Not sure why TEPaul is trying to hijack this thread or trying to make it about Shinnecock, or about my research. However, for the sake of historical accuracy, I need correct a few of his misrepresentations. He wrote, "It appears that Shinnecock did not have a professional in 1893 or since the departure of Willie Davis in 1892 until Willie Dunn came to the club in 1894" and "According to Shinnecock [Dunn] did not come to Shinnecock until the end of 1894."
1. "According to Shinnecock?" So far as I know Shinnecock has taken no position on the matter, at least not on this website. TEPaul seems to be posturing as if he speaks for "Shinnecock" as if that gives his words authority, but the reality is he is speaking only for himself.
2. Multiple contemporaneous accounts leave no doubt that Willie Dunn was engaged as the professional at Shinnecock in 1893. I've posted multiple articles documenting this, and on multiple occasions.
3. Even W.D. Davis (apparently somewhat of a rival of Dunn's) acknowledged that Dunn was engaged at Shinnecock during the 1893 season. They played a publicized exhibition match in 1893 while Dunn was engaged at Shinnecock!
4. Contrary to TEPaul's claim, W.F. Davis was NOT the professional at Shinnecock Hills in 1892. According to Davis himself he was the professional at Royal Montreal from 1881 until he was engaged by Newport in early 1893: "Before coming to Newport I was engaged with the Royal Montreal Golf Club, Canada; to which club I went out from Hoylake, in 1881."
5. Davis did spend a few weeks at Shinnecock in or around August 1891* during which time laid out Shinnecock's first course of nine holes and taught potential members how to play. (The club had not yet formally been created.) I have seen NO evidence that was employed by Shinnecock in 1892, or that he expanded the course to 12 holes. Reportedly, the course was still 9 holes in 1892, the same nine holes as Davis had laid out the summer before.
6. TEPaul claims that Shinnecock had no professional between Davis and Dunn, but it was reported in 1892 that Shinnecock had engaged a professional by the name of John Cuthbert from St. Andrews for the 1892 season.
In other words, much of what TEPaul has written about early Shinnecock is factually incorrect, at least if the previously posted multiple contemporaneous accounts are to be believed. I have no idea why he would continue to make claims that have repeatedly been shown to be false, or why he would throw a bunch of disproven stuff about Shinnecock into a thread about Chicago Golf. I may live on the West Coast, but even I am aware that Shinnecock is not in Chicago.
Now hopefully we can return to discussing Chicago Golf.
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* Added later: I forgot to mention that for those few weeks in the summer of 1891 Davis was reportedly on loan from Montreal to Shinnecock. They wanted him to come down for a few weeks to introduce them to golf and to lay out a course, and after he did so he returned to Montreal.