David & Tom,
Not only are you guys on quicksand in trying to support your positions, but now you're both becoming rather humorless, as well.
If ever a thread needed a dose of levity, this travesty certainly qualifies.
I'm sorry neither of you found Patrick and my retorts about his involvement and "advising" with Sebonack as wryly humorous, and it seems my silly, satirical caricature portrayal of Macdonald's "right hand man" Whigham has raised your hackles Tom. Sheesh...
Let's get serious then. Whigham was a former US Amateur champion, a well respected golfer and sometimes writer, and he likely wasn't the bespacled "yes man" toady that I portrayed in jest. He married Macdonald's daughter at some point, and was generally a man around town in golfing circles in those days. Is that better, Tom?
And David...we all have acknowledged the historical record that Macdonald and Whigham provided some advisory role to the Merion Committee. But, for the 2000th time, you've provided nothing NEW here for us to elevate our understanding or appreciation of exactly what that entailed.
Instead, the only things new here presented were the following;
1) A 1918 newspaper report about Wilson's design at Seaview which called him the architect of BOTH courses at Merion.
2) A 1914 Max Behr article which made VERY CLEAR that Wilson's style of leadership was almost dictatorial, and while he'd consider advice, HE WAS THE ONE WHO CALLED THE SHOTS. He compares Wilson's work at Merion to what Macdonald did at NGLA and what Leeds did at Myopia in terms of course "construction", which is once again very clear in meaning soup to nuts design, features, construction, irrigation, and agronomy. To deny Behr's words suggests to me that both of you have a FAR different agenda than getting to the truth.
3) We have Tillinghast's 1934 article in which he makes very clear, once again, that Wilson was the unsung designer of Merion from the outset. Tillinghast was very familiar with who did what in his hometown and wrote extensively about the early course at the time of it's inception.
Since it appears that neither of you will let this go, I will.
I walk away content in the knowledge that not once during this whole debate did anyone else on this discussion group besides the two of you step forward to defend your position, or claim that either of you have increased their understanding of the origins of Merion, or agreed with you that Macdonald and Whigham have suffered some type of historical slight that now needs rectifying 95 years later.
Instead, I think a lot of folks here rose up to challenge your flimsy assertions, and rightly so. I'm not sure how much of the purely speculative and weightless evidence you've brought forward here is to advance some personal quibbling between the two of you against Wayne and Tom Paul, but it's clear to me that this thread has been so much pointless speculation, personal acrimony, and wasted time.
I'm sorry if that's harsh, but I seriously doubt that I'm the only one who feels that way.