Sven,
Why the cynicism? Or perhaps there's a misunderstanding. I didn't ask Stuart Bendelow to do anything. I contacted him to see if he had any information to corroborate the single newspaper article that claimed a 1898 Tom Bendelow involvement with John B. Dutcher about laying out a Dutcher course. Stuart did not have such information (apparently, Tom Bendelow did not leave any substantial information about his course work). He told me that he has not included Dutcher in his list of Tom's courses because of the lack of corroboration and because he assumed that it was a private course. When I told him that, per current understanding, it would have been a public course in 1898, he suggested the possibility of including it. I suggested that such would be premature given not only the lack of corroboration, but the evidence I had found which suggests a 9-hole Dutcher course opened in 1901 was laid out by Val Flood. Stuart agreed. I told him I would include the possibility of a Tom Bendelow involvement in the research I am doing about the evolution of the Dutcher course.
With respect to the evolution, I have not yet found contemporaneous evidence (including in my own search for Bendelow information). What I have found is that the currently published information about the original 3-hole private course of 1885 and it becoming public in 1890 is based largely on information provided by a past village historian who died in 1975. I have engaged the former president of the Pawling Historical Society. He has offered to search society archives and town records for the following:
-- The records/papers/notes of the deceased town historian
-- The existence of any personal or family papers of John B. Dutcher
-- The existence of any records of the Pawling House Hotel with which the Dutcher course was associated.
This work has been delayed by Covid-related unavailability of access to society and town buildings, as well as by the effects of a recent storm. I will keep you and this site informed as progress is hopefully made. (By the way, I believe I have exhausted possibilities obtainable via the Internet, multiple digital newspaper archives, and contemporary golf publications.)