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I've read the report from Carr and Smith, I don't believe there is any mention of any postive outside influence throughout that document. The only mention of Colt is his ill advised position for the second green. No mention of Tillinghast (or Travis)."
Tom:
Wait a minute. That hole by hole document from both Simon Carr and William Poultney Smith that’s been referred to as “the remembrances” may not mention outside influences nor anything from Colt other than what you refer to as the ‘ill-advised position of the 2nd green’, and there may be no mention of Tillinghast or Travis in those remembrances from those two men, but we must look at that document for what it is, for the reason it was written, and what it means regarding the creation of PVGC and Crump and what was going on out there. After all these two men are by all accounts Crump’s two closest friends and the two who knew best what he was doing and thinking at any time with the course and what he wanted and intended to do with it in the future. Are you now saying we should minimize or discount their hole by hole “remembrances” because we don’t like what either says or doesn’t say about Colt or Tillinghast or Travis or anyone else?
Those remembrances were used as the basis on which the 1921 Advisory Committee made their decisions on how to complete the golf course and on how to make decisions on the very comprehensive hole by hole recommendation report by Hugh Alison for the 1921 Advisory Committee. That document was used so the club could best understand what George Crump would’ve done had he not died suddenly and left the total void in the club and with the completion of the course he did.
For some reason you seem to be haning on to some notion that the fact that Crump shot himself created some massive and sudden sea-change in the way the club looked at Crump and at that point decided to massively glorify what he'd done and to simultaneously minimize what anyone or everyone else had done. I don't think so. I think it was simply a recognition that he was gone suddenly, and that they needed to proceed as best they could by trying to understand what he wanted to do and would've continued to do if he hadn't died suddenly. I don't think that's a far-fetched interpretation at all and certainly does square with what-all had been written about him and the course as it slowly came together before he did die suddenly.
I don’t know if you actually have a copy of that document but Carr’s “remembrances” may’ve been compiled by him on a hole by hole basis following Crump’s untimely death but Smith’s are in the form of a chronicle or diary as we can see that his remarks on most every hole have a date on each. The dates on Smith’s hole by hole remarks begin May 9, 1915 and end October 10, 1917 (three months before Crump’s death). This is probably the best and closest thing to an ongoing chronicle or diary that exists of what went on out there with Crump, what he was doing, what he thought, what he intended to do on any hole as Crump himself never wrote down his own feelings and ideas for the golf course---ever.
Carr’s remembrances which are remarkably similar to Smith’s (despite the fact it’s been said they were asked to write them independently) as to what Crump really may’ve wanted to do were a good deal of the point I made last year about what really was going on out there following Colt’s departure and particularly following the article Carr wrote in Golf Illustrated three years before Crump died. That fairly comprehensive article by Carr in Golf Illustrated is what you and Paul Turner have pointed to as an accurate indication of what Colt’s contribution was. And now you’re saying that Carr’s “remembrances” mention no positive outside influence, nor Colt? That article by Carr in Golf Illustrated has always been part of the PVGC record and archive, obviously even before Crump died!
The entire point of those “remembrances” was so the club could better understand what Crump had been thinking and doing in those ensuing three years most every day on the golf course and particularly what he intended to do with the golf course had he lived. That document was obviously not intended to be some record of who did what three or four years earlier---again that magazine article and numerous others of them, particularly from Tillinghast and Phila. Inquirer reporter Evans was there as evidence of that time and that contribution. That document was intended to better understand how Crump felt about any particular part of the golf course in the ensuing years following 1913, 1914 and 1915, and what he would have done with any part of it beyond Jan 18, 1918, the day he died.
Please don’t tell me you are now implying that W.P. Smith, and particularly Father Simon Carr, the very man who wrote that Golf Illustrated article, had decided in the ensuing years to minimize Colt, or anyone else with that document that’s referred to as “the remembrances”? All they were doing was explaining in as much detail as they knew what he had done in those ensuing years on a hole by hole basis, what he felt about every hole and what had been done and what he intended to do. Please don’t tell me you’re tying to imply that even Smith and Carr and perhaps even Crump himself was attempting to minimize Colt or anyone else. If that is what you’re trying to imply I find that to be more than a little depressing, particularly following the interesting article you just wrote about Crump, the man, entitled “Portrait of a Legend”.
We cannot and should not try to fit or force this historical material into what our perceptions or preferences are today of those people back then even if it involves architects like Colt, Tillinghast and Travis, by constantly discounting what material says because we don’t like what it says or doesn’t say about them. We need to just let their words stand on their own.
Those “remembrances” are the best contemporaneous accounts that exist by Crump’s two closest friends who knew him best, who knew the course best and who knew what he felt about it best, and who knew best what he intended to do with it. And as you can see they cover the years that are important too, primarily from 1915 on. What occurred before that, at least from Colt is well documented in that Golf Illustrated article, and by Carr himself. If Smith happened to mention that Crump felt that Colt’s idea on #2 green was ill-advised, I’m afraid we just need to accept that perhaps that’s the way Crump felt about it. If they mention that Crump wanted to change holes #9 and #11 considerably despite the fact those two holes are clearly Colt’s contribution, I’m afraid we just need to accept the fact that Crump felt that way! Do you think Carr intended to minimize what he’d written previously, that was already part of the record---eg that Golf Illustrated article in early 1915? I don’t. I think he and Smith only meant to explain what followed that and how things were constantly changing and evolving on the course because of Crump himself (a point I’ve been trying to make to you for a year or more now), and of course, most importantly for the club, what Crump intended to do and might have done had they not lost him so suddenly.