"I don't believe that is exactly what David's essay says. Could you point to the paragraph where he says the course had been planned by M/W...."
Tom MacWood:
David Moriarty said you, Nacarrato, Mucci and Morrisset were the only ones to review that IMO piece before it was presented on here so I would expect you to know what it says, but perhaps you don't. If you don't remember what the essay said you might try reading it again but if that's too much trouble for you, the following are a series of points he made in the essay that infer and contend that Merion East's plan was completed in 1910 and essentially the only responsibility of the Wilson Committee was to construct the course to someone else's plan in 1911.
"While Hugh I. Wilson is credited with designing the great Merion East course that opened in 1912, he did not plan the original layout or conceive of the holes.
Richard Francis and H.G. Lloyd of Merion also contributed to the routing plan. After the course was planned and land finally purchased, Merion appointed Hugh Wilson and his “Construction Committee” to build the golf course.
While the moving remembrance noted that Wilson directed the redesign of Merion in 1923-24, it did not mention what is commonly considered his greatest accomplishment: the initial design of Merion East. Indeed, I have been unable to locate any record to indicate that Hugh I. Wilson actually considered himself the designer of the Merion East. Nonetheless, history has since credited Wilson with the design of the course, a remarkable feat considering that Wilson had no design experience at the time.
Or so the story goes. But as is often the case with creation stories, this one is a blend of myth and reality. In reality, Wilson neither planned the routing nor conceived of the holes at Merion East. The course was planned months before Merion even appointed Wilson and his “Construction Committee.” Wilson and his Construction Committee were not appointed to design the course or conceive of the holes, but were to do what the name of their committee implies, construct the golf course. They laid the course out on the ground and built it according to plan.
Finally, while the original routing plan for Merion East may never be located, we can piece together enough of the early history to know that H.H. Barker sketched the first routing plan, but it may have been superceded by C.B. MacDonald and H.J. Whigham, who played a major role in planning the course. Richard Francis and H.G. Lloyd also contributed.
Francis and Lloyd had been fine-tuning the layout plan before Merion secured the land. Francis described his epiphany as having occurred while he was looking over a “map of the property.” He also noted that the land Merion gave up “did not fit at all in any golf layout.” So by this time the planning process was well underway, and the “swap” allowed them to better fit the last five holes into the plan for the routing. “It was not very difficult to get the first 13 holes into the upright portion – with the help of a little ground on the north side of Ardmore avenue – but the last five holes were another question.” The Francis land “swap” allowed them to complete the routing plan. All before November 10, 1910. So, by mid-November 1910, the layout had already been planned.
The Committee’s trip to NGLA probably occurred in January of 1911, the same month Merion finalized the purchase of the land and appointed the Construction Committee.
According to Merion lore, Wilson traveled to NGLA to meet with Macdonald, and then studied the great courses overseas, and then designed and built Merion East. This makes for a great story and helps explain how a complete novice with no prior golf course design experience could have designed one of the greatest golf layouts in history, one that seamlessly incorporated many of strategic underpinnings of the great courses abroad. But it is most likely mistaken.
1. Merion already had a routing plan. Francis had been putting the finishing touches on the layout plan months before, when he resolved the routing issue.
Another source of the legend may have been a letter written by Alan Wilson 1926, not long after Hugh Wilson’s unfortunate death. The letter was apparently written to a member who was planning to write a history of Merion, and in it Alan Wilson makes the case that his recently deceased brother deserved the lion’s share of the credit for the architecture on both of the courses, at least in comparison to the other members of Wilson’s Committee. He also wrote the course was “homegrown” and designed by the committee without out the help of an outside architect. But he did exempt help that had been provided by those “two good and kindly sportsmen, Charles B. Macdonald and H.J. Whigam, the men who conceived the idea of and designed the National Links at Southampton.” As was discussed above, even Alan Wilson acknowledged that these two men Alan Wilson were a great help. Tom Paul posted an excerpt of the letter on the Golf Club Atlas website in a post that was long ago deleted.
Alan Wilson wrote, “the land for the East Course was found in 1910 and as a first step, Mr. Wilson was sent abroad to study the more famous links in Scotland and England.” Alan Wilson’s version directly contradicts Hugh Wilson’s own account of the timing of the trip, and is not supported by any contemporaneous evidence. While the course may have been found in 1910, this is only part of the story. As is explained above, the routing was planned in 1910 as well. This was before the land had been purchased and before the Construction Committee had been appointed. Moreover, as a “first step” Wilson did travel to study the great golf holes, but it was not overseas, but rather to NGLA to learn from Macdonald and Whigham. The actual overseas travel would come later.
The mistake regarding the relative timing of Wilson’s study trip might have been born from the ambiguous then mistaken newspaper accounts, all written after the course opened; or the misinterpretation of Hugh Wilson’s mention of the trip in his 1916 essay; or the inaccuracy in his brother’s quick coverage of the issue, written fourteen years after the fact; or a combination of these.
But another factor may have been that, there is an element of truth to this portion of the legend. Hugh Wilson did work on the course when he returned from his trip in 1912, and as was described by Far and Sure, he did incorporate some of what he learned overseas into the course. Even more than that, Wilson was surely involved in working out the particulars of the routing plan, as this would necessarily have been part of learning how to build the holes from Macdonald and Whigham.
So it would not have been a big leap to have started giving Wilson credit for coming up with the routing and hole concepts in the first place, especially if one does not fully understand how significant the routing and hole concepts are to the quality and integrity of a golf course.
Given their extensive involvement in the planning, at least some of the original holes at Merion East should be based on Macdonald’s and Whigham’s concepts for the holes, or at least Wilson’s construction of them. Wilson’s versions of a Redan hole and an Alps hole are good examples of this. These holes were key fixtures in Macdonald’s repertoire, and their existence at Merion is strong indication that Macdonald and Whigham were responsible for at least some of the plan. Further, while my research is far from complete or conclusive, my preliminary analysis of the original holes suggests that other holes and features may have based on Macdonald and Whigham’s view of how the principles of the great holes should be applied in Merion’s natural conditions. In other words, while it may not have looked like it on the surface, the initial version of Merion East may have had Macdonald and Whigham’s concepts at its core. But this analysis is outside the scope of this essay, and will have to wait until another day.
What of Francis’ description of the quarrymen blasting off the top of a hill “a few days” after the land exchange, so that the 16th green could be built? According to Francis’ description of events, the entire matter, from the time of Francis’ late night epiphany to the time the quarrymen blasted the green site, took place within a couple of days. But two separate legal entities could never have completed a formal exchange of titles in a couple of days, especially since Merion’s land was encumbered. Francis’ recollection of the timing of the timing may have been hyperbole, but if not, then it makes sense only if there was no formal land exchange, but rather a change to the terms made before Merion actually optioned the 117-acre parcel in November 1910. And if the hilltop was actually blasted a few days after this alteration, then it was when the Haverford Development Company controlled the land, not Merion Cricket Club. Given Lloyd’s close relationship with both, this seems entirely possible.
While I have no physical record of the letter, it was described and quoted by Tom Paul on the Golf Club Atlas website in a post that has been deleted.
Excerpts from the Alan Wilson article were posted by Tom Paul some time ago on the Golf Club Atlas website, but then deleted.
In or around December 2006, Tom Paul wrote about this longstanding Merion rumor on the Golf Club Atlas website. His post increased my skepticism about the timing of Wilson’s study trip abroad, and sparked by further research into the matter. Wayne Morrison, an expert on William Flynn and a member of Merion, recently claimed on golfclubatlas.com that, according to Hugh I. Wilson’s daughter, Wilson actually had a ticket on the Titanic but was detained, and luckily missed the boat."