David,
Let me clear this up immediately. The reason that I said, "First of all, I am BEGGING everyone NOT to turn this into another Merion argument. That means EVERYONE!" was NOT to ADMONISH TOM MACWOOD! Absolutely not! It was because I was concerned that REPLIES to what Tom had posted might be argumentative and/or insulting and wanted to see if it could be stopped before it might begin.
That was all. HONEST! It was innocent of motive other than that. Tom, if you took what I stated as an admonishment directly aimed at you, I apologize. It wasn't meant as such.
David, Believe it or not I am glad that you commented, “Regarding your comments on Barker, you pronounce unequivocally to Tom, ". . . you ARE wrong. MERION NEVER secured Barker to design their new course." I don't believe you are in a position to pronounce Tom MacWood wrong, at least not unless you have some sort of time portal and access to what was going on with the Site Committee. The FACT is Barker was reported to have been hired by Merion to design the course. Now whether that report is accurate or not I am not certain, and dare I say that you are not certain either. But the report that Barker was hired by Merion to design the course no doubt raises the possibility that Barker was hired by Merion to design the course. So your unequivocal pronouncements on an what is at least an open question are too much, and not conducive to a civil discussion.”
I was hoping that Tom would refer to the article in specific which is why I asked him to repost it or show us where it is if possible. The reason is because of the TRUTH in what you stated, “So your unequivocal pronouncements on an what is at least an open question are too much, and not conducive to a civil discussion...”
Actually, that was to be the beginnings of what I hoped would be a civil discussion and let me explain how and why I say that. Too often we only view things from our own PERSONAL PERSPECTIVES. This is something that a historian MUST avoid doing. In this case the personal perspective is one of INTERPRETATION.
Just as you criticize me for making an “unequivocal pronouncement” on an “open question” you too should criticize Tom Macwood for doing the same thing, for didn’t we both do just that but with different conclusions?
I read what is available to me and draw a conclusion. Since there isn’t any black and white evidence, e.g. – a signed contract, that we are aware of, I say that I don’t believe that he was HIRED BY MERION. Tom, based upon the same information available to him that is to me, believes that he WAS. You, with the same information that is available to Tom & I, believe that he MIGHT HAVE BEEN.
Those are three distinctly different INTERPRETIVE CONCLUSIONS based upon a single body of evidence. They are arrived at primarily as a result of different approaches to the facts and information we have looked at. For example, my approach is heavily waited toward believing what the club has officially stated in the past to be its history. As a result, the burden of proof, IN MY OPINION, to overturn that accepted historical account needs to be quite substantial. IN YOUR and TOM’S OPINIONS, you are willing to accepted a lower threshold of burden of proof to reach the conclusions that you have.
The fact is that all three of us have reached interpretive conclusions that have equal merit and are equally criticizable. Part of that is because we have viewed history through our own INDIVIDUAL PERSPECTIVES of how to go about approaching a particular body of research information and facts.
Part of the reason for my posting this topic is to discuss the importance of PERSONAL INTERPRETATIONS in how the history of the game has been recorded. This is quite important as the Merion “discussions” prove. We have all looked at things written about Merion and inserted what WE believe either the motives behind and/or meanings of what was written were.
Future generations of those who love golf will look back on writers and historians of our day and debate matters in the exact same way and so those who write or record the history must be VERY aware and CAREFUL to NOT accentuate their own beliefs of what MAY have happened as fact over what DID happen as fact.
So, believe it or not, I responded to Tom for that very reason in hopes that he would specifically refer to the article as “absolute proof” so that we could discuss, NOT THE MERITS OF HIS CONCLUSION, but the PROCESS by which he came to it in comparison to how others might…