Tom;
I think it's obvious that Hugh just had it in for Pickering and his sole purpose in writing this tripe was to diminish Pickering's wonderfully-creative, drunken contributions to the golf course.
His firing a short time after the routing was completed meant that his contributions would be silenced forever. I understand in a fit of rage, and with Wilson standing on the edge of the 17th tee, Pickering came running at Wilson, stumbled, missed, and was never seen again. I believe there was some talk about naming the hole "Pickering's Last Charge", but the Valley of Sin feature at the front of the green made the nomenclature too redundantly obvious.