I don't know if they are the Flynn baskets, but Winged Foot has several upstairs in their clubhouse from when they were used on the course(s).

Neil Regan has info on them.

Wayne,
You may want to see what was happening with wicker baskets in the British Isles even prior to their use in the U.S.  Didn't Wilson get the idea to use them on his tour of those courses.  I'm pretty confident that they had been used over there for quite a while.  The reason was because of the high wind that could literally rip a flag stick out of the hole.  This as you know is one of the reasons some clubs also use shorter sticks.  
Mark

I just thought other people on this site might be interested to know how the idea came about.  Not everyone here has the time to do that kind of research like you and I might.   The basket idea was another example of the influence of wind on the game of golf.  Interesting!

Mark:

Merion G.C. seems to think the idea for the Merion wicker basket flagstick (standard) came from Prestwick G.C. This attribution is due to a painting of Prestwick in 1903 of a young caddie holding a wicker basket flagstick in an international match between Scotland and England while Harry Vardon was putting.

Wayne:

It appears we may own St Germain too.

Mark:

I'm simply telling you where Merion believes the idea came from. I'm sure if Golf House or anyone else knew more than Merion does about this Merion would probably be aware of it.

For your info, that painting I mentioned above of Prestwick in 1903 was apparently discovered by Tony Nickson, an English golf historian in 1989.

Wayne:

If there's any money left over after we've sued the aforementioned clubs I suggest we donate it to a program for luke-warm lunches for hungry Scottish shepherds.

Tom,

You take St. Germain, Winged Foot West and Overbrook.  I'll take SFGC, Winged Foot East and Huntingdon Valley.  We may have to send Connie some royalties just to be fair.

Mark,

Alan Jackson, editor of "Through the Green" and a member of the British Golf Collectors Society asked Merion member Frederick Walden (Walton?) in Dec 1996 about the Merion wicker baskets.  Jackson said that Muirfield had wicker markers in 1899, he thought Stoke Poges might have used them as well.  Apparently in July and Dec 1912 Badminton Magazine there is a photo of 12th green with wicker.

The R and A has a photograph from the 1896 Open at Muirfield and they were using a small basket on a marker stick.  It seems that in 1894 a metal cup was first used to hold a stick.  There was a 1897 patent with a cup and flagstick.

As Tom stated, there is a famous painting of Charlie Hunter standing next to a wicker-top stick at Prestwick.

Oral tradition at Merion seemed to identify Sunningdale as the likely spot where Hugh Wilson would have seen wickers.

Interesting that no one knew of Flynn's patent until John Y and I rediscovered it.

The St. Andrews GC in Yonkers may have used a stick with a wicker liquor container on it but is unclear in an 1888 photograph.

Wayne

I seem to remember that an Atlanta public course that NLE- Southerness- used wicker baskets for a short period of time. Perhaps some of the Atlanta contingent here can confirm this.

Steve

Tom,
Is it possible they were using ones like those Prestwick had?  What were unique about the patented ones?

Mark,

It doesn't matter if they were unique versus the ones in the UK, if there was no patent on them they were patentable, right?  In any case, the details in the patent application covering the basket construction, pole and everything had to be considered unique according to patent law.

Steve,
We've got one of the Atlanta contingent up here now.  I'll ask him this afternoon.  Of course there is a strict limit as to how many Atlantans we allow in Philadelphia at a given time.  I think it is just one  

Tom,

I hope you got your NY lawyers on the phone and are sealing the deal on our ownership of all these properties.  No raters allowed on our courses, right?

Wayne,
If an idea is not patented and has been in the public domain, it is NOT patentable.  The prior art would peclude it.  That is why people file for patents "before" they publish anything.  It is possible that a patent could be issued but overturned later when the prior art was presented.  With the wicker baskets, there was clearly prior art before 1915.  You better hold off on taking ownership of those properties    

I actually hold a patent on a snow shovel design.  If one does a patent search, they will find it.  I never did much with the patent but I still swear by the shovel  
Mark

Tom Doak,

Is there a point of origin as to when flags or other devices were attached to poles to indicate hole locations?  I guess St. Andrews would be the place.

Mark,

Given the incredible detail of the design for the Flynn patent, a wicker liquor container on a stick is not a prior item because it was in a painting or photograph.  If that were the case, if there was a painting of a snow shovel before your patent, you would have been unable to patent it.  Something about your shovel was unique and patentable.  Something about Flynn's golf standard was obviously unique and patentable.