"I've read the essay several times and I didn't read the conclusions you describe. What conclusions were agenda driven?"
Tom MacWood:
This is the conclusion I think was agenda driven. Over five years ago you began to try to promote the assumption that Macdonald and Whigam's roll in the creation of Merion East was in some way minimized by the club and by us. Do you deny that now? If you do, I'd be happy to bring up a few of your threads on that from over five years ago.
Here is one of them:
http://golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,1388.0.htmlI've reviewed it. Tom MacWood asked why M&W were not credited for their involvement in Merion. He also brings to the attention of the board the article noting that M&W had been aiding the committee and were on site in or around April 1911.
As the thread went on, you and Wayne hammered at him like you hammer at the two of us now. Turns out MacWood was on the money, and you guys were all wet. The interesting thing, is that you already know about the information you had brought forward, yet nary a peep about it from either of you.
For those watching at home, the thread highlights the song and dance that Tom and Wayne have been doing for years regarding these issues. Always only letting on to that which is already known, never offering up anything that might be construed to damage the legend.
Here is one of Wayne's posts from the thread, in response to something TomM said what was right on the money, and still applies.
"I believe your frustration is due to the fact that I'm approaching this with logic and common sense, and simply looking at the evidence....I don't have the emotional investment in the story that you and Wayne appear to have."
Tom MacWood,
Now you are starting to get me mad. A statement like yours above would imply that you believe we are not conducting our research properly. You are resorting to base acusations simply because we do not come to the same conclusion as do you. This has absolutely nothing to do with a Philadelphia-centric bias or campaign to glorify individuals at the expense of the truth. We clearly are looking at the same information as you in addition to a roomfull more and drawing a different conclusion. That is nothing to get upset about. The information you have presented is incomplete and does not merit much attribution to Macdonald and Whigham at Merion. You've stated in the past that they were brought in to assist at Merion. That means nothing at all without additional supporting evidence and none has yet been presented. We may never have the materials to clarify their roles. Let's just say, once and for all, that they were of some kind service as yet to be determined. Given that nothing at Merion (construction era and beyond) remotely resembles any template holes that Macdonald consistantly employed is better evidence than that which you've presented. At least it is concrete. Did they help Wilson with general theories? That would seem to be the case during his visit prior to going overseas. Did they come to Philadelphia ? Yes. Does that mean they made a dedicated trip at the behest of the club? We have no idea. So stop saying that because they were on site they must have been contributing anything concrete. Nobody knows but you speculate and build theories on this unsteady underpinning. You seem to find it difficult to give overwhelming credit to Wilson and the team at Merion. Wilson was a smart guy, went to the UK for several months to study architecture and spent much of his life working on agronomic issues that propelled him well past Macdonald's abilities and his collaboration with Flynn helped create monumental achievements every bit as good as Macdonald and Raynor's best. Do you find it difficult that an intelligent man who puts the time and effort into studying the field of golf architecture cannot come to a level of expertise to match or supercede Macdonald? Do you really expect us to think that Macdonald's efforts were required at Merion? In my view, the course evolved in ways that Macdonald never dreamed of and is a far cry from its original 1912 design. Was he of some assistance? Most likely. But given that that assistance cannot at this point be clarified, why don't you let the issue be. The only agenda Tom and I have is the truth and digging up as much fact as we can and making sure we present educated suppostions as that with whatever evidence we can amass. For you to imply that we are blinded by some Philadelphia Phever and don't want to conclude that others may have helped is plain wrong and rather an immature response. Can't you get it that you make too great a leap when you believe that you have presented evidence that Macdonald and Whigham were instrumental in assisting the Merion golf course? I am open to any facts that are pertinent. I want the truth. You say that we want to perpetuate myths. That is a personal affront and completely in error.
Here is one of TEPaul's, again in response to something entirely reasonable.
" I simply said they advised the board, something they've never been given credit for depsite the overwelming proof."
Tom MacW:
This is just another half-assed remark of yours. What do you think that means? They (Macdonald and Whigham) advised the Board? What Board? Would that be the Board of what was then the Merion Cricket Club which was the cricket club (only tennis and cricket) and the Merion golf course that was a golf entity within the Merion Cricket Club? See you probably never even realized that. Or do you mean the "committee" that was appointed by the Merion Cricket Club to look into moving the Merion Cricket Club golf course from Bryn Mawr to Ardmore that consisted of Lloyd, Griscom, Toulmin, Francis and Wilson? They were the same "committee" that apparently all traveled to NGLA in 1910 to meet with Macdonald that's so well documented in the Merion history.
I was just rereading the five page report Hugh Wilson himself wrote at the behest of Piper in 1916 about the entire creation of the Merion East golf course. Have you ever seen that report of Hugh Wilson's, Tom? The entire first paragraph gives elaborate credit to Macdonald for those two days he apparently gave the entire "committee" at NGLA an education in golf architecture before Hugh Wilson set off for six months of architectural study in Scotland and England. The remainder of that report only talks about "we" doing the golf course from the spring of 1911 until mid-September when the course was grassed, not to open for a year! Why, if Wilson gives him so much credit for that would he withhold it if Macdonald did more on site? That doesn't make much sense to me.
Do you think that time at NGLA just might be the time so many have given credit to Macdonald for including that entire committee, Wilson and Merion and many others too probaby including what was meant in many of those magazine articles? If Macdonald and Whigham came to Philadelphia and looked at Merion and pronounced it a good site with some apparently very fine holes do you really think that constitutes something deserving of any real architectural attribution when the rest of them apparently spent many months creating the course daily and then Wilson and Flynn spent years following that changing, developing and perfecting it! Do you really think Wilson or anyone else at Merion would have or should have given them real architectural credit for saying the site looked good and some holes did too?
You talk about "proof" of Macdonald and Whigham coming to Merion and giving advice. Proof of what advice, Tom? That's all any of us are asking you to produce and no magazine article you've produced to date gives that proof of what thay advice was.
This is no real difference from your inability to come to terms with the things that Crump was doing daily at PVGC for five years after Colt left in 1913. You once basically implied he was there during that time to watch the grass grow on Colt's routing and design. That's just total garbage and most anyone can understand that. And you actually talk to me about looking at this stuff with Logic? Where in the world is your logic and your common sense? You just continue to deny the obvious and I think you do that because I don't think you have any real feel for the way things were done back then out on those courses architecturally or even how they're done today for that matter. You just read these magazine articles, admittedly knowing nothing about Merion and you see something like that and think it deserves real architectural attribution.
Hell, I went out to Rustic Canyon before construction one time for a couple of days and probably gave Geoff Shackelford and Jim Wagner some advice that they asked mr for for some reason about a couple of holes. And the next thing I knew there was this story going around that I'd helped design those holes. That was completely untrue---I just basically agreed with some of what they seemed to want to do and maybe helped them make a decision. How do you know Macdonald and Whigham did any more than that?
You don't and nothing you've produced about Macdonald and Whigham's advice or contribution to Merion East says otherwise. It's time you come to grips with that fact and stop wasting everyone's time here. If you come up with anything more conclusive and specific I guarantee we'd love to hear about it and so would Merion.
These are both pretty mild choices. I don't want to be accused of having a bias.
Later David Moriarty picked up on that assumption and it led to his conclusion in "The Missing Faces of Merion" that Macdonald/Whigam produced a routing for Merion East in 1910. Did you somehow fail to notice that conclusion in his essay when you reviewed it?
If you did miss that or if one or both of you are no longer trying to support that claim, I think we can probably end all this right now. 
I would be glad to dismiss the conclusion if there is evidence that refutes the evidence I offered. So far the only thing I have seen is the transcription of an unverified letter, and if that is accurate and complete, then all that proves is that CBM did not provide a description of the routing in his June 29 letter.
If you guys want to come forward with the other dispositive evidence on the issue for review, then I'd be glad to dismiss it. But don't expect me to take your work for it.
"Even years later, Alan Wilson, Hugh Wilson, and Robert Lesley (President of MCC Golf Association,) and H.J. Whigham all still thought enough of M&W's contributions to credit them and/or thank them.
So I assume you think it "chronological snobbery" for modern writers to snub them? How about Merion itself? If not why not?"
David Moriarty:
You seem to be inferring a pretty good point here and it's one I've been trying to make on here for a few weeks now including my asking you if you knew why I was asking you why you included the name Toulmin in that post which you didn't answer apparently thinking I was implying something nefarious or trying to catch you on something, which I wasn't.
I did answer the question. Twice. Again here is the answer: Yes, I have a good idea of why you brought it up.
My point is both you and Tom MacWood have been constantly implying that you have uncovered some new facts in your essay. I'm wondering what actual new facts you think you've uncovered.
Except maybe for the introductory paragraphs, just about every section of my essay contains something novel that has not been previously disseminated. There are something like 23 sections in my paper, after the introduction. So there is your list. Of these, one inference has been proven false so far (assuming the letter checks out.)
Negating this one inference has some impact on the rest of the essay, but not nearly as much as you might think. Most of the essay still stands. And my
opinion that M&W were the driving creative forces behind the design of Merion East is as strong or stronger than ever.
Surely more will change if and when you guys finally come clean (I wont hold my breath on that one.) But given what you have let slip about the Top Secret MCC Documents, I don't foresee the changes being that earth-shattering.
"By the way, didn't you just compare Wilson to JFK? Twice?"
I most certainly did. Why do you have a problem with that? Half the photos of Hugh Wilson look to me remarkably like a young John F. Kennedy! I'm 63 years old and I grew up with John Kennedy. Frankly, I idolized the guy as did many Americans of my age. My mother's brother and my grandmother's son, Louis C. Clark, who was killed in the beginning of WW2 testing Hell Cats was Kennedy's classmate and friend and the president of his Harvard class. My father went to Motor Torpedo Boat School with Kennedy. They had a ton of friends in common as well. Are you and MacWood going to start poking fun at that too?? This is all some pretty good personal history for this website, David Moriarty, and you should learn to appreciate it rather than mock it or make fun of it.
And I've read hundreds of Hugh Wilson's letters. Have you? I get a distinct sense from those letters Hugh Wilson's personality and style was a lot like Kennedy's and to me they looked almost like brothers. Wilson went to Princeton. Did you know that John F. Kennedy matriculated as a freshman into Princeton, David Moriarty?
What in the hell are you trying to suggest now, that I PROVE that I feel that young JFK and young Hugh Wilson seemed to have a lot of common characteristics? If you are what do you think you're trying to do on this website---eg completely shut down on people's OPINIONS??
You make my point for me. You idolize Wilson like you idolize Kennedy and your father. You consider him untouchable. You are way too defensive about everything to do with him. You are incapable of looking at any of this objectively, just as you would be if I wrote about your father.
While you, Cirba, and the rest of your cronies continue to make fun of whoever you want, and mock or ridicule anything you want, I have never attacked Wilson, Lloyd, Griscom, or your father for that matter. They all sound like great men who really made something of their lives.
[TWO SENTENCES DELETED approx 5 minutes after originally posted because they were in bad taste]