Mac, The reason we need to vet and verify the basis for claims is so we get it right. Simple as that.
It is not enough to just make unsupported claims. We all have to back them up. That is the truth seeking process; offer proof and let that proof be scrutinized, vetted, and challenged. And not just by those who we feel we can sway, but to anyone and everyone who wants to challenge our ideas. That is the truth seeking process; offer proof and let that proof be scrutinized, vetted, and challenged. Only then are people in a position to make up their own minds.
As I was typing Tom put his latest post up...I was going to say the following...
Tom says he has seen the records that state both courses open in 1912-1913 and he says if I want to come up and see them, he will make them available. Why isn't this verifiable evidence?
Because Tom, Wayne, Merion, whoever, are sequestering the key information from those of us who are in a position to actually understand and vet that information.
If he goes and verifies this information wouldn't we all have to agree it is fact.
Agree that what is fact? What is the claim based upon? Does Tom telling you it is fact make it a fact? Is he infallible? Are his claims not open to challenge? I guess that is for you to decide, but I can tell you that I am not infallible, and all of my claims are open challenge. I welcome it because I know that it the best way to get at the truth.
Look Mac, even if I trusted TEPaul (I'm not going to lie to you and pretend I do) I'd still need to see the basis for the claim before I accepted it as fact. Oftentimes this stuff is difficult to figure out, and mistakes happen. And unfortunately those with the best access to the information are often the most susceptible to misunderstanding that information, as they are just to close and too connected to their own preconceptions to see clearly.If I were to count the number of mistakes, misrepresentations, ommissions, and errors that TEPaul and Co. have made about this stuff I'd run out of fingers and toes long before I was through. And while I am quite satisfied with my facts and analysis on this issue, I too have made some mistakes. It is an ever evolving process and it depends upon full disclosure.
In 1914 Robert Lesley wrote this of the East Course (emphasis added:)
The ground was found adapted for golf and a course was laid out upon it about three years ago by the following committee: Hugh I. Wilson, chairman, R. S. Francis, H. G. Lloyd, R. E. Griscom, and Dr. Hal Toulmin, who had as advisers, Charles B. Macdonald and H. J. Whigham. This course, which is described at a later period, was opened to the Merion players September 4, 1912, upon which date the old course on the north side was formally closed, a glorious and hilarious club dinner for men and women golfers marking the final ringing down of the curtain upon the old links which so many had enjoyed.[/color]
Later in the same article he wrote this of the new West course, (again with my emphasis:)
Work was begun in the spring of 1913 and the new course was opened to the members on Decoration Day of this year, when Merion players were afforded an opportunity of playing thirty-six different and varying holes upon two full championship eighteenhole courses.[/color]
Now maybe Lesley was mistaken, or maybe "was formally closed" doesn't mean it was really closed, and "ringing down of the curtain upon the old links which so many had enjoyed" was some sort of double-speak for keep open for another season. Maybe when he wrote "Decoration Day of this year" he meant some other date and year.
Seriously, it's possible that the course stayed open. But the information out there seems to indicate otherwise, and Robert Lesley was there, involved, and one of Merion Golf's and Philadelphia's Golf's most distinguished figures. Given a choice between Robert Lesley's understanding of what happened and TEPaul's understanding, I'll go with Lesley every time. Give me some facts, and I may see it otherwise.