David,
Fair enough....
During the Merion discussions you and Tom MacWood questioned and discounted the validity of reports by such long term, knowledgeable, "insider" writers like William H. Evans and AW Tilllinghast who credited Hugh Wilson and his committee. From your perspective, they were reporting "second hand", and unless we could prove they were there at the moment all this was happening you preferred, nay demanded that their accounts were to be viewed as suspect.
Yet suddenly, on this thread, we have an unknown gossip reporter at the very birth of golf in that town who has reported everything from "two new links" opening at Myopia to calling beginner Dr. SA Hopkins remarkably skilled at the game one week after he supposedly held a club for the first time. We have other contemporaneous reports here that HC Leeds only started golfing in the spring of 1894, and reports where the opening tournament at Myopia is called the Opening tournament at Essex County in Manchester, and reports where even you objected, as the three men that Weeks and May told us laid out the course are referred to as "experts". We have examples where reporters in one paper stole other reports from other papers openly. We have reports that continually blend the openings of Myopia and Essex County, which we know was laid out by Campbell, as if they are one course.
Do we have any idea what the golfing knowledge was of this gossip columnist? Do we have any idea what he thinks the term "laid out" even means? Do we know if this writer even plays golf or is familiar with the game?? Do we have any idea who or what his sources are??
Yet, after discounting reputable, knowledgeable sources in the case of Merion, you are prepared to tell us that a gossip columnist who had made egregious mistakes such as "two new links" in his column should suddenly be empowered 100+ years later to rewrite the Myopia history, without any of us even looking to internal club documents at Myopia? Do we think that Weeks and May just made this stuff up??
Golf writing was brand new in this country back then. What was their knowledge base?? Even 15 years later we have reports that HH Barker is going to lay out a course at Merion, which has no other support, and another report that the course was laid out by Fred Pickering.
I have reports of Cobbs Creek designed by Park Engineer Jesse Vogdes, and others that say William Flynn did it.
Should I rewrite my book on Cobbs Creek? Hardly....I just include those items to show a different picture, a different perspective, but trust that the volume of evidence citing others will be apparent to the reader.
Until we find a way here to include ALL source material, including contemporaneous club records, then these attribution debates are at a dead end and we can argue about it until the cows come home and guess what....not a thing will change and it won't matter one bit to anyone outside of the few of us who participate on these things here. From a club's perspective, I can't imagine a one of them who look in on these debates and don't shudder. I can't imagine them wanting to share their private records here to be parsed and dissected for our collective entertainment, even if it leads to greater understanding here, and personally, I can both understand as well as respect that.
For my part, I'm done with it. It's a dead-end, and it's gone on too long, and for very little benefit.
I hope you have a Happy New Year.