Tom,
Yes, I do recall you stating all of that, and I even went so far as to draw up some mockups of how that looked that I sent to you and Wayne, but I got thrown by 1) Bryan Izatt's drawing, which I just scanned very peripherally and thought everything fit, and 2) the fact that a triangle existed in the first place, which I just assumed was the requisite 130x190 yards.
I now see where I was completely wrong, and I made the same mistake that Sully, and others made. We didn't realize that the triangle at its widest point was only about 70% of what was needed.
But Jeff Brauer did;
To give proper and due credit, here is what he wrote back on page one;
I am going to assume that DM is correct that the property records show that there was a trianglular parcel up by 15 and 16, and the 11.15.10 Map confirms it. It was created by a preliminary road design that featured a gentle curve as it entered the north end of the property.
The map also says Golf House Road is only in an approximate location, meaning that HDC and MCC may have agreed that some fine tuning was necessary, but at the same, felt pressure to acquire the land then. The committee report did stress the need to act now. Perhaps there were some expiring options, tax benefits to HDC or whatever.
My take is that the land deal was basically done, but the parties were still friendly and the routing was known to need some tweaks to create the best golf course.
I don't think the entire 15 Green-16 Tee Triangle was swapped. I think it was enlarged by an acre to partially widen it to 130 yards. It was already 190 yards long. If the land agreement allowed Merion 120 acres, with the flexibility to take what they needed, then the logical options were to find an acre to give back. or pay HDC for additional another $825 per acre for what might have been wasted land after the club had set a maximum purchase price for itself of $90,000. Presumably, going back to the well was frowned upon, although I am sure it could have happened.
But it probably would have required new board action to raise funds and they simply wanted to avoid that.
Either way, I have been involved in many housing and golf developments. Fine tuning of property lines to make sure there is no wasted land is common. And it would have made sense then as well as now. As an engineer, Francis realilzed that a small rerouting of Golf House Road - west at 15 green, and a bit east near 14 tee where the routing was only two holes wide (and where they had just secured the rights to the land from the RR for the 13th hole, could be reduced to offset the extra land used at 15 green.
All perfectly natural when trying to stay under 120 acres. I get the sense that the Nov. 15, 1910 land agreement may have set the maximum acres and Francis simply had to keep under that acreage, from both sides perspective.
The fact that Francis and Lloyd seem to have worked out the problems of the last five holes (and in contrast to DM's opinions, probably well after 11/10) certainly means they improved the routing on their own, whether portions of what they improved was originally concieved by Barker, CBM or the committee. I believe the land swap story proves the committee made serveral routing tweaks at a minimum. Left unresolved is who drew how much of the "bones" of the routing that they were tweaking, which is the interesting back story.