[Tom MacWood]

Jeff
You need to be consistent. I know sometimes its definitely not worth questioning the crazy uncle, but when the crazy uncle makes bold claims he wants everyone to accept and take seriously he needs to be treated like he is not crazy, treated like the rest of us.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Tmac,

I already threw mom under the bus on this thread as a card shark, and now you want me to throw uncle Ivan under it, too?

You are right.  I have questioned TePaul antics here less than you two, in part because I see some possible chance you would both be civil, while Tom, well........he is what he is.  That said, I don`t think he has meaningfully fudged/withheld docs, nor do I think any one of us has any right to MCC,s docs.  In short, I love everybody and I can see both sides.

I am having some trouble distinguishin between theory and claim, really.  We may all have consistency problems here, eh?  You be consistent first!  Then we all take turns.....

[DMoriarty]

David,

I agree that Tmac wouldn`t fudge docs, so I wouldn`t need to see them.  I get what you are saying - I trust Mom, but if we are playing for money, I cut the cards.  Here, I don`t feel like I am playing for money, but some of you seem to be, including you, who posted a somewhat scholarly piece, even if called an opinion piece, and the philly boys.

It's not a matter the stakes or trust, it is a matter of doing what it takes to get it right.  No one truly interested in getting to the truth would hide the source material on which their claims were based.

As for "word parsing arguments" they are annoying and frustrating but unfortunately they are sometimes necessary. The "lay off" discussion ought to have proven that.    As I recall Mike Cirba cursing me up and down for doubting it was a typo, and you were pissed off as well, saying it was 99% surely a typo, and accusing me of not being interested in figuring out the truth.  Calling it a typo was certainly the easiest conclusion, since "lay off" sure didn't make sense by our current usage.  But this was 100 years ago and golf design has significantly evolved in the past century, so it shouldn't be a complete surprise that the terminology has evolved as well.   We cannot simply apply today's usage to century old circumstances.   And a century ago, golf courses were laid out on the ground, not on paper.   And sometimes they were planned on paper before they were laid out on the ground. 

[TEPaul]

Jeffrey:

Since you've become quite good at identifying and parsing David Moriarty's fallacious logic in his essay and in his posts on this website and since you've provided some good and pretty funny analogies of your own to his fallacious logic (the walking your dog one and such) let me see you identify and parse his fallacious logic in the following statement he made on here a few days ago.

To preface his statement, it seems Moriarty uses logic (fallacious logic) because he makes at least two assumptions (premises) which of course he cannot prove and are not necessarily fact to base his logic and conclusion on of why Francis created that entire triangle and before Nov. 10, 1910. He of course can confirm or deny that he bases his logic on these two premises (assumptions) but here they are;

1. That the area in which the triangle is in must have been a "decapitated" rectangle before Francis had his swap idea.

2. That Francis' description of the dimensions of that triangle (130 yards wide by 190 yard long) can only be interpreted as Moriarty is interpreting it---eg that the dimensions must mean Francis' idea created that entire 130 X 190 yard triangle and could not possibly mean his idea just added to an existing triangle and made the final result into 130 X 190.




"Jeff,
The evidence of Francis' early involvement again comes mostly from the Francis statement.  He was reporting to Lloyd directly, not Wilson.  He was out riding his bike around midnight, so it was more likely during fair weather.  Mostly though, it is the same evidence I think indicates when the swap took place.   He tells us the details of the swap, and I believe his description was accurate.   And when I consider the map and his description together, I believe his involvement must have been before the map was drawn. That is because, while the details were not yet worked out, the map indicates that the land up in the rectangle near the present 16th tee and 15th green had already been added, and the land on which the fine homes were built had already been subtracted.

Just to be clear, I have no reason to think he was out there, independent of the above. But contrary to the usual banter by the usual suspects,  I am not claiming Francis was out there as if it were evidence of when the swap took place.  Quite the opposite.  We know Francis had the idea for the swap, so if we can determine when the swap took place, then we know the timing of this contribution by Francis."

[Mike Cirba]

Using Google's newspaper archive, I searched across 20 years, the period from 1900-1920 for the terms "lay off" and "golf", and the terms "laid off" and "golf".   Google has hundreds of newspapers in its database.

Of anything related to golf courses printed at that time, I found the example I posted.   

Other than that, I found a few talking about "laying off" a road, which seemed to mean the act of surveying and fitting a road.

I think it was a typo, because its usage back then is so incredibly rare that it is at least as likely that they were all typos than one or two people used a phrase purposefully when no one else was.


Now, still with no more facts or evidence on their side, David and Tom Mac want to make it about Tom Paul again.

Their arguments are so obviously fallacious and lacking in any evidence or substance that I almost think they just enjoy getting Tom in a lather by claiming the most preposterous things...

[Tom MacWood]

TEP
When was the course routed...before December 1910 or after December 1910?

[Mike Cirba]

Jeff,

Returning to the Evans letter, do you get my meaning regarding how I think "to lay out" and "to lay off" were used?   I ask because obviously others do not.   From his post on the issue, Mike is still quite confused.  He apparently thinks that, by my understanding, laying out a golf course never involved any planning.   Not so.  My point is just that there was often planning which took place before a course was "laid out" on the ground.  

Unwittingly, Mike provided a good example of this. NGLA.   The article he posted mentions that CBM et al. were going "to lay out" NGLA.  Future tense.  It hadn't happened yet.   But the article also makes clear that the planning had been ongoing for some time.  It discusses a number of golf holes, and their locations on the property.    And, according to the article, the detailed planning would continue.  

Mike has yet to come up with much of anything suggesting that "laying out a golf course" was done on paper, and not the ground.    If he or anyone else ever bothers to check up on my claim, I think they will find that, generally, golf courses were laid out on the ground.  






I'm sorry David, obviously you [strikethrough]can't read very wel[/strikethrough] may need to visit your local optician as I am beginning to worry that perhaps the effect of reading so much research material may be straining your eyesl.

Yes, the committee was formed to lay out the golf course (future tense), and then goes on to define what that entails, which is "spend(ing) the next five months planning the holes in detail.", and creating topo models for the following phase...the actual construction, to work with.

The "laying out" of the course IS the planning process, the design phase, whether or not that is done on paper first, or done staking holes in the field, or some combination of both.

Contrary to your mythological belief about NGLA, that Macdonald and Whigham rode bareback through the thickets and routed the course in a single ride, that clearly was not the case.

I trust I'm not dashing any romantic dreams...

[Mike Cirba]

Perhaps this might help Jim Sullivan in his understanding of how things were done.

It appears almost the exact same scenario happened at NGLA, where first the land was chosen based on its overall features and suitability, a larger than needed tract was THEN purchased to ensure that there was enough for the golf course and real estate components to fit, THEN a routing and hole planning process was begun, and in the end the exact boundaries on any adjoining borders would be finalized.



If David doesn't believe me, perhaps he'll believe Ole' Charley, quoted below!








So, again, the process was;

1) They viewed the land and determined its general suitability for golf as well as features they could use.

2) They purchased more land than they needed to ensure that they could fit the course as well as meet real estate requirements.   No border was yet fixed.

3) They routed the golf course and planned the holes in detail.

4) They fixed the boundaries and began construction.

[TEPaul]

"TEP
When was the course routed...before December 1910 or after December 1910?"


Tom MacWood:

From every single bit and piece of actual contemporaneous material information and documentatoin I have ever seen or heard of or have in my possession or am aware of that may not be in my possession, Merion East was routed after December 1910 and not before it.

I realize that some, or at least one, on here say there is evidence that it was routed before December 1910 (actually before Nov 10, 1910) but I have yet to see any of them produce a vestige of actual material information to prove that or even to suggest it.

I do not believe David Moriarty's theory or thesis or hypothesis or premise or assumption or contention or conclusion or whatever he calls it that the Nov. 1910 Land Plan map proves or even suggests Francis' land swap idea occured before Nov 10, 1910 to be true or factually supportable. And I also believe the only way he and perhaps you as well could have and/or did reach that assumption or premise or conclusuion et al etc, etc, was through some truly specious reasoning and fallacious logic.

And I feel the very same way about your HH Barker contention.

I hope that answers your question to me and I hope it helps.

[Jeff_Brauer]

David,

I apologize in advance if this post isn`t very flattering.

In short, I think word parsing might end up being 1% or less of historical research.  However, your theories seem to rely on well over 50% word parsing and your interpretations, which I think is more in line with proposing a conspiracy  theory than getting history right.  How much of your position is based on available documents not really saying what their most obvious meaning is?  Or on a subtle definition od laying off/out being some rarelu used permutation of that phrase?

A conspiracy therorist tends to take the smalest inconsistencies and make bigger deals of them than is warranted to make the case.  And that is what YOU tend to focus on, while ignoring bigger picture items, like documents saying they prepared and revised routings in Mar-April 1911.  As long as there is the possibility of one inconsistency, that will rule their thinking and the Warren Commission, LA Police, and Merion miniutes can never be seen as right, and why arguments such as this one persist.  The Dallas conspiracy has been going since 1963 with little sign of letting up among its most ardent followers.

I expect a rebuttal demanding more proof of my theory, but TMac says theories don`t have to be substaniated, so I doubt I will expand on my thoughts much more in response of my own.  

As always, I could be wrong, and hopeful that our disagreement on this matter doesn`t cause great offense, or suggest we cannot be cordial on other matters.

[TEPaul]

Mike Cirba:

Don't worry about those two getting me in a lather again. I've just had a nice talk with one of my new "personal approach" mentors, Kris Shreiner, and there will be no more personal insult over-reactions from me personally to anyone else. From now on I will be as quick to over-react with personal insults as a coat of slow drying paint.

On the other hand, I did tell my new personal approach mentor Kris "Dale Carnegie" Shreiner that I might try to emulate in my new writing style and basic "post MO" on here my good friend Sir Jeffrey Brauer who always seems to be most pleasant to everyone even with his occassional ironical sense of humor.

[TEPaul]

"I apologize in advance if this post isn`t very flattering."


Mr Jeffrey, Sir;

You're MY NEW MAIN MAN!!! I say that because I very much like that statement of yours and I will seriously consider adopting it as my basic boilerplate preface on any future posts I write to Mr. MacWood and Mr. Moriarty or anyone else on here who seems to look like their tail-feathers are in a twitter over me, my lifestyle, my generational family heritage, my friends at all the clubs I know or anything else I might say or insinuate on here.



"I'm sorry David, obviously you........................."


Mr. Cirba:

In consequence of my foregoing two posts I would strongly appeal to you to remove that remark from your post above in which it is contained. I say that in the vein of my new persona and approach of extreme civility on here as I believe Mr. Moriarty cannot but help to take that remark of yours as massively uncivil and a huge personal insult. So will you kindly delete that remark from that post before I come over to your house and break both your God-Dangit knees with a 1 iron?!

[Mike Cirba]

Tom Paul,

The really funny thing here is that David is taking CBM, a very meticulous, detailed, systematic, perfectionist man when it came to golf courses...who railed against the type of architecture practiced in this country by one day wonders...foreign pros like HH Barker, and then casts Charley in the exact same mold by telling us he must have done a one-day routing for Merion after his site visit in June 1910, as he was only on the property one other time 10 months later, again for a single day visit.

I don't believe Tom MacWood is arguing for Barker for any reason other than to piss you off.

Even he couldn't possibly believe that one.   That's like claiming Larry Fine killed Kennedy.




EDIT - Tom Paul...I've changed the potentially offending post above per your polite request.  

[TEPaul]

Mr. Cirba:

In response to your last post to me the most I can or will say is that I am very mindful, and have been very mindful for many, many years that there are some very strong and some very interesting ironies contained in a number of posts over the years on some of the threads on this website and certainly the threads that have to do with a discussion on the subject of Merion GC, and some other Philadelphia or Delaware Valley golf courses and clubs.



"EDIT - Tom Paul...I've changed the potentially offending post above per your polite request."


Thank you very much Mr. Cirba. And I have removed from my quote of your remark any potentially offending or insulting words or ideas. I certainly do hope that considering the fact we just edited our posts that it will not be considered to be the altering of any original documents. And now, you will be gratified to know, I have put away my 1 iron back where it was and where it belongs.

[Jeff_Brauer]

TePaul,

I suggest you be careful with `you` and `I` words, not to mention words like Obviously.  I was apologizing in advance for MY upcoming uncivil words to David, whereas your example opening was really saying sorry, and then just jumping in.  I will give you credit for being new at this civility thing , but.......

[TEPaul]

"In short, I think word parsing might end up being 1% or less of historical research.  However, your theories seem to rely on well over 50% word parsing and your interpretations, which I think is more in line with proposing a conspiracy  theory than getting history right.  How much of your position is based on available documents not really saying what their most obvious meaning is?  Or on a subtle definition od laying off/out being some rarelu used permutation of that phrase?"


Mr. Jeffrey:

Please excuse me for asking but I find I must. The sixth word from the end of your statement above is "rarelu."

Is that a typo (did you intend to write "rarely" and mean to convey one of its definitional meanings?) or is it actually intended to be some back-handed implication or a highly uncivil personal insult? Whatever it is I suggest you fix it straight-away to your actual, factual and verifiably provable intent and meaning or a century from now the architectural history of Merion East in 1910-11 may need to be reconsidered and changed again.

[Mike Cirba]

Tom,

I've just completed a comprehensive Google archive study searching for the words "rarelu" and "golf", and rather than ignorantly going off and cursing Jeff up and down I'd suggest you get off yor duff and do some research yourself when you aren't busy altering official documents.

The word "rarelu" used in the context of one speaking 100 years ago, possibly could have been viewed as a typo, but I invite you to consider that it likely meant "a mythological beast having the head of an ass and the body of an mathematician'. 

I think once you admit to how little you actually know you will perhaps open some microscopic doorway into your pea-sized brain large enough to gain a sliver of understanding chipped from the barnside of my overwhelming native intelligence and seer-like undestanding of prior events.

[TEPaul]

"TePaul,
I suggest you be careful with `you` and `I` words, not to mention words like Obviously."



Mr. Jeffrey:

Duly noted and spread before the Board of Governors of this august website DG.

I'm sorry, I meant to say the august website's Discussion Group (DG). I would certainly not want some expert researcher a century from now to assume or conclude that I was calling anyone on here "A Dog Gonad" or some such uncivil and personally insulting idea and meaning or par....para...pars.....ah, well you get my drifto, don't you Mr. Jeffrey?

[Tom MacWood]

Tom MacWood:

From every single bit and piece of actual contemporaneous material information and documentatoin I have ever seen or heard of or have in my possession or am aware of that may not be in my possession, Merion East was routed after December 1910 and not before it.

I realize that some, or at least one, on here say there is evidence that it was routed before December 1910 (actually before Nov 10, 1910) but I have yet to see any of them produce a vestige of actual material information to prove that or even to suggest it.

I do not believe David Moriarty's theory or thesis or hypothesis or premise or assumption or contention or conclusion or whatever he calls it that the Nov. 1910 Land Plan map proves or even suggests Francis' land swap idea occured before Nov 10, 1910 to be true or factually supportable. And I also believe the only way he and perhaps you as well could have and/or did reach that assumption or premise or conclusuion et al etc, etc, was through some truly specious reasoning and fallacious logic.

And I feel the very same way about your HH Barker contention.

I hope that answers your question to me and I hope it helps.

TEP
If it was after December 1910...what month was the course routed?

[Tim Nugent]

Will not get sucked in....Will not get sucked in.....will not get sucked in.......(you guys are like big jet engines, you know!)

Jeff, just wanted to remind you that this was 31 pages ago!

Cheers, Tim

[TEPaul]

"TEP
If it was after December 1910...what month was the course routed?"


Mr. MacWood;

Routed? ROUTED??

As far as I (TEPaul) can tell so far from voluminous research through everything that was ever said, written or recorded about golf course architecture there was no such word or term ("routed') relating to golf architecture back then and there may not have been for quite a few decades.

Unfortunately, it's hard for me (TEPaul) to tell how comprehensive my (TEPaul's) material is so perhaps an expert researcher such as yourself (Tom MacWood) could try to find out for all of US (GOLFCLUBATLAS.com and its Discussion Group (DG)) from your research material which must be everything that ever WAS actually said or written or recorded about golf course architecture (GCA)) precisely WHEN the term or word ("ROUTED") was used in or about golf course architecture for the VERY FIRST time.

Is that clear enough or would you like me to rephrase it or reword it?

[Mike Cirba]

Tom MacWood,

In a strict sense, the Merion course was routed on April 6th, 1910, as that is the day CBM came down and helped Wilson's committee to select the best of thei five proposed plams.

However, since we're being precise here, the actual Routing Day was a few weeks later in April, 1911, as that was the day the Merion Board of Governor's approved the recommendations of the Wilson Committee, as read by board member Robert Lesley, after which construction commenced, and the club finalized their land purchase and finalized their boundaries in July 1911.

I hope that helps.

[TEPaul]

CIRBA!!!

WHAT in the hell is a PLAM (as in 'plams')?

Are you trying to alter original documents again and revise the architectural history of Merion East?!?


Furthermore, you, you, you analytical idiot, I just finished telling Mr. MacWood and US (the global world of GOLCLUBATLAS.com's DG) that there was no such term as "ROUTING" used in golf architecture back then and probably not for many many decades hence so how the Holy Hell could they have had a "ROUTING DAY" at Merion East at Ardmore, Delaware County, Pennsylvania, actual or otherwise, at some point in the winter or early spring of 1911?

Maybe they had a "LAYING OUT DAY" or even a "LAYING OFF DAY" but it would be virtually impossible for them to have had a "ROUTING DAY" unless they routed that course half a century or more after they actually built it. But considering what a bunch of complete novices they all were on the Wilson Committee, I suppose that is not beyond the realm of possbility, particularly since CBM or Barker may not have been with them that day to hold all their hands and lead them all around the property!

You have an F Cirba! Now go to the back of the classroom, turn you face to the wall, sit on the stool and put on the Dunce Cap!

[Mike Cirba]

Tom,

Yes, I am trying to alter them.

I'm trying to construct an open/shut case that proves conclusively that indeed one Larry Fine should finally be given his due by history and finally be recognized as the true architect of Merion.

After all, we have as much factual evidence to make that case as we do that CBM or Barker routed the course in the second half of 1910.

The man was vastly underrated I tell you!!

[Mike Cirba]

...Ably assisted by Moe Howard, as well.

Some revisionist claim Curley had to be there as well, but I can find no factual evidence to support that.

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