Think of how Whigham is portrayed on this website, for example. Whigham claimed that Macdonald designed Merion. Not only that but he was there. Not only that but he extremely knowledgeable on the topic of golf courses and design. Not only that but he was a well respected and well known journalist and editor. So what is the response? Portray him as an idiot, a sycophant, a servile sissy. In humor? In part, maybe. But the comments have a rhetorical purpose and impact. I guarantee you that are many readers of this website who now completely discount his statement, because he was nothing but CBM's lackey.
I do not mock Whigham. But for about a dozen reasons, I doubt he is right. He wrote about Merion and Macdonald/Raynor nearly 30 years after the fact, in passing, when he was closing in on 70 years of age, in a eulogy for his father-in-law, who he admired if not idolized. The eulogy contained other factual errors. In all the years before that, Whigham never uttered a word about Macdonald and Merion. Neither did anyone else, including CBM himself. Yet other people who wrote about Merion's designer -- including Tilly who was also there -- said Wilson was the architect.
Whigham doesn't just call Merion a CBM course. He calls it a Macdonald-Raynor course. He even suggests how M&R supposedly designed it:
"Clubs all over the country asked Macdonald to remodel their courses. Since he was every inch an amateur, golf architecture for him was entirely a labor of love, and it was quite impossible for him to do all that was asked of him. So he used to send Seth Raynor to do the groundwork, and he himself corrected the plans.
"Raynor had an extraordinary career as a golf architect. He was a surveyor in Southampton whom Macdonald had called in to read the contour maps he had brought from abroad. Raynor knew nothing about golf and had never hit a ball on any links, but he had a marvelous eye for a country. Having helped lay out the eighteen great holes on the National, he was able to adapt them to almost any topography. The Macdonald-Raynor courses became famous all over America. Among the most famous are Piping Rock, the Merion Cricket Club at Philadelphia, the Country Club of St. Louis, two beautiful courses at White Sulphur, the Lido (literally poured out of the lagoon), and that equally amazing Yale course at New Haven, which was hewn out of rock and forest at an expense of some seven hundred thousand dollars."
So Whigham first describes the M-R design model: Raynor does the groundwork, adapts the NGLA holes to the local topography, and Macdonald corrects the plans. Whigham includes Merion as one of those courses. Suggesting Raynor did the groundwork, CBM the final plans, and the course was adapted from the holes at NGLA.
David, you described Whigham in pretty glowing terms. Now lets apply what you said about Whigham, to William Evans. Evans also was extremely knowledgable about golf courses and design. He was a well-respected journalist, published in the NY Times. An insider on the Philadelphia golf scene. A member of the major golf committees there, who knew everyone and everything that took place then. Writing contemporaneously, not 30 years later, he says Wilson traveled to Great Britain some years before 1913.
I take that seriously. A man who was in position to know said Wilson took a trip in 1911, 1910 or earlier. He wrote this as partial background on the man who had laid out the new Sea View course, which is what this part of Evans' article was about.
Yet Tom MacWood entirely dismisses Evans. All because Evans did not also bring up the 1912 trip. Tom even says the only conclusion one can draw is that Evans was not a good reporter. This makes zero sense.
BTW, it doesn't matter much whether Evans was talking about the East or the West, when he said the new Merion course. What matters is that that in 1913 he said Wilson visited Great Britain "some years ago".