David,
Good question, and it's hard to say exactly.
Here are the last three again;
6) CBM tells us that The Company (referred to previously as the Shinnecock Hills and Peconic Bay Realty Co.) agreed to sell him ("us") 205 acres and "we were permitted to locate it as best to serve our purposes".
7) CBM tells us that, AGAIN (for some undetermined amount of time) he and Whigham studied the contours earnestly, selecting those that would fit in naturally with the various classical holes he had in mind.
CBM tellus us that THEN and ONLY THEN he and Whigham staked out the land they wanted.
Theoretically, number six could have happened as early as those October 15th, 1906 articles you posted. If the land in those articles was the land of Sebonac Neck, as you've argued, it seems at that fairly early time CBM may have already been looking at the property, and thinking he had agreement to buy "250 acres", as was reported.
However, I'm still not certain that was the land in question, and moreso, those articles telling us the land had already been surveyed, mapped, and those maps having been copied and sent to luminaries abroad certainly confuses the issue.
If accurate, that would mean that Raynor was on the scene much earlier than any of us knew previously, and that the work of looking at that property probably started in late summer, probably with the horse ride.
CBM does tell us in other chapters that his mode of operation was to first have a topo map created, so it's possible David that they were looking at the land well in advance of the securing.
There are a few reasons I think this is unlikely, however.
First, I'm not sure that CBM would go to the expense of having land surveyed and maps drawn without some agreement with the seller to purchase the land. Second, it would seem a very lengthy time of looking at the property prior to securing the land in December and purchasing it the next spring.
I realize there were 450 acres to wade through to try and determine the scope of their purchase, and that takes some time, but that seems a bit exorbitant, especially as we know that real estate prices on LI were rising and CBM had previously been shut out on a proposed purchase.
So, I think it's more likely that those October articles were a PR ploy by CBM meant as some type of negotiating tool. I'm not sure what he was hoping to accomplish there, but the articles in entirety and timing don't seem to ring true.
Ditto the November 1 articles I found that said he was down to two choices on Montauk and near Good Ground.
So, I think the most likely scenario is the simplest and most straight-forward.
I think that CBM likely rode with Whigham around the property for 2 or 3 days in October, and determined it was what they wanted in terms of soil and landforms if they could get it for a good price. They also probably found the Alps hill and redan ridge and the water for the Eden and Cape during those rides.
I think as CBM told us in his book he secured agreement with the company to buy 205 "undetermined" acres in November and the formal papers to that effect were drawn up and signed a few weeks later, on December 14th, 1906.
I think as those December articles point out, the next few months were spent routing the course, deciding which holes to create, which features to copy, getting the survey done and topo maps completed that aided their routing and designing of the course, and once that was completed, they staked the exact holes and dimensions of the property they wanted and signed the purchase papers and began construction.
What do you think?
Patrick,
Actually, I think finding spots for exact replica holes is a tougher and more time-consuminig task than just using natural landforms to create original holes.
By definition, you either need to get really lucky and find a close approximation, or you have to find a landform that will allow you to shape it and build from scratch to get what you need.
Fortunately for CBM, he only actually tried to replicate five holes, four and a half really, and instead created mostly composite and original holes based on what the land gave him to work with at NGLA.
You're right in the sense that he had a fixed starting and ending point with his decision to use the Shinnecock Inn for his clubhouse, and it's logical to assume he'd want some of his course to go down to the beautiful Peconic Bay, but let's not forget that he had at his disposal all of the terrific land of today's Sebonack GC, as well as land on the Shinnecock course where today's holes 4, 5, 8, and thereabouts are located, as that club didn't own that land yet, nor was it part of their golf course at the time.
So, he had a huge canvas to try and narrow down contiguous golf holes, AND he had to make them work in concert with those holes where natural landforms dictated placement of a template hole, such as the Alps/Redan combo.
This was not a 2 or 3 day job.
At one time CBM thought of creating 18 specific holes, but his thinking changed over the years, such that by the time he built NGLA, there really were only one handful of that type.
I'll provide other accounts of that evolution in his thinking if you want more substantiation.