions.

In any case, I appreciate your constructive criticism and take it in the spirit it's given.

Thanks.

[TEPaul]

Michael:

He didn't say his judgment of you was wrong, only that he is wondering if it was wrong. Do you think we should submit this question to the UBER word and sentence structure parsers such as Schmidt and Moriarty for some ultimate defiinition and resolution that may last for 37 pages?

[Mike_Cirba]

Tom,

It's ok...we've all had some moments on those threads that I'm sure have left others less directly involved "wondering" and shaking their heads.

I get that and I'm sure in their shoes I'd probably be wondering too. 

I don't mind constructive criticism, either, and I know that some close friends and friendly aquaintances have advised with concern that perhaps you and I should just walk away and ignore any Merion related discussion.

They're probably right on a very fundamental level, but despite the acrimony, I think we're all a lot closer to the truth of what actually happened, and on some level, that's been worth fighting for, as well.

[Kirk Gill]

I think I e-mailed a copy of this article to a few of you a while back. If you want a copy of Whigham's earlier article from Scribners that he mentions in the one posted above, I have a copy and will gladly e-mail it as well.

[Joe Bausch]

I think I e-mailed a copy of this article to a few of you a while back. If you want a copy of Whigham's earlier article from Scribners that he mentions in the one posted above, I have a copy and will gladly e-mail it as well.

Kirk, I would love a copy.  And if you desire, I can host it on my site and make it available on this thread for all to read.

Do we know if these are the only two articles written by 'Chief Wiggum' in Scribner's?

Joe
----------------

[henrye]

..........Tom MacWood or perhaps his pseudonym HenryE.

Bad theory.  To the best of my knowledge, we're not even from the same country.  My apologies to Tom MacWood, whom I'm sure wouldn't be too pleased to be associated with my very limited knowledge of architectural history.

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