Pine Valley and Topos

[Mike Cirba]

David,

If all Raynor shot was the centerpoints for each hole as his supposed contour map, then how the heck would he be able to match the foreign topos against the land to be constructed, as CBM asked him to do?

You have an odd definition of irrelevant.

[DMoriarty]

Quit misrepresenting me.  I never wrote that this was "all" Raynor did.  There is no evidence of a contour map before the course was routing.  The first evidence of any elevation survey is the centerline survey, done AFTER the course was routed.   Whether he did an additional contour map later is irrelevant to your claim about what happened BEFORE the routing.

[JESII]

Pat, How would a general topo with 10 foot increents help someone find land for a golf course?

You're kidding, aren't you.

Nope! Do us all a favor and spell it out, would you?

[Mike Cirba]

Patrick,

Yes, why exactly would Crump need a topo to help him route the course and CBM not need one?

Tillinghast told us that the land Crump found was covered in "bushes and scrub trees".

CBM, whose only previous routing experience was in open pastureland, told us that;

"However, there happened to be some 450 acres of land on Sebonac Neck, having a mile frontage on Peconic Bay and lying between Cold Spring Harbor and Bull's Head Bay.  This property was little known and had never been surveyed.  Everyone thought it was more or less worthless.  It abounded in bogs and swamps and was covered with an entanglement of bayberrry, huckleberry, blackberry, and other bushes and was infested by insects.   The only way we could get over the ground was on ponies."

While we know that Crump took multiple friends out to walk the property with him, we also know that CBM's property was so overgrown that it was impenetrable on foot.

And what of the scrub trees?   Well, rather than towering 40-70 foot trees all over the place, this is the definition I found...

scrub 2  (skrb)
n.
1. A straggly, stunted tree or shrub.
2. A growth or tract of stunted vegetation.


By the way Patrick, I do know your reading level is somewhere above 3rd grade, so I have to question if your misinterpretation of CBM's second paragraph on page 187 is intentional or not.   Please tell me specifically where you find it says he routed the course after 2-3 days on horseback.

David and/or anyone else here...if you agree with Patrick that NGLA was routed in 2-3 days on horseback, please also feel free to offer your interpretation of where it says that, as well.



This is how it reads to me;

1) After getting turned down on property near the Canal, CBM looked at all 450 acres of the area of Alvord's holdings known as Sebonac Neck (which includes today's NGLA AND Sebonack Golf Clubs), which had never been surveyed (as it had never been subdivided prior) for real estate purposes.   It was overgrown and unwalkable.

2) CBM and Jim Whigham spent 2-3 days riding over it, studying the contours of the ground.

3) Finally they determined it was what they wanted, provided they could get it reasonably.

4) Alvord's company agreed to sell CBM 205 acres (of the tract of 450 acres), and permitted them to locate the holes as to best serve CBM's purposes.

5) After gaining agreement, CBM and Whigham AGAIN studied the contours of the property earnestly for some unknown and unwritten portion of time, selecting those that would fit in naturally with the various classical holes CBM had in mind.

6) After making the determinations of the land they wanted to use for the course, again at some unknown time, CBM and Whigham staked out the specific land (205 acres) they wanted.


I do have to ask...we know that CBM had Raynor make him a contour map at some point prior to construction.   If someone wanted to actually "study the contours earnestly", wouldn't this be the time one would have a contour map commissioned, especially on land with very dense, unwalkable growth?

[Mike Cirba]

Here's the timeline as I understand it.   I have listed accompanying documents, or direct quotes, to document the trail;

Roughly 1904 - CBM sends a letter to prospective members outlining his plan to build a great golf course.   He is looking to purchase 200 or more acres to accommodate about 110 acres for the golf course, 5 acres for the clubhouse and surrounds and 1.5 acre building lots for each of the 60 founding members.






July 10, 1905 - It is announced in the papers that CBM is looking to build an ideal course where he aims to "reproduce as near as possible all of the most famous holes of the world."




March 5, 1906 -This next artice, from March 5th, 1906, written by H.J. Whigham and cabled to the states from London, deals with much of the business side of the project, naming some of the very influential subscribers, as well as describing the plan to buy enough land to facilitate the "specially ingenious" plan to provide each early subscriber (founder) with an acre of the property for building purposes, which he projects will easily increase in value to their $1000 subscription rate, essentially making it a no-risk financial proposition for them.




March 24, 1906 - The following article quotes directly from a letter from Macdonald (abroad studying the great courses) to Walter Travis, provides an update on his travels as well as again lays out the business aspects of the plan, which is to buy enough land to provide sites for villas/cottages for the charter members.   The article also mentions the degree of skepticism he is receiving abroad to his grand plans.




June 20th, 1906 - Three months later, Macdonald has returned and this excellent article from June 20th, 1906 is the result.   He is still looking for where to buy 200 some acres for his course, but this article is noteworthy if for no other reason than it describes his inspiration for the Biarritz, even if somewhat obliquely.




So, we know that through the first half of 1906 that CBM is still not deviating from his original plans to buy roughly 200 acres or more to accommodate the golf course, clubhouse, and 60 founder's building lots.

Are we all on the same page, so far?

[Mike Cirba]

By the way, on the NGLA thread it was presented as proof positive that CBM and Whigham famous pony ride(s) at Sebonac Neck happened as early as September 1906 based on a reading of what Whigham wrote at Macdonald's death (even though he wrote 1907, not 1906), when he told the story of riding the land with CBM and then having lunch at Shinnecock Hills GC where certain doom for the project was predicted.

Whigham wrote; "I went out with Macdonald to ride over the land which is now the National, and on coming back to the Shinnecock Club for lunch we found four elderly members awaiting us with dire prophecies of what would happen if we selected a site so near their own club, one of the first three golf clubs in America and the most fashionable. Yet on that first Saturday of September in 1907 there were only four old members in their sixties or seventies in the clubhouse, and they confessed that they had to contribute a pretty penny each year to keep things going."

All of us just figured Whigham was talking about his initial pony rides, and that he had screwed up the date by a year...Hell, even I believed it.

Well, it turns out that Whigham did NOT get the year wrong...CBM tells us the same story and dates it to the fall of 1907, as well.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Mike,

Since you're now accepting Whigham's word as "PROOF POSITIVE" it puts an end to the question of who designed Merion.

Whigham declared that Charles Blair Macdonald designed Merion.

While it took a long time, I'm glad that you finally confirmed what had been open for debate, citing a highly reliable source, a person who was there at Merion, side by side with Macdonald.  A person who had first hand knowledge of all that transpired.

I'm glad that you feel that Whigham's words are "PROOF POSITIVE" that Merion was designed by Macdonald.
Your acknowledgement that Whigham made the definitive statement with respect to the design of Merion puts an end to all of the debate.

Thanks for clarifying this and putting an end to a very lengthy discovery process and endless debate.

[DMoriarty]

And "all of us" didn't figure Whigham had the date wrong.  Brauer thought he had the date wrong and you glommed on so you could try to tear down Whigham's credibility.   Glad to see you now see Whigham as credible. 

As for the rest, you are just churning the same sewage you've been spewing for years.  They "again" studied the contours earnestly on the ground.  Not a map. That's when they found the Alps, Redan, Cape, Eden, and locations for the rest of the holes, and they staked out those holes, before they optioned then purchased the property.  That is how they can report on the Alps, Redan, Eden, Cape, beginning and end, shape of the course, etc. in Nov. 1906.   You act as if your failure to post the relevant portion of SG can change well documented history.

[Mike Cirba]

Patrick,

Perhaps you missed my questions for you on page 18 on both PV and NGLA?   Or, perhaps just avoiding them?

David,

There is no question that by December 1906 CBM secured 205 acres of 450 available on Sebonac Neck where boundaries could be adjusted as needed as he progressed in routing the golf course.

And yes, at that time he tells us had found natural sites for an Alps, a nearby Redan, an short inlet where he could create a Eden requiring an aerial carry, and next to that, use the adjacent body of water to create an original, which he later called a Cape.

We also know that his general locations for his first tee and 18th green were somewhat bound by his need to use the Shinnecock Inn as a clubhouse (before it burned down).

And, we can reasonably assume that he'd want his course to go out to the beautiful views along Peconic Bay.

So, if you're talking about the general dimensions of the 205 acres he needed based on those factors, then yes, he could easily report all of that, which he did, by December 1906 and still not have routed the golf course.

In fact, he tells us in his own quoted words that he hadn't routed the golf course by December 1906, but would work out those 18 hole designs in the next several months with his committee, which he did.

It was in all of the papers and nothing he wrote in Scotland's Gift does anything but confirm the sequence of events, if not always clear on the timing.

I think the parts that are still in question are;

1) When did CBM first start looking at the Sebonac Neck site?   He came back in June and was looking at multiple sites around the area, first making an offer on a site closer to the canal.

2) When was Seth Raynor brought in, when did he make his contour map (we know it was pre-construction), and was that used not only to create a plasticine model, and to guide subsequent construction, but was it also used to help the routing process?

You keep acting like this is a closed-case, probably to avoid answering the uncomfortable questions I keep raising to Patrick about his unfounded 2-day routing theory, but I think there is plenty of room to continue to explore these questions, unless perhaps someone can definitively answer either of them.

Can you?

[DMoriarty]

Bullshit.  You never stop.  He did not tell us that.  You take what he wrote out of context, ignore the rest of what he wrote, and twist it all to suit your needs.   But we've covered that for 100's of pages, and I am done with you on that issue.  

On this thread, to try and make some petty point about PV, you falsely claimed that CBM routed NGLA using a contour map.   There is NO EVIDENCE that CBM routed NGLA using a contour map, and ample evidence that  the course had been routed before any such contour map was created.   The first evidence of any sort of an elevation survey is the blueprint, and the course had definitely been routed BEFORE that blueprint was created.  

I should know better by now than to call you on your gross mischaracterizations, but I called you on it nonetheless.  Instead of admitting that you were talking out your ass, you are now you are just spewing the same sewage as you have for the past couple of years.    

You are doing this website and these discussions a huge disservice with this endless garbage.

As for your questions on Raynor, I have some idea of what happened when, but I will not discuss it with you because you are incapable of having an intelligent discussion about this stuff.   Plus, this thread is about PV, and when Raynor finally created a contour map has nothing to do with what happened at PV.

[Mike Cirba]

David,

If you don't know the answers to the questions I've asked, then no one is forcing you to respond.   Don't just pretend you have an answer but won't discuss it because it's about Pine Valley.

In that regard, my first post this morning was exactly about Pine Valley and the scrub trees there, but rather than actually answer a very legitimate question, Patrick just saw fit to play games with Whigham's quote and completely ignore the obvious facts and contemporaneous documentation around Pine Valley, so that's fine...he evidently has no good answer either and is still avoiding actually discussing Pine Valley.   No big surprise there.

But, don't tell us that CBM didn't say in December 1906 that the holes to be reproduced and their yardages (which to me is routing) would be determined over the next several months.   Here it is again, and if you want to discount it, please provide some evidence where he either said this months prior, or was misquoted.

Otherwise, I'd just say you should let the fingers take a rest, or go have a beer or something...you're wound very, very tight.

By the way, by the time that the article with the stick routing was written in July 1907 the course was under construction.

What is your point when you argue that they already knew the elevations of the tees, mid points of fairways, and greens at that point?

We KNOW from CBM that he asked Raynor to create a contour map prior to construction...why is this some revelation to you?

If they didn't know the elevations 2-3 months into construction, then what the hell were they spending their time doing the previous 8 months?

[Mike Cirba]

One question which occurs to me is simply...if Raynor wasn't involved early in the clearing and the topographical mapping of the site, how did we move from CBM and Whigham only able to navigate the property on horseback to a host of men being brought in to view the property...Emmet, Chauncey, Watson, Travis, and others?   Would it make sense to bring out all of these buys on ponies to view an overgrown, unwalkable property?

Why, if the site was already completely routed in two days via horseback as Patrick contends would they be brought in afterwards at all?  

[Patrick_Mucci]

Mike,

How is repeating what Whigham stated playing games ?

Whigham claimed that Macdonald designed Merion.

You used Whigham's statement as "Proof Positive" to make your point, but, reject Whigham's statement as "Proof Positive" with respect to points you disagree with.  Your selective use of the same statements/documents is mind boggling.
For your position, they're irrefutable, for positions that disagree with you they're to be ignored.

And, if you read "Scotland's Gift" with an eye for disclosure, CBM tells us that it was the sticker bushes that made it difficult and the swampy areas as well.  As you and Bryan Izatt claimed, there were NO trees, so viewing the property from horseback made sense, and, the property revealed itself to CBM and JW because they could see everything that needed to be seen from horseback since is was only sticker bushes that made walking the property difficult.

What I find interesting about your posting on this site is that I answer all of your questions, yet you continuously refuse to or can't answer mine.  I suspect you choose not to answer them because they completely undermine your wild theories.


David Moriarty,

Getting back to PV.

The Blue/Red schematic ON the topo is clearly pre-construction, pre-completion of the final routing.

When TEPaul and I were discussing this on the phone, neither one of us could come up with another course, circa 1910, that undertook the planning and designing of a golf course via that method.  Thus, we both felt that PV might have changed the direction and method for designing golf courses from field work to topos as the first line of planning.

I'd be interested to learn if any other courses, pre-1910 used topos in the same manner as indicated by the Blue/Red topo at PV.

[DMoriarty]

Are you lonely, Cirba?   I told you I won't discuss it with you again because you are unable to carry on a reasonable conversation.   Are you incapable of even understanding that?  
________________________________________________


Patrick, As I have said a few times, I suspect you and TEPaul are likely mistaken with your suggestion that PV might have been one of the first to use pre-construction topo maps.

For one, Willie Dunn was apparently using topo maps a decade or so before Pine Valley.  Joe Bausch has an article indicating that a contour map was created by Dunn by a professor for the course at Prineceton in about 1899.   And here is a copy of a map from Le Phare in Biarritz, from the early 1890's.   It is interesting because it shows the existing course from the late 1880 as well as the expansion of the course to 18 holes by Dunn in the early 1890's.  The areas where the contour lines have been drawn depict the additions to the course (Grouse Moor and Chambre L'Amour.)   I don't read French very well, but as near as I can tell from what I have read about the course the Dunn's drew up the plan and the plan was approved by the club before the changes were made.  (Note that one can see what appears to be an older version or draft version of the chasm hole marked and erased as well as the new chasm (No 3.)  It also shows the hole I believe was the inspiration for the biarritz, the hole marked as No. 12, with the "hogback" running up the middle of the hole and ending approximately 30 yards before the the green.)



MacKenzie was reportedly using plasticine models in construction beginning with Alwoodley (1907.)  I guess it is possible he was having plasticine models built without the aid of a contour map, but it sure doesn't seem too likely to me.  

In the summer of 1910 (a few years before PV) CBM mentioned that he would need a contour map at Merion in order to determine whether the holes would fit for certain on the land, and Merion had such a map before CBM met with representatives of Merion to continue to working on the layout plan at NGLA in the early spring of 1911.  Given that they weren't on site and that CBM had expressed a need for such a map, one would have to be as clueless as Cirba to believe they weren't using the contour map.

Further, according to Bahto by 1913 CBM had become involved with multiple other courses including Piping Rock, Sleepy Hollow, St. Louis, WSS, and Old White (and had been contacted about Lido.)  By Whigham's description of his evolving working relationship with Raynor, Raynor was in the field and CBM was working off of plans.  Given that we know CBM felt such maps were important, then surely they were used on these projects.  

But as I said, I don't think CBM pioneered their use.  I think they were in use way back.  We just don't have that many working field maps from those early courses, do we?

[Mike Cirba]

Patrick,

Please show us where Whigham said CBM designed Merion.  

After CBM's death in the later 1930s, almost thirty years and several iterations of that golf course later, and three decades after setting foot on the property for the last time prior to construction, Whigham wrote;

"Clubs all over the country asked Macdonald to remodel their courses.   Since he was every inch an amateur, golf architecture for him was entirely a labor of love, and it was quite impossible for him to do all that was asked of him. So he used to send Seth Raynor to do the groundwork, and he himself corrected the plans."

"Raynor had an extraordinary career as a golf architect.   He was a surveyor in Southampton whom Macdonald had called in to read contour maps he had brought from abroad.   Raynor knew nothing about golf and had never hit a ball on any links, but he had a marvelous eye for a country.   Having helped lay out the eighteen holes on the National, he was able to adapt them to almost any topography.   The Macdonald-Raynor courses became famous all over America.   Among the most famous are Piping Rock, the Merion Cricket Club at Philadelphia, the Country Club of St. Louis, two beautiful courses at White Sulphur, the Lido (literally poured out of the lagoon), and that equally amazing Yale course at New Haven, which was hewn out of rock and forest at an expense of some seven hundred thousand dollars.   From coast to coast and from Canadian border to Florida you will find Macdonald courses.   And in hundreds of places he never heard of you will discover reproductions of the Redan and the Eden and the Alps."

'Not only did the great links spring into existence by the magic of the Macdonald touch, but others were started independently with the idea of emulating the National.   Pine Valley is almost a contemporary..."

"...Here again he was right.   For the National has been much more than just a good golf course:  it has been the inspiration of every great course in this country, though plenty of them will not show a trace of the Macdonald style.   Take MacKenzie's Cypress Point, for example.   Here is a finished product which fits perfectly into magnificent scenery; every hole is a masterpiece and pure MacKenzie.  But Cypress Point would never have been conceived at all if the National had not shown the way."


Now, for Whigham to call Merion a Macdonald/Raynor course is a stretch of Olympian proportions, but if he wants to say it was inspired by CBM's idea of using features and holes from great courses abroad and aided by CBM and Whigham's valuable advice and suggestions at key points in the process then I'm fine with that, although I'm not sure where Whigham thinks Seth Raynor was involved at Merion.


David,

Phew...finally.   My prayers have been answered.

[Jeff_Brauer]

David,

Nice post.  I agree. I think that sometimes, we tend to compress what was a slow event over time into a black and white, this date or that argument.

Surveying and topo mapping had been in use by railroads and other major construction for decades at least.  If it was not applied to golf, it was only because of the relatively smaller budget structures for pure golf courses.  It doesn't surprise me that the early housing courses, like the example you post above, would be the pioneers.  Nor does it surprise me that CBM, with his hire of engineer/surveyor Raynor, would learn to do it that way, since that is probably the way Raynor would have worked. 

We don't know for sure if he started NGLA with topo maps in hand, but as you mention, with his mention of the to Merion as essential on his one day visit in June 1910, we know that somewhere along the way at NGLA, he started to realize their value.

[Tom MacWood]

"The planning of a course is sometimes very easy, especially where there is plenty of good turf and the ground is undulating. In some cases it is possible for an expert to plan out a course on a good map of the ground. The map, of course, must be drawn to scale, and show the exact topography of the ground. On the other hand, there are courses like Bournemouth in England, which was transformed by T. Dunn from a wilderness into a veritable golfer's paradise. It may not be a championship course—the ground would not admit of that-—but it is exceptionally pretty and sporty. Then there is the course of the Ardsley Club, which is one of the finest in the world. When Willie Dunn (America's first open champion) first came to survey the ground it was covered with trees; now yawning bunkers, perfect putting-greens, and every thing that goes to make up a first-rate course are to be seen. It is a lasting monument to his skill and ingenuity."

~~John Duncan Dunn 1901

Also in Horace Hutchinson's 'British Golf Links' (1897) there is mention of using a surveryors map to layout the second nine at Hastings & St. Leonard. Inerestingly Colt was involved at Hastings too.

[Mike Cirba]

Jeff,

From the beginning, I haven't been sure what point Patrick was trying to make with this thread, but now that we know, it's easily disprovable through information that has previously been posted on GCA, as both David and Tom MacWood have shown.

And I think your instincts are right about Macdonald's use of topos...if he didn't use them at NGLA for planning the routing, then why did he suddenly magically forget how to just eyeball it four years later when he told Merion he couldn't even tell them if they could fit a golf course on the open farmland property they proposed buying without a topo map.

While we don't know for certain if CBM used them in routing NGLA, we do know several facts that make it highly likely that he did.

1) Whigham told us that CBM first used Raynor to help him interpret the Topo maps of the holes and features he brought back from overseas in June 1906.

2) CBM told us he used Raynor to first survey the property of Sebonac Neck (which had never previously been surveyed), presumably for both functional as well as property acquisition purposes.   CBM also told us in 1912 that Raynor was helpful in the sale of the property.

3) CBM told us that sometime prior to construction...actually, prior to his giving Raynor his topo plans from overseas and telling him, "...I wanted those holes laid out faithfully to those maps.", he had Raynor make a contour map of the property.

4) CBM later told us that Raynor worked by his side for "3 to 4 years" during this phase of the creation of NGLA.

5) Assuming that CBM first got topos from abroad and then having Raynor make a contour map of the NGLA property, it is reasonable to assume that they would be used in planning the holes, as well as the specific routing and location of those holes.   After all, if one is trying to create three-dimensional reproductions of holes abroad, and goes through the trouble of getting exact maps of those holes and features done, would not one then try to place those holes on a similar "as-is" contour map of the Sebonac Neck property to both enhance natural reproduction of those holes but also to minimize construction and earth-moving costs??   I mean, if not, what was the purposed of getting all of the surveyor's maps from abroad in the first place.   For that matter, what then would be the purpose of asking Raynor to make a contour map of Sebonac Neck if one was simply going to eyeball it anyway?

6) Despite Patrick's protestations to the contrary, we know that the planning process of determining which holes to reproduce as well as their yardages took several months, (as well as create topographically-correct plasticene models of the holes) as CBM was quoted in the December 1906 newspapers.    Construction started in the April/May 1907 timeframe.   If they weren't working with topo maps during that time to plan the holes in detail, as well as determine their specific place in the routing, I'm not sure what they were doing.

[Tom MacWood]

NGLA was routed circa 1906-1907 via topo and lots of field study.

Mike
You might want to edit your previous post to reflect a theory instead of a known fact.

[Mike Cirba]

NGLA was routed circa 1906-1907 via topo and lots of field study.

Mike
You might want to edit your previous post to reflect a theory instead of a known fact.

Tom,

I agree with you.  

In the midst of all the far-flying theories and green ink hypothesizing masquerading as indisputable fact, sometimes it's necessary around here to yell fire in a crowded theater just to be heard.

And, we're all guilty of that at times.

I'll be happy to edit my post, but you may want to edit your post claiming as fact that Crump played no golf at all in 1910.   That's a theory, perhaps even a theory with some good foundational basis, but a theory nonetheless.

[DMoriarty]

. . . sometimes it's necessary around here to yell fire in a crowded theater just to be heard.

And, we're all guilty of that at times.

A perfect metaphor for the kind of asinine and idiotic behavior in which you repeatedly engage around here.   What kind of a jerk would yell "fire" in a crowded movie theatre?  Apparently the same kind of kind of fool who would repeatedly make shit up and endlessly waste our time with sleazy games and misrepresentations. 

And we are not "all guilty" at times.  This is your bailiwick.  You repeatedly propose these ridiculous notions as if they were fact, and you are wrong virtually every time.  Yet you never learn. 

[Mike Cirba]

David,

My lord you are the angry sort.   Rather than address the weight of evidence of Raynor's involvement you simply once again hurl insults, which seems to be your forte and perhaps a specialty of sorts, after all this time.  

The funny thing is the only person you're making an ass out of is yourself, so please, don't let me stop you.

As far as fire in a movie theater, perhaps you should look up "metaphor" in the dictionary.  

More to the point, perhaps you think I'm wrong virtually every time simply because I think you're wrong virtually every time?   It's called a disagreement, and I will continue to state my opinions as well as bring up inconvenient facts despite your repeated bullying on this site.

Certainly in most of these cases where we've butted heads it seems to me to be the rest of the world arguing against the specious theories of you, Tom MacWood, and Patrick.

What does that tell you?

Oh, that's right...you're smarter than everyone else here so I'm sure you can care less what everyone else here thinks.    My bad.

[Jeff_Brauer]

I got to thinking about this on my way home from my meeting today.

What are chances that the first use of topos in golf course design was really some park district course where they had engineers on staff and used topos for surrounding parks (think Van Cortlandt Park and Bendelow) or perhaps some British military guy laying out a course somewhere in the empire? 

Pretty strong, IMHO, that it is somebody lost to history, rather than the big names we favor discussing here.  However, its still a valid discussion concerning which of the big time architects started using them and how.  But architects got their starts from such disparate sources that I still believe if told, the story would be much more complicated than "PV (or NGLA) was the absolute first to use them.

And then, we could argue about just how they used them.  For instance, at NGLA, its possible the basic land selection and maybe routing was done pre Raynor Topo, but for matching and recreating features, that the topos were used, while in other places, as TMac points out, experts laid out a course on paper without ever seeing the land, thus some might have routed first, but had nothing to do with feature building, and others might have fleshed out features first but routed in the field.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Patrick,

Please show us where Whigham said CBM designed Merion.
I'll bold it in red for you below.  

After CBM's death in the later 1930s, almost thirty years and several iterations of that golf course later, and three decades after setting foot on the property for the last time prior to construction, Whigham wrote;

Mike, you can't offer these writings as "proof positive" in one of your replies and then reject them in another because they're 30 years removed.
You can't have it both ways.

The Macdonald-Raynor courses became famous all over America.  

Among the most famous are Piping Rock, the Merion Cricket Club at Philadelphia,[/color] the Country Club of St. Louis, two beautiful courses at White Sulphur, the Lido (literally poured out of the lagoon), and that equally amazing Yale course at New Haven, which was hewn out of rock and forest at an expense of some seven hundred thousand dollars.  

Now, for Whigham to call Merion a Macdonald/Raynor course is a stretch of Olympian proportions,

That's your misguided opinion.
Earlier, you accepted the words in Whigham's eulogy as "proof positive, but now, since those same words undermine your position, you want to reject them.
You can't have it both ways.   Whigham wrote that Merion was a SR-CBM golf course.  That Whigham stated/wrote that is irrefutable

but if he wants to say it was inspired by CBM's idea of using features and holes from great courses abroad and aided by CBM and Whigham's valuable advice and suggestions at key points in the process then I'm fine with that,


But, that's NOT what he said, he didn't say that Merion was "inspired" by CBM, he clearly stated that Merion WAS a SR-CBM golf course.

YOU are the one that wants to distort what Whigham stated because his comments are "proof positive" that SR-CBM designed Merion.
You now want to twist what he clearly stated because his statement is a direct contradiction of your position.

although I'm not sure where Whigham thinks Seth Raynor was involved at Merion.

I'm sure that Whigham was far more familar and knowledgeable about Merion than you are.
Afer all, you're 100 years removed from the creation of Merion, whereas Whigham was there, side by side with Macdonald at Merion, before, and after it was built.

I'll take his word over yours when it comes to Merion.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Patrick,

What have all these arguments been if not everyone picking what makes sense over some other account?

Why do some argue that the Alan Wilson interview of the Merion committee cannot be trusted because it was ten years after the fact, but Whigham can be trusted 30 years after the fact, "because he was there?"

Why have some argued that newspaper accounts should trump actual club minutes in some cases and not others?

Or that Tillie's writings are more of a legend than someone else's?

Its all a bad game between the usual parties.  And repeating Mikes posted articles, your green type, TMac's logic or David's uber parsing of words doesn't actually make this a real historic debate, does it?  We all pound our chest trumpeting that we know who said what, who is not to be believed, etc.  However, green type doesn't necessarily make it so, no matter what shade, or how many times you post it.

I am sure we could all point out examples of others wanting to "have it both ways."  At one time, it seemed people on this site actually looked for at least one piece of corroborating evidence.  As far as I can tell, regards Merion, HJW doesn't have the corroborating evidence, seeing that Raynor's name is mentioned no where else in any record.