Can I stop this merry-go-round for a second and ask a question?
From what I understand (and someone correct me if I'm wrong), when all of these Merion discussions started, it was generally known that Wilson and his committee designed and built the East Course at Merion, the committee was advised by Macdonald and Whigham, and though the advice may have been valuable, it did not warrant design credit.
Despite some interesting new findings, after all these pages and posts and arguments, what has really changed?
Chris,
That's the gist of it, isn't it? David, despite his protestations to the contrary, is here to claim that CB Macdonald was actually the architect of Merion and his motivation should really be apparent now after three months of this back and forth.
It's reminiscent of Marc Anthony after the death of Caesar, where in this case he repeatedly assures us that Hugh Wilson and the Committee are "all honorable men", and that he agrees CB Macdonald doesn't deserve design credit, while all the while spending virtually every waking moment of the past 90 days trying to convince us exactly otherwise.
While David might try to take my words in dissent and say that my "anger and frusration are palpable", I would certainly assure David that he has no reason to worry about my having any acrimonious feelings towards him or his suppositions and that his efforts to paint me as being emotional beyond reason are really pretty transparent at this point.
David would have us believe that CB Macdonald, who created template holes on every single one of "his designs", as well as those of his direct disciples, suddenly and inexplicably decided to teach Wilson and company the "principles" behind the great hole designs, instead of the "templates" that Macdonald himself built course after course after course.
He tell us this while scratching his head over the lack of substantive evidence that any holes at Merion bear any direct characteristics to any of Macdonald's famous template holes. He tells us this while not knowing for certain whether the two holes he cites as possibly having template characteristics; the present 3rd and old 10th, were in the same state in 1912 as they were in 1916, after Wilson's trip to Great Britain. He tells us this while telling us that the features such as the Valley of Sin on the 17th HAD to have come from Macdonald when it's clear that this green was completely rebuilt sometime well after Macdonald had left the scene. Most absurdly, he tells us this knowing full well that every single one of Macdonald's predecessors continued in his vein of building courses chock full of template holes, with CB Macdonald's full knowledge and encouragement.
The obvious question is simply this; if Macdonald had laid out Merion, or had such a HUGE impact on Hugh Wilson as to be the architect by proxy, then why didn't he have Wilson lay out template holes? Or, asked another way, why didn't he insist that Seth Raynor and Charles Banks, who worked directly for him, go find their own original holes that only relied on the "principles" of the great holes, instead of relying on as near exact copies as were possible given the landforms and other restrictions as they did throughout their entire careers? After all, he had another 20 years after Merion's creation to get these guys to see the light.
Of course none of that makes any logical sense whatsoever if Macdonald played a huge role in laying out Merion. Why would it? After all, that wasn't Macdonald's intent, nor was it his standard practice. Instead, I think CB Macdonald's own comments best exemplify his thinking and philosophy regarding course architecture.
"Why not build a golf course emulating the great holes brought out in the discussions?
Why not duplicate these holes? If 18 of the world's greatest holes were incorporated into one golf course, would it not be the finest golf course in the entire world? This would certainly be the ideal golf links."
None of what I have written has been meant to disparage Macdonald's great works in any way. They are simply intended to point out the obvious truth that while Macdonald was greatly helpful to the Committee in helping them to understand great hole concepts, it is a wild leap of logic and reason to conclude that Macdonald himself laid out any of the holes at Merion, created any of the particular features, or had any more than a purely "advisory" role as has been cited by everyone there at the time, all of whom also spoke out clearly over the years that Hugh Wilson was the true architect of Merion.