David,
Regarding your comment, "Some of you obviously realize it, but I hope the rest of you come to realize that whatever condemnation you have heaped on Tom must apply equally to Ran Morrissett, because he was apparently in on it the entire time. I say this not to further condemn Ran, but to suggest that perhaps some of the comments might have been different had Ran been the one who came clean about the scam."
Since, as you stated, "I haven't communicated with Ran or Tom about any of this..." you obviously are very unaware that there are a number who HAVE taken Ran to task on this and CONTINUE TO DO SO and that they hold him equally responsible for this and have written such. An example of this is my own post just above yours. Of course I am certain that you simply ignored what I wrote.
Since you haven't spoken to Ran then you certainly are unaware how surprised and upset he was to learn that Tom had LIED about his phony article to someone who had approached him for the source. I know that this happened for a fact because it occurred during my phone conversation with him on Sunday morning. Imagine how upset he must be then to now learn that there are at least FOUR DIFFERENT WRITERS WHO ASKED HIM FOR THE REFERENCE SOURCE (this in direct contradiction to Tom's earlier statement that he only did it twice) and who he LIED to about its existence!
You obviously, in your attempt to justify and minimize what has been done and its serious breach of ethics, seem to forget how you vilified the Historian for Merion for allegedly not meeting up to the standards and ethics set by the American Historical Society for Historians and Archivists, a man who isn’t a member and who it turns out had done nothing wrong! Yet here we have Tom Macwood who has stated in the past to some, including me, that he considers publishing “In MY Opinion” pieces on gca.com to be the equal to publishing in any public venue including both books and magazines and you would now denigrate the website by stating that he shouldn’t be held to the same standards as those you have publicly condemned?
Perhaps you can explain the justification for Tom Macwood for purposefully LYING about the “source” material to Neil Crafter when he approached him on it, something that he has admitted to? That was deliberate and extremely insulting to Neil. Perhaps you can explain the justification for why Tom lied to three other writers who did the same (these include the one he also admitted to lying to in 2009, the one who approached me 6 weeks ago and despite Tom’s belief is NOT the same one and now another who approached another well-known member of this site just yesterday on this)? Perhaps you can explain why RAN, as I noted in my above post, referenced Tom’s article in his write-up of Yale as being TRUE and something that OTHER’S SHOULD REFER TO as such? Why the link back to that article suddenly stopped working on Dunday when it worked on Saturday? That definitely places his actions on a much different scale in this and, as I stated at the outset, others HAVE and ARE taking him to task on it.
We both know you can’t because there is absolutely NO JUSTIFICATION for any of those actions.
Sorry David, but as Brad Klein pointed out these are and were not simple “mistakes” or lapses in judgments, but rather severe breaches of every ethical standard for researchers, archivists, historians and writers. Since Tom believes that his work as published on here is the equal in perception and standard to anything that is written in GolfWeek, then maybe you should listen to one of the EDITORS of that magazine, Brad Klein, when he severely chastises Tom and informs him that what he did would have brought about his IMMEDIATE dismissal from the magazine.
Instead of implying a hypocrisy to we who have yet to resign from this site maybe you should demand that Ran throw Tom Macwood off the site as you have in the past demanded that he do with others who you have accused of LYING about what they claimed was information found in club records.
If you truly believe that these deserved expulsion for lying in a small post, that you don’t demand Tom’s expulsion for creating this phony work and presenting it as a work of true scholarly research and continuing to LIE ABOUT IT to those who approached him on it and to have done so for about 8YEARS, and on top of that can excuse and justify him for doing so is the true and utmost height of hypocrisy.