Cobb's Creek Collaborators - Restoration Dreams

[TEPaul]

David Moriarty;

If it is me you are referring to who has not played Cobbs Creek more than you or more than your posts or more than my posts recently on this thread, it is true! I have never played Cobbs Creek. My participation with the Cobbs Creek restoration project which began about four years ago was only organizational and not architectural.

On another, and what I consider to be a very important matter, I see from a number of your posts recently on this thread alone that you have said you would like to discuss on here anything that interests you and you would like to have answers to the questions that interest you.

I feel exactly the same way you do in that vein.

I would like to ask you a number of questions to do with architecture and its history and questions about significant courses and their histories, about which you have already had opinions and have made a number of statements on the DG and in your IMO piece.

Are you willing and able to consider and answer my questions or are you just trying to avoid them because you know you just can't deal with them?

They are not only about Cobbs Creek, they are about a lot of the things you have said on GOLFCLUBATLAS.com over the years.

Can you handle them or are you just going to avoid them because you are unprepared to answer them or because you are just gutless and might be found wanting on some of the things you have said in the past and claimed about the histories of various significant courses?

If, as you have said on this thread, you feel you have every right to ask Cirba and others questions that interest you about what they have written I see no reason at all why you should not answer the questions of others on here about things you have written!

I won't hold my breath but it would be nice and helpful to GOLFCLUBATLAS.com if you would answer some of our questions to you civilly and intelligently.

I promise and guarantee you I will.

[DMoriarty]

Anyone come up with at source material for the claim that Cobb's was the busiest course in the country?   Some of the copies of the old articles in the work are pretty difficult to decipher, so maybe I missed it. 

Anyone . . . ?

[Dan Herrmann]

David,
Most browsers have a cool featured called "Zoom".  It does wonders for helping older people to see small text.

Here's how to do it in Chrome:  http://support.google.com/chrome/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=96810

[TEPaul]

Tom,
 
If you would be so kind, I would appreciate you posting the following;
 
 
David Moriarty,
 
Thank you for your words of support and encouragement in post #1425.   It is greatly appreciated and hopefully we can move forward in any of our dealings with each other in that spirit of discussion and not confrontation.   
 
Frankly, it gets difficult to participate in productive discussion when one is accused of lying and deception, or more euphemistically, disengenousness, as has happened too often in the past.   In that regard, I hope to answer a few of your open questions, and show an example of how those inflammatory words and accusations (by parties on any side of a disagreement) can lead to erroneous conclusions.
 
First, in answer to your question about my contention that by 1940 Cobb's Creek still had the highest number of rounds in the country.  To be honest, I have no idea at present what my source was for that information.   The "book", as it is, never started out to be anything but a collection of the articles and other information that some of us (mostly Joe) had found over time, and the writing of it happened in stages over the past four or more years.   At some point I tried to take this wealth of raw information and put it into some type of chronological order that told some of the story(ies) in chronological order.
 
We wanted to present this information (in hard copy) to various parties we thought would be interested, such as the Fairmount Park Commission, the Golf Association of Philadelphia, the Billy Casper Golf Management Company, the USGA, etc., with the goal of 1) disseminating this information for posterity, and 2) hopefully igniting interest in our restoration efforts.
 
Because we never intended this to be a book for widescale distribution, or something available online, and certainly not for profit, I frankly didn't do a very good job of footnoting and sourcing the various entries as they were collected over time.   Frankly, the book is a bit of a trainwreck in that regards, but we deemed the information it contained as so competlling and valuable for historical and restoration purposes that we don't care too much at this point and I'm certainly not going to go back and try to pull all that together retrospectively.
 
So, as far as the 1940 claim, if I don't recall or find the original source for it I'll delete that statement from future editions.
 
In a similar vein, you asked;
 
As for your post above, as you said all that information is in your work.  I don't think repeating it here addresses Tom's questions or mine. For example, I don't understand how you guys distinguish between someone like Carr, who was also on the committee but gets little credit, and someone like Crump, who is on the same committee but is hailed as if he was one of the designers.
 
My post of yesterday where I chronicled all of the information we had on George Crump's role in one place chronologically was meant to address Tom MacWood's contention that there is no evidence that Crump was involved in the design.   Similarly, I pointed to the evidence from the book to address our mentions of Walter Travis, George Thomas, and Ben Sayers, and indicated specifically what was written about each.   
 
This was in recognition of the fact that not everyone here is inclined to wade through 344 pages of details looking for the information.   Essentially, I felt that Tom's statements were calling my integrity into question, and needed addressing, so I was happy to provide that first-hand evidence which I think points out that 1) Crump was on the Committee charged with locating a site for a golf course in 1913, and subsequently he was put on the design and construction Committee which created a routing of the course in 1914, and journalists mentioning who all were involved in the creation of the course mentioned that Crump (along with others) volunteered to do this "for the love of the game".   I think that's pretty compelling, frankly.
 
To your point, about Father Carr, however, I would agree that we've given him short shrift.   I'm hoping to address that and provide more information about him in a future edition.   Joe had found the articles citing Crump's involvement back some time ago, and when I first found mention of Carr in the GAP Minutes I thought perhaps he had been named to the committee but never participated, as I had no other contemporaneous evidence to include him.   Then, last fall, I looked again at an old, very faded article that I only had a poor hard copy of and noted that the very last paragraph included the members of the committee, which I had never noticed before.   That's the article I subsequently scanned and posted that credits Hugh WIlson with drawing the tentative first plans for the course, but which also includes the members of the Committee including Father Carr.   Then, over the winter, Joe's find from Philadelphia Golfer (the Joe Dey article) cinched it, and as I said, Carr has not been given enough credit in comparison to the profiles we've done of some of the other men involved.
 
Finally, perhaps a little lesson to all of us when we question each other's honest and integrity...
 
Some months back all of us were involved in the silly and pointless imbroglio about whether AW Tillinghast's account of George Crump being able to see that the rolling land which later became Pine Valley was markedly different than the usual flatness of south Jersey.   Patrick in particular stated that this would have been impossible because of the thickness of the trees as well as the speed of the train and the limited view of a passenger on that train.
 
This past winter, without knowledge of the other, both Bryan Izatt and I went to Pine Valley to take photographic evidence of what was visible from those railroad tracks.   Both of us arrived at similar conclusions that 1) The amount of deciduous tree growth was roughly half the forest, and in some areas was the predemoninant growth.   What this meant with the falling leaves and dying away of undergrowth is that it would have been hard to miss the difference of the underlying hilly, sandy terrain compared to the rest of their trip across low-lying plains, and that 2) there is no way that it would have been impossible for someone to make that observation.
 
Patrick's other point was that the train was moving too quickly, and that a passenger sitting facing in the direction of travel would have a very oblique, at best 90-degree view out the side of the train at the passing terrain, hardly enough concentrated time to see the forest for the trees, so to speak.
 
However, this assumption is where the problem lies.   First, let's look at some of the surrounding terrain just off the tracks;
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
I've purposefully tried not to show the pictures I have where you can see long views into the property because to be fair, those areas had trees removed for golf.   And, I guess it's plausible to argue that someone sitting facing the conductor on a coach seat in a passenger train travelling at 70mph might have to be pretty quick and astute to notice differences in topography out their side window.
 
However, I've had this picture of George Crump getting off the train in Atlantic City for some time now and it wasn't until this past winter that I realized something that shows George Crump not only had a side view out his window, as well as out the other side, but also long, dedicated views of the terrain BEHIND him in the distance.
 
Here's the photo, and notice the car that Crump is disembarking from.   Notice it's position at the end of the line;
 

 
 
I did some research on passenger trains of this era, and this is what I learned.
 
[bAn observation car/carriage/coach (in US English, often abbreviated to simply observation or obs) is a type of railroad passenger car, generally operated in a passenger train as the last carriage, with windows on the rear of the car for passengers' viewing pleasure. The cars were nearly universally removed from service on American railroads beginning in the 1950s as a cost-cutting measure in order to eliminate the need to "turn" the trains when operating out of stub-end terminals.[/b]
 
Here is the type of car that George Crump was travelling in, as well as a good indication of the type of view he would have had along those tracks just after Clementon Station.   Although Patrick will likely never admit it, I think everyone else can make their own determinations as to whether Tillinghast's story about Crump's discovery was "impossible";
 

 
Thanks, again,
Mike
 
 
 
 

[Rich Goodale]

Thanks Tom/Mike

More importantly, however, do you see that geezer getting off the train after Crump?  Looks a lot like HH Barker to me........

[Tom MacWood]

In a similar vein, you asked;
 
As for your post above, as you said all that information is in your work.  I don't think repeating it here addresses Tom's questions or mine. For example, I don't understand how you guys distinguish between someone like Carr, who was also on the committee but gets little credit, and someone like Crump, who is on the same committee but is hailed as if he was one of the designers.
 
My post of yesterday where I chronicled all of the information we had on George Crump's role in one place chronologically was meant to address Tom MacWood's contention that there is no evidence that Crump was involved in the design.   Similarly, I pointed to the evidence from the book to address our mentions of Walter Travis, George Thomas, and Ben Sayers, and indicated specifically what was written about each.  
 
This was in recognition of the fact that not everyone here is inclined to wade through 344 pages of details looking for the information.   Essentially, I felt that Tom's statements were calling my integrity into question, and needed addressing, so I was happy to provide that first-hand evidence which I think points out that 1) Crump was on the Committee charged with locating a site for a golf course in 1913, and subsequently he was put on the design and construction Committee which created a routing of the course in 1914, and journalists mentioning who all were involved in the creation of the course mentioned that Crump (along with others) volunteered to do this "for the love of the game".   I think that's pretty compelling, frankly.


Thanks, again,
Mike
 

I don't recall seeing any timeline....here did you post that?

Crump was on the 1913 committee (Wilson, Smith, Crump and Joseph Slattery) tasked with locating a site within Fairmont Park to build a course. They eventually found a site but the project was voted down because there wasn't enough space to build an 18-hole course. So because he was involved with the site committee at Fairmont Park you conclude he deserves co-design credit for CC? Does Slattery deserve design credit too?

[TEPaul]

Tom MacWood:

Mike Cirba said you should refer to Post 1423

[Patrick_Mucci]

Tom,
 
If you would be so kind, I would appreciate you posting the following;
 
 
David Moriarty,
 
Thank you for your words of support and encouragement in post #1425.   It is greatly appreciated and hopefully we can move forward in any of our dealings with each other in that spirit of discussion and not confrontation.   
 
 
 
 
 
 
Finally, perhaps a little lesson to all of us when we question each other's honest and integrity...
 
Some months back all of us were involved in the silly and pointless imbroglio about whether AW Tillinghast's account of George Crump being able to see that the rolling land which later became Pine Valley was markedly different than the usual flatness of south Jersey.   Patrick in particular stated that this would have been impossible because of the thickness of the trees as well as the speed of the train and the limited view of a passenger on that train.

That's correct
 
This past winter, without knowledge of the other, both Bryan Izatt and I went to Pine Valley to take photographic evidence of what was visible from those railroad tracks.   Both of us arrived at similar conclusions that 1) The amount of deciduous tree growth was roughly half the forest, and in some areas was the predemoninant growth. 

IN 2012.

Early photos from the teens, 20's and 30's show far more pines than today's growth. 

What this meant with the falling leaves and dying away of undergrowth is that it would have been hard to miss the difference of the underlying hilly, sandy terrain compared to the rest of their trip across low-lying plains, and that 2) there is no way that it would have been impossible for someone to make that observation.

As I stated previously, if there were no trees you couldn't see most of the property due to the intervening ridges, three of them, that obstruct the view from the tracks looking south.

Your photos below prove that point.
 
Patrick's other point was that the train was moving too quickly, and that a passenger sitting facing in the direction of travel would have a very oblique, at best 90-degree view out the side of the train at the passing terrain, hardly enough concentrated time to see the forest for the trees, so to speak.
 
However, this assumption is where the problem lies.   First, let's look at some of the surrounding terrain just off the tracks;
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
I've purposefully tried not to show the pictures I have where you can see long views into the property because to be fair, those areas had trees removed for golf.   And, I guess it's plausible to argue that someone sitting facing the conductor on a coach seat in a passenger train travelling at 70mph might have to be pretty quick and astute to notice differences in topography out their side window.

I'm glad that you now agree that views would be severely limited and fleeting.
 
However, I've had this picture of George Crump getting off the train in Atlantic City for some time now and it wasn't until this past winter that I realized something that shows George Crump not only had a side view out his window, as well as out the other side, but also long, dedicated views of the terrain BEHIND him in the distance.

Those views would ONLY be available if the individual was sitting on the south side of the train facing the rear of the train.
 
Here's the photo, and notice the car that Crump is disembarking from.   Notice it's position at the end of the line;
 


Also, notice how they're dressed.
It appears rather cold.
 
I did some research on passenger trains of this era, and this is what I learned.
 
[bAn observation car/carriage/coach (in US English, often abbreviated to simply observation or obs) is a type of railroad passenger car, generally operated in a passenger train as the last carriage, with windows on the rear of the car for passengers' viewing pleasure. The cars were nearly universally removed from service on American railroads beginning in the 1950s as a cost-cutting measure in order to eliminate the need to "turn" the trains when operating out of stub-end terminals.[/b]
 
Here is the type of car that George Crump was travelling in, as well as a good indication of the type of view he would have had along those tracks just after Clementon Station.   Although Patrick will likely never admit it, I think everyone else can make their own determinations as to whether Tillinghast's story about Crump's discovery was "impossible";

You've just proved that it's impossible.

Your contention is that Crump, sitting with his back to the front of the train had "improved" views, when nothing could be further from the truth.

When sitting with one's back to the front, the passenger's lateral view is restricted by their ability to turn their neck 90 degrees.
One has to strain to do so.
The normal view is probably 60 degrees.

In addition, one wouldn't turn 90 degrees, because there's no expectation of a view.
Everything in front of the passenger is unknown because the passenger has their back to the view in front of the train.

Sitting with one's back to the front is very disorienting.

Whereas, sitting facing the front allows the passenger to see what's on the visual horizon, what's coming up, hence the passenger can fixate on the object and rotate his view from 60 degrees to 90 degrees and more.

This isn't possible when sitting with your back toward the front of the train.
In that position, everything that can be seen and observed is already past you and as we know, the view directly behind the train reveals NOTHING.

ONLY sharp, lateral and forward looking views would have the hope of observing something.

And as the pictures you posted so clearly illustrate, the land forms block any and all views to the south

Statistically, there's only a 50-50 chance GAC saw anything, for if he was sitting on the north side of the train, he wouldn't see PV but, the land north.
And, if he was sitting facing the rear of the train, which you now claim, his vision would be far more impaired than if he was sitting facing forward.

From the clothes the gentlemen are wearing, we can rule out them sitting on the observation platform on a train in the early morning in the dead of winter traveling at 60+ mph.

So, thank you for further proving my point, that the story is a myth, that observations of the land, as described, are impossible, from a train speeding at 60+ mph, eastbound, in early the morning with the low winter sun in your eyes, looking east, and that if you were sitting with your back to the front of the train, it's even more impossible to see anything laterally, especially when the land forms block any views to the south.

Perhaps now that you've presented your photographic evidence we can now put this myth to rest.

P.S  Bryan Izatt informed me that he visited the site this past year and I correctly guessed that you did as well.

Thanks for finally proving that the story is nothing more than a nice myth.

I knew it all the time.


 

 
Thanks, again,
Mike
 
 
 
 

[DMoriarty]

Mike Cirba,  

Thank you for answering my question about your claim that Cobb's was the busiest course in the country. Or rather, thank you for finally acknowledging that you cannot answer because you cannot find the support either.  I was hoping I had missed it somewhere in the collection of articles but if you say it is not there at least I can stop looking.  Whatever support you once had, I find it highly unlikely that Cobb's was the busiest course in the country in 1940 or anyone other year for reasons explained.  Surely you can see that.  

Honestly, I am having trouble reconciling a few things in your post and they may go to the heart of our methodological differences. You indicated . . .
We wanted to present this information (in hard copy) to various parties we thought would be interested, such as the Fairmount Park Commission, the Golf Association of Philadelphia, the Billy Casper Golf Management Company, the USGA, etc., with the goal of 1) disseminating this information for posterity, and 2) hopefully igniting interest in our restoration efforts.
But then you wrote . . .
Because we never intended this to be a book for widescale distribution, or something available online, and certainly not for profit, I frankly didn't do a very good job of footnoting and sourcing the various entries as they were collected over time.   Frankly, the book is a bit of a trainwreck in that regards, but we deemed the information it contained as so competlling and valuable for historical and restoration purposes that we don't care too much at this point and I'm certainly not going to go back and try to pull all that together retrospectively.

I'm having trouble reconciling the second with the lofty goals of the first.  Maybe my prior profession is influencing my perspective, but it sure seems like your goals require much a more rigorous methodology than the one described in the second quote.  Aren't you trying to convince interested parties like the Fairmount Park Commission, the Golf Association of Philadelphia, the Billy Casper Golf Management Company, and others to devote their time, energy, resources, reputations, and/or potentially millions of dollars in support of your project? Don't you think this endeavor requires accurate, thoughtful, unexaggerated, and correctly sourced information, especially because you are presenting this information as it if were fact?  Likewise regarding your desire to disseminate this information for "posterity."   Shouldn't such information be fully accurate, unexaggerated, vetted, and properly sourced?  

For example, if in your zeal to induce someone to spend millions of dollars on your project you tell interested parties that Cobbs Creek was "in fact" the busiest course in the country in 1940, don't you think you ought to be able to support that claim?  Likewise, if you want to record and distribute this fact for "posterity" don't you think it ought to be accurate?

You yourself acknowledged that most people are not going sift through the back pages of the report.  All the more reason that you cannot oversell anything. The interested parties are relying on you to distill the information and present it in an accurate, unexaggerated, and thoughtful manner.

[Mike Sweeney]

David,

Be careful here please. You are in danger of falling into "Booker territory" here. You almost had a constructive post.

Please stick with the talking points that the campaign has laid out for you:

• Mike Cirba is evil
• Tom Paul is worse
• 933 golfers in one day is impossible
• You are sympathetic to the cause because you lived in Philadelphia
• You support the United States of America, The Olympics and Gil Hanse

Thanks again for making America the greatest country in the universe.

[DMoriarty]

Mike Sweeney, unlike your last few, the vast majority of my posts were intended to be constructive.   Your talking points are a little off:
- None of my posts indicated that Mike Cirba is evil. 
- I know a bit about the course because I lived in Philadelphia and played it several times.
- I support a sympathetic restoration of the course because I think it worth restoring and because, provided the politics works out, Gil and Jim are capable of creating something special there.
- Not a huge fan of what has become of the Olympics, but I am glad Gill got the job.   

[Mike Sweeney]

Mike Sweeney, unlike your last few, the vast majority of my posts were intended to be constructive.   Your talking points are a little off:
- None of my posts indicated that Mike Cirba is evil.  
- I know a bit about the course because I lived in Philadelphia and played it several times.
- I support a sympathetic restoration of the course because I think it worth restoring and because, provided the politics works out, Gil and Jim are capable of creating something special there.
- Not a huge fan of what has become of the Olympics, but I am glad Gill got the job.  

Perfect.

I like how you back off the Mike Cirba is evil comment and threw the evil Olympics under the bus and preserved Gil Hanse. Nicely done. I think the French control the IOC anyway. My bad. The Constitution is in good hands!! Congratulations and thanks for preserving our way of life! Please remember 933!!

[DMoriarty]

Didn't back off anything. Didn't say it or imply it in the first place.  For reasons I don't understand, you are misrepresenting my posts.  

And 933 was only an issue because it took so long for others to acknowledge that such a ridiculous figure was indeed ridiculous.   As I said things are slow going with this crowd.  Remember how long it took for people to admit and acknowledge that Wilson didn't study abroad before he built Merion East, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary?  I don't think some are there yet!

[Mike Sweeney]

Didn't back of anything. Didn't say it or imply it in the first place.  For reasons I don't understand, you are misrepresenting my posts.  

And 933 was only an issue because it took so long for others to acknowledge that such a ridiculous figure was indeed ridiculous.   As I said things are slow going with this crowd.  Remember how long it took for people to admit and acknowledge that Wilson didn't study abroad before he built Merion East, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary?  I don't think some are there yet!

Holy cow. I had no idea that you were this good. Keep it up. 933!!

Go Booker!!

933!!

[Patrick_Mucci]

Mike,

Stop taunting.

When are you free for MRCC ?

[Tom MacWood]

From the actual Golf Association of Philadelphia (GAP) meeting minutes of January 1915, we learn of the group members.   Ironically, Hugh Wilson's name is somehow omitted here, although it does appear in many other news reports, as well as in other GAP meeting minutes.
 

 

Mike
Why would you insert the PV question into an essay devoted to your pet project of CC. There is only one reason I can see, a diversionary tactic, and it will probably work. That has been your history when things get a little difficult, vomit all over the thread.

Here is another example of your distortions. In your essay this is clearly dated February 8, 1915, not January, but for this purpose you have gone to the trouble of altering the article and removing the date. Why? In your essay you wrote that the lay out of the course most likely occurred late 1914, several months prior to this committee being appointed. Hugh Wilson is not on this committee because this committee was not responsible for designing the golf course. They were in charge of accessibility, whatever that means.

[DMoriarty]

So others know what Tom MacWood is saying, Here is the February 8, 1915 blurb as it appears in the work . . .


Tom MacWood,  

Are you saying that this committee wasn't even created until after the course had already been initially designed?    

It is a little difficult to tell what happened when because so few of the newspaper clips have dates, but in the work Mike seemed to be arguing and (assuming they are in some form of chronological order) the articles seem to indicating the same thing.

[Tom MacWood]

On page 39 of the essay he writes (and emphasizes in bold), "It is important to note that it appears from these accounts that the actual 'layout' or course routing work for Cobb's Creek seems to have already been completed by this time." This comment is sandwiched in between an article from June 1914 and an article from November 1914.

This other committee, with Crump (and Meehan), was formed several months after the course was laid out, and from its description appears to be in focused on accessibility not design. That is the logical explanation for why Wilson is not on this committee. This Crump timeline, and attribution, is completely bogus.

I'm still waiting for someone to explain why Thomas and Travis are considered co-designers.

[Mike Sweeney]

Mike,

Stop taunting.

Patrick,

When David Moriarity AND Tom Paul AND Tom MacWood treat this board and its members with the respect that it deserves, I will gladly stop. It they want to have personal attacks, take it to email or ignore.

My campaign will continue until I am thrown off or they comply.

Cheers.

PS. Realistically after July 4th work should calm down.

[TEPaul]

Comments from Mike Cirba:




"David,


Thanks, again.   Your questions are reasonable and fair and I'm glad you provided me with an opportunity here to answer them, courtesy of Tom Paul's renewed membership on this site.


First, I would commend you for your comprehensive study of the book in question, and for pointing out areas where we seemingly lack substantiation.   In the case of the claim that in 1940 Cobb's Creek had the highest number of rounds in the country, you are correct to point out that there is no source listed in the book where that claim can be supported.   As I mentioned earlier, the book was written based on countless articles over several years, and if I can't find the direct source for that claim and weigh it against other articles such as the one you provided earlier about Rancho Park I'll gladly pull it from future editions.


I find this type of exchange much more productive than some of the other questions I've answered prior on this and the Philly Golfer thread in terms of documenting the involvement of George Crump and others, which I've listed not only in source materials in the book but also in multiple contemporaneous articles.   Other than re-printing the article here where the Committee (which included Wilson, Crump, and Smith) recommended the site at Cobb's Creek, I think I've re-pubilshed those source articles adequately so I'm hopeful were both in agreement there.   Similarly, I've listed the source information as well as what I wrote specifically about George Thomas, Walter Travis, and Ben Sayers so again, I think everyone can make their own assessments as to the validity and importance of those men to the overall project and agree or disagree.  I have no wish to argue those again, and folks reading here can judge the evidence on their own.



Your overall question, however, seems to suggest that before going forward to city officials, the management company, local golf authorities, etc., I somehow needed to fully document, footnote, cross-reference, and somehow substantiate under cross-examination every one of hundreds of articles over a century of history of the efforts around creating public golf and the course at Cobb's Creek to a standard admissible under a court of law.


I frankly think that is not only unrealistic, but also counter productive to effective progress.   Through many years of discussion, debate, and disagreement on this site, one thing I have learned very clearly is that no matter how seemingly dis positive a piece of evidence might be, there are those who will find reason to disagree with it, whether based on their own interpretation or their own personal beliefs and agenda.


Personally, I thought it was far more important to simply get all of that evidence in mostly raw form in front of those who could do far more with it...who might be influenced by their own personal readings as to the importance of it, and who ultimately would have much more influence in how to proceed with it, than I as a poor public course golfer of slender wallet (in AW TIllinghast's terminology) could ever possibly do.


The good news is that others read the book and were inspired by the story(ies) inside.   Many of them tell themselves in spite of my feeble attempts to prioritize them or give them weight and gravitas.   Efforts have been started that are now far beyond my abilities to control and/'or influence, and that's a wonderful thing, I think you'd agree.


But, I also know you're a really detailed guy, and if the biggest issue we have in 344 pages of really frankly verbose and voluminous detail is the question of whether the 120,000 rounds that Cobb's Creek hosted on both courses in 1930 continued apace to lead the country in 1940, a claim who's source I frankly can't recall years ago, then I thank you for mentioning a potential error in my book that I'll be sure to either fully substantiate or correct in future editions.


Again, David, I think we're on the same side here and I thank you for your careful reading of the book and productive comments of criticism in that regard.


Best Wishes,
Mike"

[TEPaul]

Tom MacWood:

I don't know why you keep missing them and why you keep questioning the same point about Crump but there are two articles conatained in Post #1423 that mention Crump and Meehan were appointed to a committee to design Cobb's Creek. Some may not mind you asking constant questions but when you are given accurate answers to your constant questions on the same point and you ignore them and just keeping asking the same queston over and over again, it really does get to be a bit much for those who have provided you with the answers to your questions. Maybe you should do your own research on Cobbs Creek. Cirba and Bausch have certainly done theirs, and it is impressive.

[TEPaul]

David Moriarty:

I said the following to you a few days ago on this thread:


"On another, and what I consider to be a very important matter, I see from a number of your posts recently on this thread alone that you have said you would like to discuss on here anything that interests you and you would like to have answers to the questions that interest you."


Do you consider that statement to be true or false?

[Tom MacWood]

Tom MacWood:

I don't know why you keep missing them and why you keep questioning the same point about Crump but there are two articles conatained in Post #1423 that mention Crump and Meehan were appointed to a committee to design Cobb's Creek. Some may not mind you asking constant questions but when you are given accurate answers to your constant questions on the same point and you ignore them and just keeping asking the same queston over and over again, it really does get to be a bit much for those who have provided you with the answers to your questions. Maybe you should do your own research on Cobbs Creek. Cirba and Bausch have certainly done theirs, and it is impressive.

I've read all contemporaneous artilces and none of them claim Crump was involved in laying out the golf course. Crump was appointed to committee in 1913 charged with finding a suitable site within the Fairmont Park system. They eventually recommended a site in West Fairmont Park. That site was voted down because it was not suitable for 18-hole golf course. Several months later the Cobbs Creek site was recommended. Its not known if the same committee found that site, but either way there are no reports that committee designed anything. In January 1915 it was reported Wilson, Smith and Jiggs Klauder had designed the course. After the project was completed Wilson, Smith and Klauder were commended at the annual GAP meeting for their work in building the course, along with Sargent. This Crump attribution is a joke. So are the attributions for Thomas and Travis, not to mention Flynn and Meehan, which no one apparently wants to address.

[TEPaul]

Tom:

I'm very sorry but I'm just not interested in continuing to pursue this very same Cobbs Creek/Crump question and point of yours that I view as truly unecessary and irrelevant hair-splitting. Obviously you have your own unique way of interpreting historical material and as you know I have always felt although you seem to be a very good raw researcher, you are just not a good historical analyst. I think your interpretation and suggestion on HH Barker designing Merion East is pretty much where and when you basically lost all credibilty on here with just about everyone as a competent historical golf architecture analyst.

No problem at all that you or anyone else have their own opinions and interpretations on some of these issues but to me trying to explain these things to you over and over again is just a waste of time.

I told you back in Feb. 2003 when you found a few articles on Macdonald and Merion that prompted you to start a thread ("Re: Macdonald and Merion?") on it in which you asked us to tell you (essentally hole by hole) who specifically did what on that golf course---that we do not know those kinds of architectural details because those things were just not recorded in detail----frankly they never really are on golf architecture projects. I even explained to you that you should spend a couple of weeks on a routing and design project and you would learn this for yourself first-hand. I've done that about a dozen times over the years on routing and design phases of projects and if there are a number of people out there contributing and collaborating, at the end of the day even they couldn't tell anyone whose idea everything was. What's the point anyway? The idea out there is to collaborate and come to some consensus opinion on what works with anything. After that there is usually some kind of agreement, the things gets approved and they all go on to something else.

Why you can't understand that is beyond me other than the fact that you just have never experienced it or seen it first-hand.

You should have listened then but apparently you never did or never will, and so your irrelevant questions in that vein seem to just go on and on and on.

I do apologize to you if you feel what I have said here is in some way personal or a personal criticism of you. I do not intend it to be that and I just don't look at it that way at all. This is only about golf course architecture and HOW our experiences with it, and particularly on the ground with golf architecture projects, very much tend to inform and educate us to the ways it always goes out there, both back then, today, and probably into the future as well.

[Patrick_Mucci]

TE,

What does your post, # 1475 have to do with Tom MacWood's post # 1474 pertaining to Cobb's Creek ?

It seems like a complete non sequitur, where you're lecturing and  criticizing Tom's ability or rather inability to analyze historical information and deliberately avoiding the content of his previous post pertaining to Cobb's Creek.

We  know how you feel about Tom's ability to analyze, we want to know how you feel about reply # 1474

Thanks