I'd also add to Tom Paul's statement about the legend of Hugh Wilson's voyage overseas is not only that he went...not only that he went for six or seven months...but also that he did volumnious sketches, and handwritten notes.
Somewhere there must have been a Holy Grail with this information, perhaps lost to fire?
James Finegan wrote;
But it was Wilson whom the committee felt should lay out the course. He was an accomplished golfer (former captain of the Princeton University golf team), not on the very top rung of Philadelphia golf but still a competitor who, on a given day, might knock off one of the favorites. What’s more, he had joined his brother, Alan, in the insurance business, which automatically gave a man plenty of time for his beloved avocation. And when the Merion committee concluded that a first-hand look at Britain’s best courses was essential before turning so much as a spadeful of dirt on Ardmore Avenue Wilson was the logical choice to make the trip. It has been said that Wilson, who was sickly throughout much of his life, was sent to Britain in hopes that the stay there might help restore him to health, a not entirely likely development when you consider the number of damp and chilling days that characterize the climate there.
Before sailing, Wilson made it a point to visit Charles Macdonald at Southampton, where the National was under construction. Macdonald was able to advise the young pilgrim on the courses that were, if you will, "required reading," and to suggest the aspects of those renowned eighteens that should particularly be noted. Hugh Wilson spent some seven months abroad. For the most part it was the shrines of Scotland and England he was playing and studying, though on occasion he visited less well-known courses, including some of the inland ones near London, such as Stoke Poges and Swinley Forest. After all, the new Merion course he was charged with laying out would scarcely be seaside.
He returned full of information—and not simply in his head. He had made copious notes, drawn sketches of exceptional holes, and managed to get his hands on a number of surveyors’ course maps highlighting singular features. He was now reasonably well equipped to tackle what for many would have been—or at least should have been—a daunting task.
Wilson was never bent on slavishly duplicating famous holes. True enough, he was inspired by what he had seen and experienced abroad—the splendid 3rd at Merion harks back to North Berwick’s 15th, and the forepart of the green of the equally splendid 17th does call up the Valley of Sin at St. Andrews’ 18th—but anyone who looks for full-fledged copies of renowned Scottish or English holes is bound to be disappointed. Wilson was out to build the best possible parkland course, with the beauty and playability implicit in the term, and at the same time to imbue it with a sweep and naturalness suggestive of the great models—many of them seaside—he had studied. Consistently strong shot values, good balance and variety, honest resistance to low scoring, an overall design that would both challenge and charm—these were the qualities he sought for Merion. – James Finegan “A Centennial Tribute to Golf in Philadelphia”
This seems to be an awful lot of detail to have been just wildly concocted? To what end??