Mike
Aren't you jumping the gun a bit? Its already been conceded Tolhurst was wrong about the MCGCA being form in 1909, now we're discussing if "they" explored the possibility of acquiring land around the old course. Are you conceding Tolhurst was wrong about that too?
"In 1909, the golfers of the Merion Cricket club formed the Merion Cricket GC Association to examine the problem presented by the Haskell ball, namely that it had made theri course obsolete. The moving spirits of this organization were Rodman E. Griscom, Charlton Yarnall, Robert Lelsey, Walter Stephenson, Alan Wilson and his younger brother, Hugh.
They explored the possibility of acquiring land around the old course so that it could be lengthened. However, no such land was available. They eventually settles on a 120-acre tract, located a little south of the Phila and Western Railroad tracks on both sides of Ardmore Avenue. The golf association bought the property and leased it back to the Cricket Club. Much of the land had been part of a William Penn grant. Since 1744, it had belonged to the Johnson family. Originally a farm, the place was now neglected. On the property stood a stone farmhouse, built in 1824, and large bank barn.
The Annual Report of 1910 informed Merion Cricket Club member of these developments.
The MCC Golf Association appointed a committee to lay out the new course. Its chairman was Hugh Wilson. The other members were Rodman E. Griscom, Dr. Henry Toulmin, Richard S. Francis and Horatio Gates Llloyd, who originally acquired the land.
This was a fine Committee for the job. Griscoms' accomplishments have been outlined in the first chapter. Francis was an officer of a construction company, an engineer and a surveyor, and his skills were invaluable. However, the chief burden fell on Wilson, who was the principal architect of the course.
Hugh Wilson was an excellent golfer, and learned the game on Merion's Haverford course. At Princeton, he was captian of the university's golf team. Graduating in 1902, Wilson returned to Philadelphia and joined his brother Alan in the insurance business. Eventually, Hugh became the president of the business.
A golf pilgrimage
In 1910, the Committee decided to send Hugh Wilson to Scotland and England to study their best courses and develop ideas for thr new course. Before he left, he visited the site of the NGLA, America's first modern golf course, then under constrcution in Southampton, NY. While there he discussed his itinerary with Charles B. Macdonald, the designer of the National and winner of the first US Amateur in 1895. Macdonald had made a similar journey for the same purpose some eight years earlier.
Wilson spent about seven months abroad, playing and studying course and sketching the features that struck him most favorably. When he returned, he carried a pile of notes as well as sheaves of sketches and surveyor's maps of outstanding holes and features. All of these avidly studied by the Committee.
One mystery still surrounds Wilson's trip to Britain, and that is the origin of the wicker flagsticks now so much a part of Merions' mystique. For years, it was said Wilson first saw them at Sunningdale Golf club located in Berkshire, England. However when the Captain of Sunningdale visited Merion in September, 1987, for the 75th Anniverserary, he averred that Sunningdale never had wickers! So where did Wilson see them?
Some say that it was another course near London with a similar name to Sunningdale. Others tell the story of a lady member of Merion who married an English lord and then put in a nine-hole course on his estate, using flower decorated baskets instead of flagsticks. Since she was a Philadelphian, Wilson is said to have visited her on his British trip and borrowed the basket idea. However, so far both the 'other course' near London and the lady from Merion have proved elusive.
When Wilson returned from England, both Macdonald and his son-in-law HJ Whigham (an Oxford player and 1896 and 1897 US Am Champion) freely gave him their advice. So the Club had the benefit of their experience as well as the skill and knoweldge of the committee.
Francis takes a hand
An interesting sidelight on the design of the new course comes from Richard Francis, who wrote the following in 1950:
"Except for many hours over a drawing board, running instruments in the field and just plain talking, I made but one important contribution to the layout of the course.
The land was shaped like a capital “L” and it was not very difficult to get the first 13 holes into the upright portion – with the help of a little ground on the north side of Ardmore avenue – but the last five holes were another question.
I was looking at a map of the property one night when I had an idea. Not realizing it was nearly midnight, I called Mr. Lloyd on the telephone, found he had not gone to bed, got on my bicycle and rode a mile or so to see him. (Richard Francis lived next to the Haverford Station of the PRR) The idea was this: We had some property west of the present course which did not fit in with any golf layout. Perhaps we could swap it for some good use?"
A great team
Besides the expertise of Francis, Wilson also had a first-class crew. Supervising construction was Merion's first greenkeeper William S. Flynn, who had been groundskeeper with the Cricket Club. Also involved was Howard C. Toomey, another groundskeeper at the Cricket Club, and civil engineer. After World War I, the pair formed the golf course architecture firm of Toomey and Flynn and designed such outstanding courses as Rolling Green in Philadlephia, the Cascades course at the Homestead, Hot Springs, VA, the James River course for the CC of Virginia, and Cherry Hill Country Club in Denver. The firm was also chosen to finish and revising the bunkering at Merion after Hugh Wilson's untimely death. Flynn appointed Joe Valentine as his construction foreman. Valentine had also worked as a groundskeeper at the Cricket Club, and as an immigrant from Italy, his knowledge of Italian was invaluable in supervising the largely Italian-speaking constrcution crew with their horsedrawn roadscrapers.
Flynn and Wilson were close friends and thought alike on the subject of golf architecture. For example both agreed that hazards should be plainly visible and abhorred the invisible pot bunker so often encountered on older British courses. 'A concealed bunker has no place on a golf course,' Flynn declared. 'When concealed, it does not register on the players' mind as he is about to play the shot, thus loses its value.' He added, 'The best looking bunkers are those that are gouged out of faces of slopes, especially when the slope faces the player. They are much more effective in that thaey stand there like sentinals beckoning the player.' When the course was under construction and later, during revisions, Valentine would spread bed sheets on the sire of a proposed bunker so the Wilson, standing on the tee or the area from which the shot would be played, could be certain that the hazard could be plainly seen by the golfer.
Merion, a masterpiece
The payout that Wilson fashioned at Merion was masterly. It was even more remarkable considering it was his first effort in course architecture. He fitted the holes onto the land as compactly as jigsaw puzzle. As a result, player only had to step a few yards from each green to the next tee. The trip to the Old country had certainly paid off.
While Wilson admitted that his concepts sprang from the holes he'd seen in Scotland and England--the third hole was inspired by North Berwick's fifteenth hole (The Redan) and the 17th, with its swale fronting the green, is reminiscent of the famed Valley of Sin at St. Andrews' 18th hole--none of the holes at Merion is an out and out copy. They are all original holes in their own right. Wilson had absorbed the principles underlying the great hole, then applied them to the terrain at his command.
It has been said that Hugh Wilson grasped these principles of Scottish and English course design and conveyed them in his work better than Charles Blair Macdonald. However, to compare Merion to the NGL is somewhat of an 'apples and oranges' proposition. Macdonald set out to 'model each of the 18 holes (at the National) after the most famous holes abroad.' that is, to duplicate these holes. Wilson never intended to design Merion under such constraints. His objective was to build a course that would rival the finest British parkland course in beauty and shot values. He succeeded admirably.
If it were possible to physically lift Merion and set it dons at an appropriate site Britain, the native golfers would feel right at home on it in not time at all. they would appreciate the artfully set tees, aligned toward trouble rather straight down the fairway, and the sloping fairways, which so often present a hilly lie that makes the best shape of a shot doubly difficult, the naturalness of the bunkers and their plantings of dune grass and Scottish broom, the variety of green shape and the subtle contours of the putting surfaces, which sometimes almost defy reading, as well as their fast pace. The British love a course where you have to use your head, place your tee shots and hit precise shots with every club in your bag; that's Merion East, exactly.
Construction of the new course began in the early spring of 1911. By September, the grass seed, a German variety chose after much investigation and tests, had been sown. It was allowed to grow that autumn and the following spring and summer. On September 12, 1912, the old course at Haverford was closed, and on the 14th, the new course and the clubhouse were opened to members.
Incidentally, that date work started on the new course lays to rest an oft-told, rather romantic story that Wilson, on his return from Britain, miraculously avoided a planned sailing home on the pride of the White Star line, the SS Titanic. The liner struck an iceberg and sank on the night of April 14-15th, 1912. Obviously, if work started on the course in the spring of 1911, Wilson was already safely back in the United States before the ill-fated ship ever set out on its maiden voyage.
A report of the opening said that the course was 'among experts considered the finest inland links in the country.' This was the assessment that has been echoed down through the years."