David Moriarty's excellent The Missing Faces of Merion is now posted under IMO

[TEPaul]

Shivas:

Sorry, that's probably not fair to you.

Try this. I'm not sure how well it may work for you or at all but it's worth a try to at least run down perhaps a really important analytical road in all of this.

Try just taking that Wilson 7-month trip abroad in 1910 out of the picture altogether. Just consider what it may mean if that story NEVER was part of the app. 100 year history of Merion East AT ALL.

Just try that but I will caution you that when you first try to do that you will be struggling for a while with how to analyze this because you will not easily be able to rid your mind of what that story has meant to so many people in what really happened back then. Look at all the assumptions and premises that have been made over the years that revolve around that story and what it meant in those creation years of 1910 and 1911.

Did anyone actually involved in or there at the time of the creation of Merion East actually say Hugh Wilson was over there in 1910 for seven months? Did anyone even say that with 2-3 decades of the events back then? Not really, although what at least one said way back then may've lead some later to assume that for whatever reasons.

This is precisely why I think it is just so important to weed revisionism out of a history, no matter how innocently it may have entered a history, on the one hand, or how agenda-driven it may have entered a history on the other hand.

Just take it right out of your mind and try to see what you've got. It's a good excerise.

[Mike_Cirba]

David,

If I were a betting man, and based on re-reviewing what was written (and when) about Wilson's trip overseas, I'm thinking it's about 80% certain that his one and only trip was in 1912, as per David's essay.   

Certainly there is nothing written that has surfaced yet from near that timeframe in news accounts, magazines, or in records that seems to conclusively prove a 6-7 month trip before 1911.    We also know from the Piper/Oakley letters that 1911 wasn't possible. 

Intuitively, one also wonders what a married man with children would have been doing there for 6 or 7 months, as well, and if you think about it realistically, exactly how long would it have taken to have played say the top 10-15 courses in England and Scotland, with good rail travel and a focused agenda.   That doesn't rule out that he may have gone there with his family for an extended timeframe prior...he certainly had the means with 4 household servants, but there is no proof of that.

I do certainly credit David for raising this question.   I just don't think it's proven yet, but I'll concede it's likely as we go back and re-study what's there and what was written at the time.  Hopefully the 1910 MCC Annual Report that Tolhurst mentioned in his history book will turn up somewhere, but right now, based on the evidence we currently have, I think the 1912 trip may have been the one.

That doesn't mean that he and his committee didn't route and do a "rough draft" of the course prior to then because the record shows they did.   I just believe that the fine tuning...the internal hole strategies....most of the bunkering..what was referred to in "Far and Sure"'s article as "the problems of the holes", were created after he returned, and that would make complete sense based on what we know of the evolution of the course in its earliest iterations.

[Mike_Cirba]

Ok, so Mike, what are you saying?  Do you think Wilson was there at Merion with CBM in June 1910?  Or  not?

Because I'm going to have an obvious follow up question if you think he was there.

David,

I just added a paragraph above so I may have answered your followup already. 

But, I will say that we don't know if he was there with Macdonald or abroad in June of 1910.   There is no clear documented evidence of either.

[Mike_Cirba]

David,

I'm really not sure it was that big a deal if he was there or not in June 1910, as that has clearly now been proven for what it was...a determination of the suitability of the land for golf, mostly from an agronomic and space consideration standpoint and NOT a golf course routing or design exercise.   In fact, the July Macdonald letter makes very clear exactly what M&W were being asked for at that time...their basic advice on whether or not to purchase the land, and their answer was very hedged at best.

If Wilson were not in Europe, I'd bet he was there, but there is no documented proof to date that he was either in Europe, with the Site Committee and Macdonald, or at home with his feet up sipping a tall drink. 

[Peter Pallotta]

Mike - that post of yours I referred to earlier keeps coming back to me. First, because of the reality that Merion's routing wasn't perfect in 1912, which is telling...and which suggests to me that almost everyone back then was still learning the art and craft of golf course architecture, especially for inland sites; and second, because Tillinghast's comment about the holes being "rough drafts" in 1912 fits in well, it seems to me, with a Wilson trip in 1912 i.e. Wilson wasn't in the UK on vacation, he wasn't there to simply have 'ratified' the work that had already been done at Merion, he was there to learn first hand about the various elements/components of the great British courses, and to come back and apply what he'd learned at Merion. Why else would he go? And if in 1912 there was still so much to be done by Wilson, isn't that telling too?

Peter   

PS - This is another area I know little about but would like to learn, i.e what changes were made to Merion (substantive or otherwise) between the time it first opened for play and the time that Hugh Wilson passed away. And for how much of that time was Flynn involved and/or working alongside Wilson? And was any other architect ever involved in the post 1912 Merion prior to Wilson's death?
Thanks

[Mike_Cirba]

David,

Honestly, I think by jumping in and out of this conversation you are missing important points.

Please go back and re-read the Macdonald letter and then let me know what you think they were being asked.   They even referenced the fact that they couldn't tell if it was either enough land or whether a first class golf course on it without even a topographical map.   So, they were going by gut feel of the general dimensions of the property, and suggested that logical next steps before going out and buying the property were to get soil samples and send them for analysis.  

Any other reading of this letter is pure supposition and wishful thinking and trying to put things in there that it clearly does not contain.  

In fact, if Lloyd and the Site Committee, who were the ones charged with finding a site, had really asked M&W to do more at that time as you suggest, then this letter would really be a pretty polite brushoff, don't you think?  

On July 2, 1910, after over three years of construction NGLA was just finally just coming into playability.  

From "The Evangelist of Golf";

"On July 2 1910, 14 months before the official opening, the courses was finally ready for a test run.  An informal invitational tournament was held for a select group of fouders and friends invited to participate."

"It was noted the tournament served the purpose of revealing any design shortcoming that needed correcting."


As seen above, the course didn't have it's official opening until 1911.   David has challenged this and I'm not sure what evidence he has that contradicts George Bahto's book that outlines these timelines.

In any case, I think M&W had their hands and plates quite full at the time that they were being asked to determine the suitability of the property (remember that the records state that Merion was still looking a a number of properties at the time) for golf for Merion in June/July 1910.   For them to come out for a day at Rodman Griscom's invitation was quite nice of them, actually.

This timeline also shows that not only was Macdonald not viewed universally as a great architect by this time, but that many of his friends and best players had not even seen the course at NGLA prior to then.   They knew he had been studying, and working on it, but many had no idea of how great it was at that point.

The letter was to H.G. Lloyd, and not Hugh Wilson, probably because Lloyd was the head of the Site Committee, which Wilson was not on.   That would have been appropriate protocol.


Peter,

Your assessment is very accurate, I believe.

[Mike_Cirba]

So why not just credit HG Lloyd with early Merion and get it over with?

It's clear that as of July 1910, Wilson was not the big cheese in the deal. 

When do you think he became the big cheese?

Because there is a huge difference between selecting a site and doing a land real-estate deal...which was Lloyd's forte...and routing, designing, and building a golf course...the architecture part. 

I'm not sure when Wilson became the big cheese, but I do find it interesting and probably telling that Wilson headed a committee comprised of Lloyd, Griscom, Francis, and Toulmin that was named right after the land was secured for purchase.

Common sense would suggest he was a big part of things all along, and the membership of Merion must have had some pretty amazing faith in his abilities, which we know in hindsight was a correct assessment.

[TEPaul]

"Common sense would suggest he was a big part of things all along, and the membership of Merion must have had some pretty amazing faith in his abilities, which we know in hindsight was a correct assessment."


Mike:

I don't think there are too many on here who understand what Hugh Wilson was and I doubt they ever will. They probably don't even deserve to know. What it seems they do know is that he was a legend and that legends need some toppling from time to time because of their shoddy research and their far shoddier deductions and conclusions from it. They call it serious research. I call it serious revisionism.

The funny thing is there are too many on here too who don't understand what C.B. Macdonald was either, at least not in 1910 and 1911. They probably don't deserve to know that either and I doubt they ever will.

Let these people who undeservedly call themselves serious researchers continue on with their myopic notion that at any particular time there is only so much room on the pedestal.

[Jeff_Brauer]

TePaul,

good morning.....

You have said on over a dozen (or two) of your Merion posts that we don't know who Hugh Wilson is and don't deserve to know.  I don't know about the second proposition, but if you (or anyone else) can enlighten us (briefly) about Hughie it would be educational.

So far, this is what I think I know about Hugh (middle initial is...?) Wilson -

Rich enough to belong to Merion and have two servants go to Europe with him in 1912.

Probably not as rich as Lloyd.

Good enough golfer to play in local Philly golf events.

Interest in golf architecture and time to devote to heading the MCC committee and take on majority of responsibility for construction (although MCC did hire a construction manager)

Obviously, it would be interesting to fill in some backstory details of this "legend".  Did he live close to Merion?  What was his personality?  Where did he get is interest in gca?  Where did he work?  How did he manage to take time off to head the committee?  What was his true middle initial?

Perhaps anyone who has researched that could post it, maybe on a different thread.  Thanks in advance.

[TEPaul]

JeffreyB:

One question at a time.

According to some on here his middle initial was N, apparently they think he was Hugh Novice Wilson.

Other than that even he wasn't sure what his middle name was as his parents could never remember so they gave him all kinds of different middle names.

His cover business was a family maritime shipping insurance company with his brother Alan, but after graduating from Princeton in 1902 he worked for the CIA part time at least 45-50 years before anyone knew it existed and consequently he used all kinds of different middle initials when he traveled. You probably never even knew that about 3/4 of the people who went to Princetion were with the CIA, did you?

Once when he went to Argentina in 1910 for a contract hit on a Russian communist he leased a fake wife, two children and two maids (they even say he bought out the residual on that leased wife and kept her for up to ten years, but that can't be proved, although I've heard documentation to that effect is in a special underground room at MCC they won't even let Wayne into). Most of the rest of his hits were on American radical socialist labor union leaders. He mostly did it for J.P Morgan and Horatio Gates Lloyd, some of the biggest capitalists of their day. He also did a few jobs for Clement Griscom, the man who was the chairman of the so-called "Shipping Trust". He blew up the union lodge down on the Philly waterfront, after he procured some dynamite from A.W. Tillinghast.

Those guys were all into golf in their spare time but primarily they were concerned about a socialist revolution. The redan at Merion didn't have anything to do with Macdonald; it was actually designed to be the place they would all make their last stand if the communist revolutionaries looked like they might win.

[Patrick_Mucci]

David,

I'm really not sure it was that big a deal if he was there or not in June 1910,

Mike, you must be kidding.

Shivas hit the nail on the head with his "A" or "B" defaults.[/color]

as that has clearly now been proven for what it was...a determination of the suitability of the land for golf, mostly from an agronomic and space consideration standpoint and NOT a golf course routing or design exercise.   

That's convoluted logic and sheer nonsense.

MacDonald probably wasn't qualified to determine if the ground was agronomically acceptable, and to what degree.

Secondly, you can't uncouple the routing and design element from "space consideration", they are inextricably related.[/color]

In fact, the July Macdonald letter makes very clear exactly what M&W were being asked for at that time...their basic advice on whether or not to purchase the land, and their answer was very hedged at best.

That's your interpretation, one that's not universally shared or accepted.[/color]

If Wilson were not in Europe, I'd bet he was there, but there is no documented proof to date that he was either in Europe, with the Site Committee and Macdonald, or at home with his feet up sipping a tall drink. 

If Wilson wasn't in Europe, and he wasn't in attendance at the time MacDonald visited, that would give credence to Shivas's contention that he wasn't in the loop at that date.[/color]

[TEPaul]

David Moriarty:

I’m moving this post to the thread it belongs on and off the USGA Architecture Archive thread that I don’t believe it belongs on.



You said:
"Why is it that you feel some documents directly relating to the history of the architecture of certain courses ought to be censored?   The Barker Routing is a good example."


David Moriarty:

Censored?

I never said that about any documents relating to the history of the achitecture of any golf course. Where did the word and the idea of "censoring" anything come from? It didn't come from me. Who else could it have come from? Did it come from you? Show me where I said that. It seems you're the only one who used that word and idea. Perhaps you should stop trying to put ideas and words into other people's mouths----it really does get very misleading doing stuff like that.

What I did say is the H.H. Barker stick routing provided to the MCC Search Committee by an independent developer who had nothing whatsoever to do with what MCC did with Merion East is not very relevant to the creation of Merion East. The fact is, after the MCC Search committee recieved that letter from Barker to Connell and mentioned it to the MCC board, it was never mentioned again by anyone who had anything to do with the creation of Merion. Since the letter was written to Connell (and not MCC) on June 10, and since Macdonald and Whigam must have come to Ardmore almost within days (since Macdonald went back to NYC and wrote a letter to Lloyd in June of his and Whigam's observations about the Ardmore land) to have it recorded in a report to the board by July 1, 1910, it seems MCC turned to Macdonald immediately and never considered Barker or even mentioned him again.

That kind of event is probably worth something like a mention in a footnote but it clearly had nothing to do with the routing and design creation of Merion East which did not even beginning until about seven months later (early 1911 when Wilson and his committee were appointed and got to work in the winter of 1911 doing many of their own "courses" or "layouts" (the very thing we today call routings and course designs).

I most certainly wouldn't suggest censoring a mention of Barker and his stick routig, I'd only suggest it be treated for what it was in the move to Ardmore----eg of very little significance.

If either you or Tom MacWood want to imply it was some big deal in the creation of Merion East then be our guests, but I don't think the Merion history will or should treat it very seriously.

Of course if you or MacWood or anyone else could actually produce Barker's stick routing and it turned out to be very similar to the Merion East routing that would be an entirely different matter and it would be considered extremely significant to Merion's architectural history.

[John_Conley]

Don't you think the 27 pages on this thread should be added to the 104 pages on the other one to form a combined 131 page behemoth.

I don't think the page count on the Merion thread does the topic justice.  It is far more detailed, some would say contentious, than just 104 pages would have you believe.

[JESII]

Good point...there have actually been at least half a dozen other threads featuring these guys going at it over Merion so let's round up to 150...from there we take out all the stuff that doesn't help the conversation and we'd be down to a nice 4 page conversation about the evolution of Merion East...and we might be just about ready to hear the more interesting (to me at least) story of how the course evolved from 1912 through 1934...

I think I'll be out of here before that part ever starts up though...

[Mike_Cirba]

Jim,

You're forgetting about David's forthcoming Part Deux, in which I predict he will try to show us how each of the holes on the original Merion course were modelled after templates abroad.

We won't be getting into the 1913-30 part of this thread until the 2034 US Open at Merion.

[JESII]

In all seriousness, I would be curious to hear/have a conversations about the template influences at Merion...certainly better than whatever is going on now...I say "hear a conversation" because I haven't played too many template holes. At least not enough to understand the value.

For what it's worth, I love the 7th at Shinnecock but Redanman told me it was the worst redan he had seen...and I figured he must know...

[Phil_the_Author]

Sorry Mike, but the 2034 Open will be played at Bethpage Black. It will have been its 5th Open by then having hosted in 2018 & 2026 as well. I only hope the rains will have stopped by then! 

[TEPaul]

Moriarty:

I see you on here tonight viewing this thread. Should it be brought back to the first page so we all can view it, or is this another thread like your 2003 "Re: Did Macdonald 'Jump the Shark' with The Lido?" thread you would just as soon not see reprised and rehashed because you would prefer not to deal with what you said back then?

[Bill_McBride]

Moriarty:

I see you on here tonight viewing this thread. Should it be brought back to the first page so we all can view it, or is this another thread like your 2003 "Re: Did Macdonald 'Jump the Shark' with The Lido?" thread you would just as soon not see reprised and rehashed because you would prefer not to deal with what you said back then?

Just curious how you "see" David "on here tonight viewing this thread."   

[Tom MacWood]

TEP
Why do you let Wayne push your buttons? He's making you look like more of jackass than you normally do yourself, and thats saying something.

[TEPaul]

Just curious how you "see" David "on here tonight viewing this thread."       "



BillB:

Isn't that amazing? What do you think it is----my prescience or the wonders of technology or some combination of both?  
 

[TEPaul]

"TEP
Why do you let Wayne push your buttons? He's making you look like more of jackass than you normally do yourself, and thats saying something."


Tom Mac:

Frankly Wayne and I speak with one another regularly, like every other day, and Wayne Morrison, in my book, is right on the money with what goes on with this website with a few participants such as you and Moriarty. This website has a future but some winnowing out is going to have to happen first. My vote is for you to stay if you can get your act together, and for me to stay if I get my act together which I think I fairly have in the last year but this Moriarty has fucked up this website far worse than anyone else ever has in its ten year history and he should be bounced.

I've made my feelings known about that to Morrissett and I had the good sense to copy Moriarty on it (Moriarty's response is definitely recordable and indicative if one really wants to see what an hysterical jerk is about). There is not room on this website for me and a person like Moriatry. Ran can make that decision, no problem with me and I gurantee you I both can and will live with it!

I've had a long and good run on GOLFCLUBATLAS.com so we'll just see what the future holds for it. As everyone knows----The World Turns! 

[DMoriarty]

"TEP
Why do you let Wayne push your buttons? He's making you look like more of jackass than you normally do yourself, and thats saying something."


Tom Mac:

Frankly Wayne and I speak with one another regularly, like every other day, and Wayne Morrison, in my book, is right on the money with what goes on with this website with a few participants such as you and Moriarty. This website has a future but some winnowing out is going to have to happen first. My vote is for you to stay if you can get your act together, and for me to stay if I get my act together which I think I fairly have in the last year but this Moriarty has fucked up this website far worse than anyone else ever has in its ten year history and he should be bounced.

I've made my feelings known about that to Morrissett and I had the good sense to copy Moriarty on it (Moriarty's response is definitely recordable and indicative if one really wants to see what an hysterical jerk is about). There is not room on this website for me and a person like Moriatry. Ran can make that decision, no problem with me and I gurantee you I both can and will live with it!

I've had a long and good run on GOLFCLUBATLAS.com so we'll just see what the future holds for it. As everyone knows----The World Turns! 

Tom,

Why don't you start a new thread?   Surely others would care to know of your latest of many ultimatums.   

[Bill_McBride]

Is this what comes from the obsessive compulsion to have the last word.   

[Bill_McBride]

Whoops, there I go trying to have the last word...........