David,
Very little, but it was either you or Sweeney
I would've picked Sweeney.
DS, You are just another victim of East Coast bias.
That being said, clearly whatever Ross did it was relatively minor based on the fact the course is little changed since 1915, the magazine article and pamphlet both describe his contribution as advice, and Ross never listed the course.
I don't want to rehash the Merion debate, but how is this any different from what was being argued about that course?
I don't think that TM is concluding that Ross' advice was of minor consequence simply because it was called "advice." Rather, TM's is examining
the timing, among other things. A 1915 surveyor's map shows the state of the course then, and according to Dr. Mammel, changes made after this date were relatively minor. So if Ross' advice came after 1915 (and TM makes a compelling argument that this is the case) then any changes pursuant to that advice were relatively minor.
No such issue of timing exists in the Merion situation. In fact Merion brought in M&W in to advise beginning before the even decided to purchase the lan (6 months before Wilson was appointed) and continued to seek out his advice until after M&W selected the final layout plan and the board approved their plan.
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Jay, you and others seem determined to conclude that this was a Ross course no matter what the facts. Otherwise, why do you ignore the
1925 description and history written by the Commodore of the Club? It seems to be by far the best evidence of which I am aware. What am I missing?
Isn't the only suggestion of any early involvement by Ross a story about him having lunch in the summer of 1910 with a few members and discussing the possible creation of a nine hole course? And given the Ross was apparently out of the country at the time (and the club apparently already had a nine-hole course,) haven't serious doubts been raised about the accuracy of this account?
I can't imagine what the reaction from Philly would have been if my only evidence of CBM's involvement at Merion was an uncorroborated and factually suspect story about CBM having lunch with a few members of Merion and discussing the possibility of Merion creating a golf course (especially if it supposedly happened at a time CBM was out of the country!)
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The club and the Donald Ross Society point to attributes of the course as well as later written histories to conclude this as a Ross course.
Jason, Didn't the club and the Ross Society simply point to Tom Doak as their expert and claim that Tom Doak said the course had attributes of a Ross course? Turns out that this was a misunderstanding, and that Doak actually thinks that the course looked like nothing he had ever seen by Ross, and that someone else other than Ross (or Watson) built the greens.
As for the the conclusions of later written histories, they are only as good as their source, and unfortunately oftentimes the source is just another second hand history.
This stuff is all very incestuous. Once information gets out there (wrong or right) it ends up everywhere even if from a single source. For example if you go to the website of any Flynn course chances are you will see almost the exact same brief biography of Flynn, with maybe a few changes to reflect his contribution to the course in question. Do the multiple reports of the same brief biography prove that the information is correct? Probably not. The reality is that all the information likely came from the same source and should stand or fall with the accuracy of that source.
Unfortunately, many claiming to be interested in accurate histories seem more like PR guys than historians. They have a vested interest in a certain result, and low and behold, that is the result they always come up with.