Why then would his contemporary and good friend, Tilly, state, and this is the quote we both have posted, "It seemed rather tragic to me, for so few seemed to know that the Merion course was planned and developed by Hugh Wilson..."
That certainly seems to imply that most people when asked would not identify Wilson as the designer and therefor at least some of them would attribute it to others. Tilly is clearly setting this record straight.
Also, after requoting the two that I earlier identified, you correctly stated that, "For anyone familar with the architectural history of Merion are these comments surprising? Can we point to these comments as proof Macdonald couldn't have been actively involved? I don't think so..."
Unfoertunately, at least in my opinion, you totally ignore my next post where I quoted Robert White who, "In the December 1914 issue of Golf Illustrated, in the column titled "Our Green Committee Page" he wrote:
"We have said that there are good green committees. But we make the admission mainly for the sake of argument. By far the best work in this or any other country has not been done by committees but by dictators. Witness Mr. Herbert Lees at Myopia, Mr. C.B. McDonald at the National, and Mr. Hugh Wilson at the Merion Cricket Club. These dictators, however, have not been adverse to taking advice. In fact they have taken advice from everywhere, but they themselves have done the sifting. They have studied green keeping and course construction as it was never studied before..."
This quote is very important because there has been considerable suppositions as to how involved CBM was in the creation of Merion.
This quote allows that Wilson had "not been adverse to taking advice" and we know that CBM was an advisor. More importantly though, it quite clearly states that Wilson was a "dictator" who unilaterally made decisions and that his work was considered the equal of the best in the country, including CBM.
More importantly though, at the very time the course was designed and built, at least some people (if only White) considered him the EQUAL to CBM because he, just like CBM, had "studied green keeping and course construction as it was never studied before..."
It seems only reasonable that M&W's advice and influence was minimal because of this. To illustrate the situation, picture ANGC and a man named Roberts... Now picture Roberts as the man who was put in charge of the design of it... Who in their right mind would actually believe that a "committee" put Roberts in charge?
Likewise, knowing that Wilson was viewed in PRINT as being dictatorial over Merion, something that was a VERY bold statement in those days as laundry of any type, dirty or clean, was rarely aired in public, it is only reasonable to conclude that all final decisions were made by Wilson alone with the "committee" giving approval.
Wilson does not appear to be a man who would take much, if any, advice to heart where Merion was concerned...