"Tom Paul, I think I understand your reasoning regarding the omission of specific details about Macdonald in the H. Wilson report: You believe that Wilson would have written about Macdonald’s involvement had Macdonald been at all involved in the actual lay out of the course.
Yet you have written many times that H. Wilson was apparently silent about all of the specific details of the design process and does not describe anyone’s specific role or contribution in the design process and construction. Plus, you have put great faith in Alan Wilson’s recollection, and he wrote that they were talking about "the lay out of the course" both at NGLA and in Haverford.
Given that Hugh Wilson never described the details of the design process or of anyone else’s specific involvement in the design process, why would you expect that he would have described the specific details of Macdonald’s involvement in the design process?"
David Moriarty:
You THINK you understand my reasoning about the omission of specific details about Macdonald in the H. Wilson report?
No, David, with all due respect, apparently you don't understand it at all.
I have explained on here a number of times that there is virtually no golf course anywhere about which the architect or anyone else for that matter EVER explained in specific detail who did what and where and wrote that down anywhere for the ages to review it. Do you even understand a little bit what i mean by that or what it means? Even a little bit?? If you don't understand what I'm saying then just tell this site what and where that golf course or courses is where the architect or anyone else kept a specific list of who did what and where. I doubt that has EVER happened in golf architecture, so why in the world would you even mention such a thing??
OK, if you are still with me so far, then why do you keep bringing up that it doesn't matter if Wilson didn't mention Macdonald since he didn't mention anyone else in the context of someone or other doing every single specific thing on the course?
The totally obvious point you seem to have completely missed for months now is that both Hugh and particularly Alan Wilson explained in general terms over and over and over again who it was who was COMPREHENSIVELY responsible for laying out, designing and building the golf course.
In those explanations it was always the Committee, the Committee, the Committee, "We" and "OUR" that always referred to THE COMMITTEE and never to C.B Macdonald and W.H. Whigam. Both Hugh and Alan Wilson did say that M&W advised, and I think we now know they probably did that on three occassions only. We've always known that, it was most certainly not you who informed us of that, and we have never mimimized or discounted what that means.
But, on the other hand, we have these reports from the men directly involved every day that mention over and over WHO IT ACTUALLY WAS that layed out, designed and built the golf course and at no time do any of them include Macdonald and Whigam in that stage of it.
My point is that if Macdonald and Whigam had been involved in that part of Merion's creation as the Committee was, I see no reason at all why both of the Wilsons would NOT have MENTIONED THAT in their reports. What reason do you see now, that they never mentioned M&W in that stage but CONSTANTLY mentioned the Committee? We are not talking about "advice" here at this stage---both we and they were talking about ACTUALLY laying out, designing and building those golf courses.
Or perhaps you've been missing that rather important distinction too for the last several months.
You're damn right these reports are incredibly important to understanding the creation of Merion. In what they wrote do you think they were mistaken, do you think they had poor memories, or that they were trying to credit only themselves at Macdonald's expense? Come on David, try to get real here if it is the truth you're really after!
Are you understanding this better now? Because if, at this point, you aren't, I think it is patently clear to everyone who is reading these threads that you just don't want to know the truth of the creation of the Merion courses or else you find it practically impossible to admit it.