Tom,
Unless some new clandestine, midnight evidence suddenly shows up again, I'm not seeing what's new here?
We now know that HH Barker produced a plan for the property, but we haven't the slightest idea whether any of it was used.
We've always known that Macdonald and Whigham were part of the site purchase review process, and that they blessed it, but has a shred of evidence been produced that they either 1) suggested any routing they might have come up with themselves, or 2) revised Barker's original proposed routing? or 3) that the Merion Committee acted to construct either hypothetical routing?
David's paper states that Wilson and the Committee met with Macdonald at the under-construction NGLA in January 1911, and in Hugh Wilson's own words, states that Macdonald gave them a good start in understanding "the principles" that they (the committee) would need to apply to their "own natural conditions".
Do we have any evidence at all that Wilson and crew used Barker's layout? Or that Macdonald suggested a layout? Perhaps I didn't read carefully enough?
In fact, it seems Wilson and company were so excited by what they had seen at NGLA and the sketches and maps of the great holes abroad and their strategic principles at Macdonald's bungalow that they were overcome with evangelical spirit. For those numerous members of the Merion Committee who had travelled overseas prior to 1911 and played the great courses of Great Britain, I'm sure it was a reminder of what was possible on linksland, and the inland courses that were being built in the Heathlands possibly had applicability to Merion's conditions.
Plus, Charley was in the process of learning how to actually construct holes and grow grass! THAT to me seems to be the biggest DISCOVERY that these men of the Merion Committee were interested in!!!
If they wanted to hear about the Alps or the Redan, they had Tilly, and Findlay, and Crump, and Carr, and Lesley, and Griscom, floating around town. If they wanted to learn about soil mixtures, or grass seed...well...Charley was trying to do it right, don't you think?
Even if we assume that Wilson's first trip to see the great courses in Great Britain was in 1912, as David contends, he was hanging out every day with a bunch of people who had been there and played those great courses and seen the wonderful holes! Many times!!
In fact, as I read this again, it seem pretty clear to me that when the Merion Committte came back after the two-day visit with Macdonald at NGLA, it was with a very clear idea of what they wanted to accomplish. First, it seems the developed a very raw framework and grassed the property, and let's face it, the limitations of the narrow, limited property that was purchased for golf, whether recommended by Barker, or Macdonald/Whigham, or both really dicated the possibilities of the routing(let's not forget that the lower part of the property whose purchase a decade later would permit the introduction of today's 1, 10, 11, 12, and 13 to the course).
In fact, David's paper talks about the wonderful compliments on the routing that have taken place over the years, but these reviews were all done after the extensive changes done by Wilson and FLynn in the earliest years. In fact, even those reviews are mostly complimentary of the fact that the holes manage to be magnificent in spite of the squeezed acreage and general awkwardness of the property, not because of it.
After Wilson's return at the beginning of May 1912, even when the course was opened five months later, according to Tillinghast and "Far and Sure" it was still "in progress", and in a very raw form, and the holes were just beginning to exhibit the greatness of "problems conceived by Hugh I. Wilson and the Construction Committee".
It was Sept 14, 1912, and now several years since Barker had been there, and 18 months after the last visit by Macdonald and yet the course was still in a primitive, early, conceptual state when it opened.
I think that in and of itself proves that the architectural attributions that have been assigned to each of the men involved over the decades since are accurate, and sufficient.