David,
You stated, "Phil, If you have something productive to say about Shawnee, why not just say it? What is the point of telling us over and over again that you know, without telling us what you know and why?"
The answer to both questions is that I HAVE. I've said over and over that the records CLEARLY show that Tilly was the SOLE designer of Shawnee. That Worthington and his family lived in Manawalamink, that Buckwood Park was not what Tom thinks it is, etc... I have CLEARLY stated why I know this... That I have seen, and have copies of, all of the records and that I am currently working on a 100-year anniversary book about the Shawnee Inn, Shawnee CC and the golf course and that I was hired to do so by the same people who gave me access to all of the records... the owners.
Now, how about asking Tom Macwood to do EXACTLY what you asked me to do? To come out and say what he is simply alluding to and to do so with PROOF that backs up his claims?
"So why not at least tell us what it is about those records which makes you so sure that Worthington had nothing to do with the design of Shawnee?" I HAVE done so. I've CLEARLY stated that they state that Tilly and Tilly ALONE designed the golf course and the subsequent redesign and rerouting of it in 1912-13 and that he did more "tinkering" with it through the years. I've said it on this thread and on the North Shore thread when Tom attempted to challenge it there saying that Robert White was hired to redesign Shawnee (he wasn't).
"Also, regarding Tillinghast's career, by 1909 he had had other experiences that helped him with design, had he not? Would it be fair to say that he had studied the matter by that point? Isn't the story that he spent some time at St. Andrews with Tom Morris? He really wasn't in the category of not knowing anything more than the average clubby, was he?"
David, would it be fair to say that my more than 10 years of dedicated study of the life and work of A.W. Tillinghast qualifies me as being just as experienced and tested as an architect as Tom is claiming that Tilly was when Worthington engaged him in 1909 to design Shawnee? After all, Tilly had not designed a course or even overseen a construction of any or even lifted dirt by shovel to help build one, yet Tom claims that he was both "experienced and tested" as an architect.
Come on David, this is so ludicrously simple that to argue it is foolish. I find it highly ironical that it is ME who is arguing that Tilly was untested and inexperienced when he designed Shawnee and that anyone, knowing that he hadn't designed a course or built one before this, would say that he was.