JC Jones. Actually those of who are at all familiar with the source material do know that CBM was deeply involved in the design process, from the time he was brought in to inspect the property to determine if it would be suitable, through his spring meeting with Wilson and Committee at NGLA where they were working on the layout, and right up until a few weeks later, when CBM and HJW returned to Merion to determine the final routing plan.
In fact, TEPaul has even acknowledged that CBM had routed the golf course before Wilson and his committee even became involved.
As for Wilson's role, while TEPaul apparently now thinks it was just to construct the course and grow grass, I think it was much more than that. For one thing he was in contact with CBM for the beginning of Wilson's involvement in 1911, and he spent two days with CBM and Whigham at NGLA working on the plan and going over NGLA holes, and upon his return he and the committee tried to work out the details on the ground and apparently came up with a number of variations, and obviously there could have been quite a bit of design input during this process.
Plus, Merion is unlike many of the other projects with which CBM was involved in that CBM or Raynor was not directly involved in building the course, and I assume that quite a few design elements were the responsibility of Wilson and his committee. In other words, I view much of the course at Merion to be Wilson's interpretation of CBM's ideas, and so Wilson certain deserves a large part of the credit for what was done, perhaps even moreso that the credit Raynor gets for the work he did with CBM.
Plus, at least some of the fairway bunkering was placed by Wilson (CBM was a believer in observing play before placing non-greenside bunkering) and Wilson did go abroad after the course was built in order to get ideas for the finishing touches. Also, Merion went through a series of changes from very early on, and Wilson appears to have been largely responsible for those changes, including the major changes in the early 1920's to the 10th-13th holes, and perhaps even for the bunker project that was not completed until after his death.
IN short, Wilson was the person in the main at Merion who was primarily responsible for the golf course, including the architectural changes to the course through its first few decades and he deserves credit for all of that.
As for the "by line" that is up to the club. My concern is more with what actually happened than with the politics of who gets their name on the scorecard. That said, those who are interested in the history and evolution of golf course architecture in the United States ought to understand that at its bones Merion was originally intended to be very much in the CBM mold, as interpreted and built by Hugh Wilson and others, of course.
As an aside, those such as when Robert Lesley and Alan Wilson who wrote about the course, such as when Lesley saw fit to acknowledge CBM and HJW right there with Wilson's committee.
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What of the reports that most of Merion holes were based upon holes abroad, and the reports that there was an attempt at a Redan and Alps hole, and attempt at an Eden green? Were there a million reasons why Hugh Wilson was trying to build the same hole types as built by CBM?