[Mike Cirba]

Tom,

That's IT?  

What should he have called it, Tom... a "field"?   the "land"??   I'm not sure "site" was very popularly used yet, as I haven't run across that one.

Wilson was dealing with Washington agronomists, who dealt with grasses, Tom.

These were not guys who were focused on golf, and the specialized needs associated with planting and maintenance of short grasses on inland soils that he required.

He also was not blessed with sand like Macdonald was, as mentioned in one of the first letters.  

Why do you think Wilson sent samples from areas of the property he had to come up a alpha class system to designate?  (i.e From section "B")   Why not just say, "from the area we propose locating our 3rd green"??

Why add confusion if the "blueprint" sent by Wilson included the routed course??

The funny thing is that I don't really doubt that some early routing may have been included, as the map was sent along in Feb, evidently, but the fact is Tom that there is nothing in those letters to make me believe that, and much to cause skepticism that any hole routings were indicated.  

[Tom MacWood]

Why do you think Wilson sent samples from areas of the property he had to come up a alpha class system to designate?  (i.e From section "B")   Why not just say, "from the area we propose locating our 3rd green"??

Because section B contained parts of several tees, greens and fairways. How many 'sections' were there on 117 acre site?

[TEPaul]

"In short,  the phrase "to lay out a golf course" meant to lay it out on the ground.  The term never applied to planning alone.   And often times, planning occurred before a course was laid out.  Merion didn't even own the land, so while they could plan on paper, they couldn't lay out the course on the ground.  

Despite Mike's continued protestations to the contrary, this is what happened a NGLA.   M&W found the land and immediately began planning how they would arrange the golf holes.  Then took an option on the land and continued planning.  Once they had planned the course to the degree necessary to determine the boundaries they finally purchased the land and laid out the golf course.   Max Behr was so impressed that he held NGLA up as a model of how to go about creating a course."




I think the thing that fascinates some of us about you---and frustrates some of us to about you, is why in the world you would try to state things like you have above to US with such certainty, as if you are trying to pass it off to US as a fact.

The real question is----how do you know?

It probably wasn't until two or so days ago when I posted that Allen Evan's letter again that you had even heard the term "lay out" referred to in golf course architecture.

[Mike Cirba]

Tom,

I think you mean "lay off", not "lay out".

And honestly, I did a search on Google News archives, which includes literally hundreds of papers from that time period, and posted the only references I could find.

That leads me to believe it was either a typo in both cases, or perhaps a reference so frigging obscure that nobody back then would have had the slightest inkling what the writer was talking about either.

[TEPaul]

"Despite Mike's continued protestations to the contrary, this is what happened a NGLA.   M&W found the land and immediately began planning how they would arrange the golf holes.  Then took an option on the land and continued planning.  Once they had planned the course to the degree necessary to determine the boundaries they finally purchased the land and laid out the golf course."



Unfortunately for you, what you just said above is definitely not what C.B. Macdonald was quoted as saying in that 1905 Brooklyn Eagle article, no matter how anyone, even you, tries to interpret it.

[Mike Cirba]

David,

I agree....the article quotes Macdonald directly and is EXTREMELY detailed.

Do you think he was misquoted, or making it up?

[TEPaul]

"There was no reason they could not have routed the golf course prior to formally taking ownership of the land, certainly they would had free access to it."


Mr. MacWood:


There is no physical reason I'm aware of they couldn't have gone out on that land and routed a golf course in the summer or fall of 1910 but there sure is a whole lot of recorded contemporanious material evidence that they did not do that before December of 1910 or actually before January of 1911.

I suppose you are still not yet aware of what that recorded contemporaneous material evidence is---therefore it's probably understandable that you would say what you did.

[TEPaul]

"What recorded routing in March or April?"



Mr. MacWood:

Are you still unaware what the MCC Board of Governors meeting minutes of April 19, 1911 say about the plan for the golf course that was approved?

My Goodness! I think I posted what that said on here over a year ago. Don't you even remember what those meeting minutes said about Macdonald's and Whigam's opinion of the last seven holes of that course plan?

[Tom MacWood]

There is no physical reason I'm aware of they couldn't have gone out on that land and routed a golf course in the summer or fall of 1910 but there sure is a whole lot of recorded contemporanious material evidence that they did not do that before December of 1910 or actually before January of 1911.

TEP
You have posted a whole lot of official MCC documents, but to my knowledge you have not produced a single contemporaneous record that indicates the golf course could not have been routed before January 1911. Zero does not equate to a whole lot. And for whatever reason you have not posted the document in question, which appears to be your most important document. Why?

[Tom MacWood]

Nov. 15, 1910 letter responding to HDC secretary Nickolsen's Nov. 10, 1910 letter to the Board of Governors of MCC.


"E.W. Nicholson, Esq.,
Secretary of the Haverford Development Co.,802 Land Title Bldg., Philada

Dear Sir:

Your letter of November tenth, advising of the purchase of certain tracts of ground on College and Ardmore Avenues, Haverford, by the Haverford Development Company, has been received.  I note that you agree to sell a tract of one hundred and seventeen (117) acres, as agreed upon with Mr. Lloyd, to a corporation to be formed on behalf of the Merion Cricket Club, for the purpose of establishing Golf Links thereon within reasonable time, clear of encumbrance, for the price or sum of Eighty-five thousand dollars, ($85,000.00), payable in cash on or about December 10th, 1910.

In accordance with instructions given me by the Board of Government of the Merion Cricket Club, I beg to state that a Corporation will be formed on behalf of the Club, which will purchase the tract of land above mentioned one hundred and seventeen (117) acres, at the price or sum of Eighty-five thousand dollars ($85,000.00), in accordance with the terms of your proposition, as quoted above, and that as soon as this Corporation obtains possession of the property, we will at once proceed to lay off, and put in shape a Golf Links.

Very truly yours,
(signed) Allen Evans,
President Merion C.C."

TEP
So you are ignoring the Evans' letter? Here he is either saying the course has already been routed and the construction process will begin 12.10.10 OR the routing process will begin 12.10.10. I believe the former is a more logical reading. There was no reason they could not have routed the golf course prior to formerly taking ownership of the land, certainly they would had free access to it. On the other hand it would be unlikely they would have done anything physically to it - altering the ground, staking it, etc. - before taking title of it.

Tom,

Are you actually saying that it's more likely they were going to begin construction in December 1910 than beginning the routing and planning of the course on the 161 acres that Lloyd just bought for them on December 21, 1910??

You're saying this while knowing that they didn't even turn over the ground until the end of March 1911, or begin construction until late April 1911?

Mike
That is exactly what I'm saying (except they were only concerned with the 117 acres). They would stake out the golf course in December....form a committee in January to oversee construction....the committee would analyze the soil intended for the golf course, fertilize and treat the soil, purchase seed, and hire a construction company in anticipation of the spring when the golf course could be built. And that is exactly what happened.

[Tom MacWood]

Why do you think Wilson sent samples from areas of the property he had to come up a alpha class system to designate?  (i.e From section "B")   Why not just say, "from the area we propose locating our 3rd green"??

Because section B contained parts of several tees, greens and fairways. How many 'sections' were there on 117 acre site?

I'll answer my own question: I believe there were seven sections (A thru G).

[Mike Cirba]

Tom MacWood,

If you have more evidence to bolster your claims, please produce it.   Thanks.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Mike,

He has `proof` in the fact that TePaul hasn`t posted any documents proving it couldn`t have happened.  It is the old prove a negative argument so often used, but again, it is false logic.

TMac,

As to the recorded routings, its the ones mentioned in the MCC minutes that they took to CBM, and revised after seeing CBM.  You called the Barker routing the only recorded routing, but it has never been seen either, right?

[Mike Cirba]

Tom Paul,

Do any of the MCC internal docs refer to the "Construction Committee"?

I seem to recall one later but also seem to recall that Lesley referred to Wilson's group as simply the Golf Committee.

Can you shed any light on the first mention?  Thanks.

[TEPaul]

"I'll answer my own question: I believe there were seven sections (A thru G)."



Tom MacWood:

I'm glad to see you're finally beginning to understand the point of Wilson sending Oakley a blueprint of the property that indicated the sections of the property in letters to be used to identify soil samples. What was it, a week ago, I explained that to you on a post on here? This shows just another of many accumulating examples that indicates you have not done much research or analysis on the numerous material evidentiary examples that support the factual chronological history of how Wilson and his committee went about designing and creating Merion East in 1911 and not in 1910.

The first mention of the lettered sections on that blueprint (alpha sections rather than numbered golf holes) is contained in a letter from Oakley to Wilson on March 23, 1911. Oakley did not say the sections on the blueprint were listed from only A to G as you just assumed. Oakley merely wrote on March 23, 1911 about soil samples that were sent to Washington from sections "B", "F" and "G." There could've been lettered sections higher than "G" on that blueprint that were just not mentioned in their correspondences on soil samples sent to Washington because soils samples may not have been taken from higher lettered sections and sent to Washington.  

Therefore, that you've concluded that "G" is the highest lettered section on that blueprint may be just another example of poor and/or incorrect logic on your part that both you and David Moriarty seem to be so prone to throughout this entire subject discussion of the creation of Merion East in 1910-1911.
 
 

[TEPaul]

Mike:

I'm not going to go back through every bit of material information from the contemporaneous administrative records of MCC in 1910 and 1911 but I recall what we today call the Wilson Committee was sometimes referred to in those MCC records as the Construction Committee and sometimes referred to as the Committee on New Golf Grounds. At one point (early Jan, 1911) they referred to that committee just as the "Experts."

At the April 19,1911 Board Meeting the so-called (by us) Wilson Committee report was read to the Board of Governors by Robert Lesley who was on the Board of Governors and who represented the Golf Committee, a Standing Committee, at Board meetings.

Do any of you even remember what I said last year on these threads about the difference with an administrative structure like MCC between "Standing Committees" and other committees within the club that are not considered to be "standing committees?" Whether anyone does remember that or not am I (or Merion) now going to have to endure page after page of arguments from the likes of MacWood and Moriarty and others parsing the words "standing" and/or "committee" and with the constant claim that they know what it means in the case of Merion better than I do or Merion does?

Lesley had been the chairman of what the officially referred to as the Committee on New Golf Grounds throughout most of 1910. After the Nov 23, 1910 board meeting Lloyd replaced Lesley as the chairman of that committee.

But one thing I have never seen is the so-called Wilson Committee referred to as that in any contemporaneous records. Last year I explained to you all in one of those long-running Merion threads why that was so with the way the Committees of Merion are structured (they are no different than the way the committees of GMGC are structured) but apparently no one paid any attention to it. This was not some assumption on my part as I actually spoke with the people who run Merion about this very subject. They explained to me how their committees and their committee structure operates and has always operated going all the way back to this particular era.

This is why I get a bit tired sometimes of some people on this website who have never been to Merion and have never spoken to anyone at Merion claim as certain fact that it is not that way and could not be that way and that they know better than I do or Merion does how that club works and did work back then.

If anyone is really interested in learning something about the history of Merion rather than just arguing with each other about it with limited material information from it, I think the time has come, long ago come, actually, where they just better start listening to the people who really do have this information and can explain it to others who have just never been aware of any of it, or just parts of it, from which apparently all kinds of misinterpretations about it are certainly likely to happen and certainly continue to happen on threads like this one.

[Mike Cirba]

Tom,

Just noticed that the Baily letter to Sayers in April 1913 called them the "Construction Committee".    That's the first reference I've seen from internal docs, although both Tillinghast and "Far and Sure" referred to them as such in corresponding Feb 1913 reviews of the course for "American Cricketer" and "American Golfer" respectively.



Tom MacWood,

If someone had already routed the golf course prior to sending the contour map to P&O, wouldn't it seem logical that it would have been Wilson who designated which spots on the property he was concerned about for soil analysis?

However, that's not what happened, as the very first letter from Wilson to P&O illustrates;

[JESII]

Mike and Tom P,

How exactly does the use of the word Course preclude it from meaning an actual golf course?

Is anyone prepared to explain the alpha-based system Wilson used? I'm not sure I understand what is being suggested.

[JESII]

Also, do the Wilson letters discuss the preparation of rough areas in similar detail to the fairway areas? WOuldn't the term "short growing grasses" imply fairways and greens?

[TEPaul]

"Mike and Tom P,
How exactly does the use of the word Course preclude it from meaning an actual golf course?"


Sully:

It doesn't preclude the use and meaning of "course" from that interpretation. However, anyone familiar with the details of ALL of this history and the actual recorded timing of it all should certainly be able to understand other interpretations and meanings as well. With the likes of Moriarty and MacWood that seems to have always been a virtual impossibility----eg they're only willing to consider their own interpretation and they seem to want to force their own single interpretation on everyone else, and far worse yet, ON HISTORY!

Simply because to people like Cuylers, Evans, Lloyd et al at that time (Dec, 1910 or even early Jan. 1911) it was just land that they had bought on which they were considering putting MCC's golf course and not the entire club. How else would you expect them to describe it at that point? Do you think they should've automatically referred to it as "The land of part of the old Johnson Farm and including the Dallas Estate on which we plan to design and create our new golf course?"

I don't think so and that's why I believe they just referred to it at that point as the "course."



"Is anyone prepared to explain the alpha-based system Wilson used? I'm not sure I understand what is being suggested."



I already explained that in detail within the last few days or week. Do you even read my posts? What am I supposed to do now, go back and find it again? It's just amazing how much of this detailed information I have to repeat from the threads on this subject over a year ago and even from a few days ago.

This really is beginning to prove to me the truth of that old adage---"A little knowledge can be a very dangerous thing."

In the possession of the likes of Moriarty and MacWood that has most definitely proven to be the case in spades on this subject that has been going on seemingly for years on here!! For instance, just the other day on a post Tom MacWood admitted he was completely unaware of the document we have been calling 'the Wilson Report" for the last year.

[Mike Cirba]

Jim,

It doesn't preclude it, of course.  

But just because Wilson chose to refer to the property as the "golf course" doesn't mean a golf course existed in any form, staked or otherwise, does it?

I mean, they didn't even turn the soil until late March 1911.

Before this thread goes off, as it inevitably does, into a "who's hiding what" from who, and how we can't make any sense of things without the original minutes, I thought I'd simply paraphrase what the minutes say, and Jim...you can call BS on me if something seems portrayed inaccurately based on what you've seen.   Fair enough?

Perhaps this will help move us out of neutral, but probably not.  

This next paragraph has been posted here verbatim prior, so I have no qualms about re-quoting it;

“Your committee desires to report that after laying out many different golf courses on the new ground, they went down to the National course with Mr. Macdonald and spent the evening going over his plans and the various data he had gathered abroad in regard to golf courses. The next day we spent on the ground studying the various holes that were copied after the famous ones abroad.”

"On our return, we re-arranged the course and laid out five different plans."

The Minutes then go on to say that on April 6th, 1911, Macdonald and Whigham came over and spent the day and after looking over the various plans and the grounds said that if Merion would "lay it out" (bold mine) according to the plan they approved (which the minutes note were submitted, presumably on paper) it wouldn't only be a first-class course but that the "last seven holes would be equal to any inland course in the world."

The Minutes go on to say that in order to accomplish this, it will be necessary to acquire 3 additional acres.   That is followed with the proposed resolution, also which has appeared here quoted previously;

“Whereas the Golf Committee presented a plan showing the proposed layout (bold again mine) of the new golf ground which necessitated the exchange of a portion of the land already purchased for other land adjoining...Resolved that the board approve the exchange.…………..and the purchase of 3 acres additional for $7,500."

[TEPaul]

"Also, do the Wilson letters discuss the preparation of rough areas in similar detail to the fairway areas? WOuldn't the term "short growing grasses" imply fairways and greens?"


Those so-called "Agronomy Letters" when Wayne and I found them at the USGA Green Section about 7-8 years ago had just come in from some regional USGA agronomist's attic. Since then I believe they are all now digitized and on the USGA's website in the Green Section part of the USGA's website. You should go there and read them. We've been reading them for most of a decade now.

And that's apparently why a guy like Tom MacWood or even David Moriarty are just beginning to read them and consider what some of them mean regarding the development of Merion East, and to begin to consider many of the things about them that Wayne and I have been putting on this website about them for many years.

For instance, how do you think I figured out the length of time Wilson could not have been abroad in 1912 beyond? There wasn't anything in any ship manifests that I'm aware of that indicated when Wilson sailed from America abroad, only a listing of when he returned! And that is why I drove to the USGA and went through some of the letters we did not copy (because at the time we were ONLY researching Flynn at Merion and not the entire history of Merion). And that is how I found he not only did not have the available time to go abroad other than in the spring of 1912 but also how I found out that he was still in Philadelphia on March 1, 1912---eg because he wrote and signed a letter to Piper or Oakley dated March 1, 1912!!  

[JESII]

Mike,

Is Wilson speaking about the whole property when he uses the terms "course" and "golf course" in those paragraphs? Seriously...how can you say he was using the word to describe the property in general on Feb 1 and a specific routing with fixed hole designs in late March?



Tom,

I read most of your posts but try to avoid the useless attacks...so, if in the middle of one of those attacks you also gave a detailed description of the alpha system Wilson used for the soil samples then yes, I probably missed it...otherwise I don't recall you going into detail other than simply repeating what Wilson himself said in a letter.

How many sections are there on the property in Wilson's alpha system?

How are they distinguished? Is it just a straight grid pattern? Or does Wilson seem to make an attempt to coordinate orientation to facing the sun and/or drainage issues?

I don't remember you getting into anything of that sort of detail...so if you can I would appreciate it.




Also, why would the club worry about turning over and fertilizing the rough at this stage? Wouldn't they try to keep costs to a minimum?

[Jud_T]

TEP-

33 pages and counting....I win the over/under!

[PThomas]

TEP-

33 pages and counting....I win the over/under!

reminds me of the "Song that never ends" from Shari Lewis and Lamb CHop....

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