What did "to lay out" or "laid out" mean at the beginning of the 20th century?

[JESII]

David,

These paragraphs suggest it was used both ways...no?

From Mike Cirba:

 
"On our return, we re-arranged the course and laid out five different plans.  On April 6th Mr. Macdonald and Mr. Whigham came over and spent the day on the ground, and after looking over the various plans, and the ground itself, decided that if we would lay it out according to the plan they approved, which is submitted here-with, that it would result not only in a first class course, but that the last seven holes would be equal to any inland course in the world.  In order to accomplish this, it will be necessary to aquire 3 acres additional."
 
“Whereas the Golf Committee presented a plan showing the proposed layout of the new golf ground which necessitated the exchange of a portion of the land already purchased for other land adjoining and the purchase of about 3 acres additional for $7,500, and asked the approval of this Board, on motion."
 

[DMoriarty]

Jim,  I think on occasion it was used both ways, or the uses were confused, but I am not so sure this is a great example.   I think they came back from NGLA and went out to the course and tried to implement what they had been discussing at NGLA, and they marked off five different alternatives of whatever they had come up with at NGLA. Then CBM and HJW came back down to Merion and went over the land again and looked at the various alternatives and came up with a plan that worked out of the various options.  

In other words, this was Merion's effort to go from ideas on paper from NGLA to arrangement on the ground in Merion.   CBM and HJW had been over the land before, but the planning they did with the Committee at NGLA was necessarily on paper, and Merion had to see how that worked when they tried the arrangement on the ground back at Merion.  Walking around the land at Merion staking out different options is very close to the traditional meaning of to lay out a golf course.  But they hadn't yet decided on the final arrangement.  That would take CBM and HJW to come down and work it out on the land itself.  Once they did this a final plan, or "proposed layout" was chosen and/or created, and that plan was submitted to the board to show them how the actual course would be laid out, or how the course would be arranged.

There was a back and forth going on between planning on paper, and working out the arrangement on the land itself.  

[JESII]

Then why would they say they "laid out five different plans" and that 'CBM/HJW looked over the plans AND the ground itself"?

If those five plans were on the ground why the need to also look over the ground itself?

[DMoriarty]

That is a good point Jim, and honestly I don't know what Lesley meant exactly. I don't think anyone knows exactly.  

But what he said was "On our return, we re-arranged the course and laid out five different plans . . . "  "Rearranged the course" sounds like they are rearranging the course on the ground.   And he doesn't say we "laid out five different courses," he says they laid out five different plans.   So he may be using it differently here, but is talking about plans, not layouts or golf courses. The object seems important.  Perhaps one can lay out "a plan" for a golf course on paper, but a golf course must be laid out on the ground.  

But whether ultimately represented or the ground, on paper, or on both, I think that those at Merion returned from NGLA and tried to work out what they had learned at NGLA on the ground at Merion, exploring different possible options for the arrangement.  Agreed?

[JESII]

I thought you didn't want to go down that road???

As for me, I'm always open to this battle...

So, that said...yes. I've always believed it was too rigid an interpretation that because Lesley (or whoever?) didn't specifically say they were working on Merion's plan while at NGLA means they were not. They must have been! At the same time, the minutes make it clear they spent alot of the time on the grounds at NGLA looking at hole concepts and how to construct them. I think it's too much of a stretch to assume this means CBM had the holes placed on Merions plans and was showing exactly what he wanted built there.

All the time we've all argued about this and it never occurred to me that the words "re-arranged the course" could be the Francis Swap. What do you think?

[DMoriarty]

Jim,

I don't mind discussing it with you or others who can manage to be reasonable in these discussions.  It is obviously the reason behind this thread, so it is a little difficult to avoid. 

I agree it is common sense that they were working on the layout plan at NGLA.  It would be absurd for anyone to seriously think that in the middle of trying to get the course planned, they traveled to see CBM who had already been over the land, but that they did NOT discuss the plan while there!  Besides, there is plenty of other evidence that they were working on the layout plan at NGLA, including Hugh Wilson's chapter (CBM taught them the correct principles of laying out the golf holes and how to incorporate the underlying principles into Merion's natural conditions.)  And Alan Wilson's specifically acknowledged that they were working on the layout plan at NGLA. Among other things Alan Wilson wrote that CBM and HJW "also had our Committee as their guests at the National and their advice and suggestions as to the lay-out of the East Course were of the greatest help and value."    So we need not speculate to know that they were working on the plan for the layout of the East Course.  [The last highlighted portion is important enough that TEPaul managed to conveniently drop it from his many representations of this passage.]

So when CBM and HJW determined the final plan in April of 1911, it wasn't as if it was the fist time they had seen the land or the plan. They had begun working on Merion's plan to build a golf course at that location since they first were brought in to go over the land and advise Merion the previous summer, and they had been working on the plan at NGLA shortly before they returned to Merion to look at the various options and approve of the plans.
_________________________________________ 

As for the meaning of "to lay out" lets remember that this whole thing started because in my essay I suggested that CBM and HJW were integrally involved in the planning of Merion, and that after the course was planned, Merion construction Committee was responsible for laying the course out on the ground.   I was ridiculed endlessly for suggesting that planning a course could be a separate stage from laying it out on the ground, but Merion's own records show that this is precisely what happened. 

As of April 1911, Merion's Golf Committee submitted a plan to Merion's Board, and CBM and HJW had been integral in creating that plan throughout.  Merion set out to lay out the course according to that the plan finally determined by CBM and HJW.
 
Merion's Robert Lesley, and Merion's Board of Governor's viewed the situation as I did, and their understand of the terms was the same as mine.  Merion would lay out the course according to CBM and HJW's plan.  ". . . if we would lay it out according to the plan [CBM and HJW] approved, submitted herewith . . . . . .Whereas the Golf Committee presented a plan showing the proposed layout of the new golf ground. . ."

[TEPaul]

Since this path has been taken again, the following are my thoughts as well as my hopes and wishes for this particular subject and the path it takes on this DG heretofore. If there is anything at all unreasonable in the following I must say I am at a total loss to see or tell what it could be:




I think Merion East might be a great example, perhaps one of the best early examples, of what-all was meant back then by "laying out" whether on the ground or on a pre-construction or even pre-routing topographical contour map or BOTH simultaneously.

Why do I say this? Because first of all Merion East in 1911 is the first golf course I'm aware of where it can be virtually proven that the architects were using a topographical contour map to route and create golf holes (although it has not been found in many, many decades there is ample evidence from numerous sources that it was produced at the time the Wilson Committee got going with attempting to route and create a golf course at Ardmore).*

Furthermore, with Merion East this assumption or supposition that the course had been routed in 1910 by Macdonald/Whigam and Horatio Gates Lloyd and Richard Francis, both of Merion, (to wit; see the conclusions of the IMO piece "The Missing Faces of Merion") at least to anything close to the routing and course that was actually approved on April 19, 1911 and created in 1911 is simply that----an assumption or supposition---- neither of which has come close to being proven or shown to be credible by actual contemporaneous facts or evidence. However, even given the foregoing, I see the author of that IMO piece is still trying to suggest such a thing on this thread.

This author has stated on numerous preceding threads on Merion and again on this particular thread (four years after the IMO piece was placed on this website) that he does not want to digress and reargue old points!

And why not? Is he afraid someone or something will appear in the form of a credible argument that will look to others to prove or even suggest his conclusions in that IMO piece to be incorrect?

At the very least he should list for this website the documents and historical assets he DID NOT HAVE when he produced that IMO piece in 2008!! I think they are extremely important because they state things that were contemporaneous to the time period he was writing about that he was clearly not aware of when he wrote that IMO piece. I would even venture to say that if I had what he did when he wrote that piece (an unfortunately limited and incomplete amount of contemporaneous documents and information), I too may've come to some of the same conclusions he did in that 2008 IMO piece.

But more was found and produced later that bears very directly on this story and on the attribution of the architecture of the course. Did Macdonald and Whigam aid and assist Merion (MCC) in this project? Yes they did and the MCC records state what they did do for MCC. Do any Merion (MCC) documents state at any time that Wilson and his committee merely constructed the golf course to Macdonald/Whigam's (Lloyd and Francis) routing and design plans (or HH Barker’s) as that IMO piece assumes and concludes? No they do not---not at any time or in any place in any of the contemporaneous records; again, all they state is that CBM/Whigam aided and assisted MCC and the Wilson Committee with their plans on two separate occasions---eg late June 1910 to discuss the potential of the Ardmore site for a golf course and on April 6, 1911 to essentially go over the five different plans the Wilson Committee had developed at that point.

And what about the Wilson Committee trip to NGLA in the first half of March 1911? The committee report to the Merion Board meeting of April 19, 1911 states clearly what they did with Macdonald and Raynor during those two days at NGLA and it says nothing at all that I've ever been able to see about them spending time up there developing the routing or design plans for Merion East. They certainly may’ve done so but the fact is the best contemporaneous report (the committee report to the Board meeting of April 19, 1911 in which the committee submitted a proposed routing (design?) plan to be considered and approved by Merion’s Board of Directors) just does not state that or anything like that (interestingly it does state what they did do at NGLA the first evening and the following day. Another document by Wilson to someone else also elaborates on their discussion on agronomy while at NGLA in early March 1911).

I would like to see the author of that IMO piece (The Missing Faces of Merion) at least state and admit here and now that when he wrote that piece he did not have at his disposal a number of very important documents and information that bears directly on this story and attribution;

1/  That seminal letter Macdonald wrote to the Merion Site Committee in June 1910 that clearly states he could not say much without a topographical contour map and that it was up to the Committee to find eighteen classical golf holes on that site.

        2/ The Committee report to the Merion Board on April 19, 1911.

Since he did not have those important documents, (and a number of others that were found by others and revealed later which can be listed subsequent to this), when he wrote that IMO piece in 2008 it certainly appears to me he has tried for the last four years to sort of back his original assumptions and conclusion into the discussion of this subject apparently only for the purpose of somehow trying to defend those assumptions and conclusion in that IMO piece. Perhaps the most humorous and ironical example of him trying to defend his IMO piece’s assumptions and conclusion at all cost, is when he actually stated on this website after being shown what that committee report to the Board Meeting of April 19, 1911 actually said-----eg. that what it actually said and meant was not what everyone who was ever aware of it or read it thought it said and meant-----and further to that-----that it took him (the author of that IMO piece) to interpret it properly and to finally explain to everyone almost a century later what it actually did say and mean!!


There are a number of other important documents and information the author did not have when he wrote that IMO piece in 2008 but the first two above would be a good start for an intelligent and accurate discussion on this subject going forward. It would be a good start at least if he would admit he did not have those two documents listed above and what they said and revealed that he was unaware of when he wrote that IMO piece in 2008. With a good new start like this one here, we can go on and list some other important documents and information from MCC's archives he did not have when he wrote that essay and what not having them may’ve meant to his assumptions and conclusion in that IMO piece.

I just cannot see why this exercise would not be a good one to go through for all interested in Merion which seems to be a lot since this subject certainly has been the most notable one GOLFCLUBATLAS.com has ever generated.


One way or another, and whether on GOLFCLUBATLAS.com or on some other entity, this is going to be revealed and discussed and this is a good time to start with the US Open year of Merion about to happen.





*The first provable example of a topographical contour map I have ever actually seen that was used in the development of a routing and the creation of golf holes is ironically Pine Valley. However, it certainly sounds to me as if Macdonald/Raynor were using one in 1906 or 1907 with the routing and hole development of NGLA but it also has not been found. It also sounds to me like they were using one with the routing and design development of Piping Rock which may've begun as early as 1910 and at least by 1911 (from CBM's book). Frankly, after just reviewing Macdonald's book for about the hundreth time it seems he suggested that with all other courses he was involved with following NGLA (every one of them with Raynor) he used a topographical contour map from the very beginning of each project! Others have claimed various courses before this that may've used this type of topographical contour map to route and design a golf course but as far as I can tell it has never been actually PROVED to be the case as with Merion East and Pine Valley and/or BEFORE them.

[DMoriarty]

Jim and others,    I am not going to waste my time with this guy.  There is so much misinfornation and inaccuracy in that last post I wouldnt even know where to begin. He's got some sort of irrational obsession about this stuff and/or me. I tried to leave him be when Ran allowed him back on, but it he has made it readily apparent he hasn't changed a bit and is here for more of the same old nonsense.
--------------------------------------------------

Jim you asked about the Francis swap.  I think that, given the discussion which follows, the rearranging more likely involved the 3 acres behind the clubhouse.  The rr owned that land but remember CBM had suggested acquiring more land by the proposed clubhouse.

[TEPaul]

"All the time we've all argued about this and it never occurred to me that the words "re-arranged the course" could be the Francis Swap. What do you think?"



Jim:


It didn't? My Goodness!

One really does need to look at this story of Merion East between 1910 and 1912 and every single event and the correct timing of them all to begin to put the story and its logical sequence togther accurately.

I have always hated the idea of some on here diverting and diverging into discussions and arguments of various scenarios about Merion East under the guise of----"it's possible," "Is it impossible,?" or qualifiers such as "as far as I can tell," "it seems likely," etc, etc.

I think the best thing to do with a subject like this one is to pretty much just deal with some of the facts of the time that can be considered fairly unimpeachable and just go on in the analysis from there.

Frankly, to me none of this would've been particularly important or interesting had David Moriarty in that IMO piece (The Missing Faces of Merion) NOT come to the conclusion with what he claimed to be a good deal of assurance that for various reasons Wilson and his Committee did not, and furthemore could not have, routed and designed Merion East, and further to that------that the fact is they merely constructed the course to someone else's plan.

To this day, and for four years after the fact, he seems to be still trying to maintain that conclusion. I think sufficient evidence has been produced following his essay to render that conclusion of his somewhat ridiculous! So for some time now my feeling and my question has been----Why can't he just admit it? Is it really so very hard for him to admit his initial conclusion that Wilson and Committee did not and could not have done other than just construct Merion East to someone else's plan, is simply incorrect, historically and otherwise? This is why I would encourage him to begin to first admit and then discuss what he did not have when he wrote that piece and what not having it may've meant to his assumptions and conclusions in that IMO piece.

If his reasoning from here on out gets to the point where he can admit that Wilson and Committee routed and designed that golf course with enough aid and assistance from Macdonald and Whigam that lead the club and others, including Hugh Wilson, to thank them for it as they did back then, then I think we all can be in agreement on this entire subject, and hopefully put the whole thing to bed.

I do understand that MacWood found an article or two back in Feb 2003 that said Macdonald and Whigam aided and assisted MCC with Merion East. He said he had not been previously aware of that and he started a thread at that time asking what that meant in virtually a hole by hole context. We told him we did not know because that kind of detail is rarely if ever recorded on any project.

Merion has always known that Macdonald and Whigam aided and assisted them with Merion East in 1910 and 1911 and they actually recorded that fact in their files and meeting minutes at that time. Wayne and I have known all about that for a decade and more now. Perhaps Herbert Warren Wind was not aware of that when he wrote what he did about Merion and Wilson and Macdonald etc. that was reported in Tolhurst's 1988 Merion history book. I doubt he did know it or would have. Did HWW spent a dozen years or so researching many of the details of Merion as Wayne and I did, particularly Wayne? If anyone has ever done previously with the details of Merion's architectural history what Wayne did in the last dozen years or so, I can tell you right now Merion GC has NEVER been aware of it or who that might have been!

 

[DMoriarty]

Ah yes.  Those two knew it all along.  Really.  Never mind all that they have written on here and elsewhere over the years.

What a farce. This is all just an embarrassing plea for attention.  

[TEPaul]

David Moriarty:

Please read or reread your #57, particularly its first part, very carefully---and then please reread your #59. When you've done that please try to consider, also very carefully, who seems to be acting irrationally on here and now.

This is only a subject on golf course architecture and the history of the architecture of a significant golf course that I've been involved with for years. I care very much about it and have for years and I want to see this history explained correctly, even with those who have questioned it. As you know, I've known literally hundreds of people over there for years and they would like to see it explained accurately too. I am not interested in defending or perpetuating myths or mythology about the history of Merion or Philadelpia golf architecture and golf architects, as it seems I've been for so long accused on here of doing. I'm interested in the truth no matter from where it comes and I certainly do know Merion GC is as well.

It is not so hard to have a decent and intelligent discussion on here about this subject, even with me, as you apparently seem to think it is.

We can do this, and frankly Ran Morrissett would like to see it done too-----otherwise he would not have asked me to do the Feature Interview I just did, and he would not have asked me some of the questions he did about Merion, and encouraged me to answer them in more detail than I at first imagined. He did tell me, and he will confirm it, that he thinks I know more about the subject than anyone, with the exception of Wayne Morrison.

We can do this, David----all you need to do is just say---GO.

After all the lead-in to your IMO did say you wanted to learn as much about the history of the architecture of Merion East as you could. I assume you actually meant that back in 2008 and that it still holds true today.

[DMoriarty]

Reread your last few posts.  Inaccuracies abound.  Misrepresentations abound.  You manage to misrepresent my IMO, the history of Merion, and even your own past understandings of what happened and what didn't happen.  You even have the nerve to suggest that I should admit that I was wrong?  When about all of my major contentions have been proven correct?  You seem to have forgotten that you two seemed to think that CBM's only contribution was as travel agent for Hugh Wilson's all important trip abroad, yet you have the audacity to claim you knew it all all along, and that I should admit my error?   And I am being irrational?

You've had your chance to refute my contentions.  
- For four years you have been hammering away. Longer than that really, as some of my contentions go back to 2006-2007.  
- You promised an essay of your own, but of course you never produced one.  The long hyped "point by point counterpoint" IMO was never forthcoming.
- You promised your "book" would disprove my contentions, yet it does nothing of the sort.  
- You promised that you would prove every one of my contentions to be false, yet most my contentions still stand.
- You claimed that Merion's internal records refuted my contentions. Thanks to the generosity of the Merion Golf Club and the Merion Cricket Club, I now have many of those records that you swore I would never see, and so I now know you your claims about these records were false.   Contrary to your claims, Merion's internal records improve my case.

For example, while I had supposed that CBM and HJW were responsible for the final routing plan, we now know that they actually determined and approved that final plan, and that the plan was submitted to the board as the one they had approved.   As evidence goes it just doesn't get any better than that!   And we know that Hugh Wilson is conspicuously absent from the discussion of the planning in the minutes. This isn't to say he wasn't involved, but the minutes repeatedly focus on the involvement and guidance given by CBM and HJW!  Nothing about Hugh Wilson's plan being submitted.  Lesley presents it as the CBM's and HJW's plan.  They determined it and approved it.  

So what is there to talk about?  You've got nothing new to say.  Nothing to refute what is already established.  No more secret records to misrepresent. You had your chance to refute my claims but the facts were against you.  You can try to keep churning it, but that will change nothing.

If you ever come up with anything worth discussing, and if you can do it without resorting to your old nasty and rude ways, then I'll be glad to consider what you have to say.  But as it is you have nothing to say that I haven't already addressed.  

[TEPaul]

"Jim you asked about the Francis swap.  I think that, given the discussion which follows, the rearranging more likely involved the 3 acres behind the clubhouse.  The rr owned that land but remember CBM had suggested acquiring more land by the proposed clubhouse."



That one was a very tough one to investigate and eventually make clear. Probably one good reason it was so tough to understand was the Board minutes of both the April and May meetings were somewhat unclear about it.

But the way to make it clear was to investigate carefully what happened next.

The additional 3 acres that MCC bought in July 1911 (to go from 117 to 120) did not include the nearly 3 acre parcel behind the clubhouse that CBM suggested in June 1910 that they buy. It included 3 additional acres originally from the Haverford Development Co residential parcels. Don't forget, in Dec. 1910 Horatio Gates Lloyd bought 160 acres from HDC. Lloyd sold 120 acres to the MCCGA Corporation (of which he was also the president) in July 1911.

One oddity of that latter sale was that Lloyd sold the 120 acres to MCCGA Co. in July 1911 for the originally agreed upon price between MCC and HDC of 117 acres. So what about the cost of those additional 3 acres that MCC understood to be $2,500 an acre (the per-acre price put on the HDC residential land by Lloyd and HDC). That's a very good question and one apparently not now completely known. My thought is Lloyd may've just given MCCGA Co 3 acres in some way or just paid for it himself to HDC outside the Lloyd to MCCGA Co settlement (not that rare a practice as I learned in 20 years of real estate sales).

But what about those nearly 3 acres behind the clubhouse that CBM recommended MCC buy and on which part of #12 and part of #13 were originally built? That's a most interesting story. MCCGA Co leased those app 3 acres behind the clubhouse from the P&W Railroad and apparently turned that lease over to Merion Golf Club when it was originally formed in 1942 and after MCCGA Co sold it to them.

My old friend Lew Rawlings (just a wonderful man now gone) who was the "Ghost" of the Lesley Cup (the "ghost" of Robert Lesley) and had also been the president of Merion in the 1970s told me about it at some point. He said someone told him or he noticed that Merion was still paying rent on those app 3 acres behind the clubhouse when he was Merion's president. He wondered how that could be since Lew thought the club had owned that land since 1942.

It turned out they never had owned it so they went to the P&W Railroad who agreed to sell it to them for $11,000. Not a bad deal considering the time that had gone by (1911 into the 1970s) and the price of real estate around there then.

[TEPaul]

"So what is there to talk about?"



David:

Quite a lot actually such as your interpretation of the events you just articulated in that paragraph in your last post that began with, "For example..."


Merion believes they learned quite a bit about the history and nuances of a few of the operations of that time (1910 and 1911) since Capers, Morrison and Dow towards the end of 2008 found those MCC documents buried in MCC's archives where they had apparently been "laying out" (or in the word of MCC's president in 1910 and 1911 "laying off") unseen and unanalyzed for perhaps close to a century.

Merion's interpretations, and mine, of those documents appear to be quite different from your interpretation that you just articulated in your last post.

Actually, that is not a bad place to start anew----eg comparing and contrasting your interpretations vs their interpretatoins of those documents and what they mean.

And yes, I am aware all those documents were passed on to you a number of month ago. I have been aware they were going to be given to you since before you got them (that included discussions with both MCC's historian and Merion GC's historian before the fact). That was a most interesting decsion and one that was definitely "nuanced."   I am not going to pretend that some who were aware of it at the time did not agree with it but it was the decision made by the appropriate people and once the decison was made we went along with it without further remark.

[DMoriarty]

Let's please quit pretending that you speak for Merion. You don't.  And let's not pretend you had anything to do with their decision making process. I've been assured by those who actually do speak for Merion that you most certainly do not.   I know better.  So quit embarrassing yourself by acting as if you do.  

Are you really so desperate for attention that you have to pretend to represent a club that has repeatedly disavowed your involvement in their process?  Or are you saying that those at Merion were lying to me when they told me that you do not speak for them and are not involved in their decision making process?  

If MERION would like to discuss my interpretations, I'd be glad to discuss the issues with them.  But you are not Merion, and so I'll not speak with you as their self-appointed surrogate.  Like me, you aren't even a member.

[TEPaul]

"Let's please quit pretending that you speak for Merion. You don't.  And let's not pretend you had anything to do with their decision making process. I've been assured by those who actually do speak for Merion that you most certainly do not.   I know better.  So quit embarrassing yourself by acting as if you do."


David:


I don't speak for Merion and I never have or claimed to have. All I've said on here is a great many of them are friends of mine who I have known for many years. For that reason alone, people like us speak to each other all the time about many things that actually sometimes includes what goes on with the DG of GOLFCLUBATLAS.com. Our actual discussions never really makes it onto the DG of this website and never will. I'm quite sure you might be able to understand and appreciate what that means and why, and if you don't I just can't imagine why you wouldn't.

I have no idea whether I had anything to do with the decision making process of whether or not to give you those documents. If I wanted to find out about that i sure do know who to ask. Does it offend either you or you sensibilities that they would actually mention and discuss some of these things with me beforehand, and if so why would that offend you specifically?   

[DMoriarty]

I don't care what you do.  Speak to whomever you wish whenever you wish.  

But on matters relating to Merion I deal directly with Merion.    So I have no interest in your continued attempts to speak for Merion, or  your contentions about what "Merion believes" or about "Merion's interpretations" of anything. From past dealings I have found that such representations from you were far from accurate and were not to be relied upon.  

As for your personal opinions, I have no interest in those either.

[TEPaul]

“But on matters relating to Merion I deal directly with Merion.”






David:



As I've told you many times, including again on my last post, I do not speak for Merion---I speak only about what I know of the history of Merion and its architecture. That comes from knowing many people from the club for about thirty five years and working with its historians on the history of its architecture for about the last dozen years.

If you deal only directly with Merion on matters relating to Merion then why did you write "The Missing Faces of Merion" and put it on GOLFCLUBATLAS.com rather than just giving it to Merion or just dealing directly with Merion before writing it or putting it on this website?

About speaking with others about your essay, the following is what you prefaced your essay with:


"In My Opinion
The Missing Faces of Merion
A Reexamination of the Origins
of Merion East (1909-1912)
Part One
by
David Moriarty
April, 2008
“Author’s Note. When Hugh I. Wilson first built Merion East, the course was largely a “rough draft.” The core of the course was in place, but the Construction Committee left many of the bunkers and finishing touches to be added later, after Wilson’s further studies and after the course was exposed to the rigors of play. Merion East continues to evolve to this day. I encourage you to look at this essay in a similar light. While by no means a great work like Merion, it too is a work in progress. The core of my thesis is in place, but I hope and expect that my analysis will evolve as I continue to study the topic and as others challenge my ideas. Thank you in advance to those who will read, consider, and constructively challenge the work.”


Did you mean by that preface that you are only willing to study the topic and be challenged on your essay for a limited amount of time? Did you mean after a limited amount of time you figured you would know all there is to know about the topic?  Did you mean there are some you planned to except  or exempt from challenging your essay or that there are some you just planned to avoid? Why would that be? You asked to be challenged on your interpretations on that IMO piece and there are numerous aspects of it that are very much still worthy of challenge.

Various forms of the term "lay out" are used in the contemporaneous records of Merion (MCC) and they definitely do not only include putting something on the ground as you seem to continue to contend.

[paul cowley]

Personally, and for the sake of this discussion, I use the term "to lay out" to describe the process of the placement of a golf hole or a golf course in the field. The " layout" can refer to what was created on the ground or on paper. " layed out" is the past tense of the action of to "lay out".

The only reason I am posting this is to make a distinction between "layed" and "laid".

The first better describes the action of what is done in the field, while the second better describes the action of what is done in a hen house or a brothel.

[TEPaul]

Brad Isaacs, Niall Carlton, Steve Burrows, Jeff Brauer, Rich Goodale, David Moriarty, Pat Mucci, Jim Sullivan, Lester George, Paul Cowley et al:


Thanks for your thoughts on what all the various forms of the term "lay out" meant to those who used it prevalently in the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century.

My thought is that it was essentially a catch-all term that both could and sometimes did refer to all the various phases and processes of golf course architecture back then from planning routings to building the architecture of a golf course.

Do you understand or would you agree that the term we use today-----eg "routing"-----was never used at that time? And if the term "routing" was used back then have you ever seen an example where it was used at that time? As David Moriarty says he has done, I have read literally many hundreds of accounts from those days of the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century and I have virtually never seen the term "routing" ever used in any of those many hundreds of accounts.

Therefore, if the term "lay out" did not also refer to what we know today as "routing," even on a paper plan such as a topographical contour map, then what term do you suppose they used back then for that particular phase or process ("routing") of golf course architecture?

[TEPaul]

"The only reason I am posting this is to make a distinction between "layed" and "laid".

The first better describes the action of what is done in the field, while the second better describes the action of what is done in a hen house or a brothel."



Paulie:

I hope you have shaved very closely this morning because if C.B. Macdonald was still around and read what you wrote above there is no question at all he would try to kiss you very closely on both cheeks!

[Tom MacWood]

Regarding the Merion mystery, unless someone has introduced important new evidence (and apparently nothing new has been introduced) rehashing this over and over again seems like a total waste of time, bordering on insanity. So back to the original point of the thread, and the use of the term 'laid out.' I've read a lot of early accounts dealing with golf course development and I can provide examples where the term clearly means construct, and examples where it means plan, and examples where it means both, and examples where it is unclear what it means.

Here is an example of the latter dealing with the Cobbs Creek project. It's an article from January 1915. In combination with some other evidence, Lesley's commendation and later Phila Inquirer article, I read this blurb as design, or perhaps design and construct. Mike Cirba believes this quote clearly means they were in charge of construction. He may be right because at that point overseeing construction was the area Wilson had the most experience.

[paul cowley]

Tom

I've always made the assumption that the noun/term "routing" evolved from the process of discovering/creating a route, or routes, and represented the end product of this action...either on paper or in the field.

The term "routing" must exist in other endeavors and is not solely a golf term...imo.

Not sure when it came into popular use.

[paul cowley]

Tommie...good to have you back...although you might have to rename this thread...its veerin
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[TEPaul]

Paulie:

Indeed this thread is veering----but why wouldn't it since this is my thread? I started it and as you well know I am one of the best and most proficient Veerers extant!

I am not as good a Veerer as my wife though. Walking through a crowded airport with her is virtually impossible due to her constant veering. I was doing it the other day and if I don't keep my eyes on her at all times she will veer off somewhere and there I am standing in the middle of a crowded airport wondering where the hell she has gone this time. She also walks much too fast for me. I mean how many times does one have to call their wife on the cell phone in an airport to ask her where the hell she just veered off to? One of these days I'm just going to go home before we fly. That should fix her virtual-veering vagon!!