Tom,
You misunderstand what I meant. I am simply asking if from the perspective of the writer of the article. Wasn't he simply refering to what HE phrased as the original proposed work that was suggested by Old Tom and simply wrote of it in that fashion?
From my reading it appears, and this is just an opinion, he was simply writing in a manner consistent with his times. He wasn't making serious or definitive attribution but rather a simple statement.
Look at the lines quoted in context to each other:
Golf article, "He at once proceeded to investigate the links and went over them very carefully, offering some suggestions to lengthening of several of the holes and but on the whole make no radical changes to the course, which was originally projected by the Captain, Mr A W Shaw and the club professional James Mckenna... The following morning Tom Morris went over the whole course again with the captain and the professional, to make sure that when it was altered as he directed as much as possible would be made out of it..."
Kroeger's quote, "In 1897, the course had been changed somewhat from Morris' original layout, but it still bore his trademark."
Notice how in the first one he used the phrase "originally projected." They were looking at a course now built and not at a proposal. So this phrase carried more than the meaning we might attribute to it today as something proposed. He clearly used it with the meaning of completed and built.
In the same way, isn't it possible that more is being read into Kroeger's words than what he was actually saying. I don't see him doing as you stated, calling Lahinch "OTM's original layout." Rather he simply said that Lahinch had already been changed from the course that Old Tom had changed it to.
As far as your thought, "I know OTM was fast but its also difficult to imagine that he could alter the course so significantly in less than 24 hours that it would result in the course being called OTM's original layout."
I'm not calling it that, but he most assuredly could have done so. He is walking an existing course and note the other portion of the quote, "when it was altered as he directed as much as possible would be made out of it..."
Evidently he hadn't just suggested a single or series of very minor changes, but "as much as possible" suggests to me that he may have made a number of suggestions in the belief that some would be accepted and some not.
By the way, is the "Captain" in both quotes the same person? This is important as well as he clearly is referred to in the first quote as the designer of the original course ("which was originally projected by the Captain").
Is it possible that Old Tom was acting in a politically sensitive manner here, not insulting the designer in front of "Mr. Shaw" who, as the ONLY person actually named in the original quote, must have been a man of importance, at the very least at Lahinch.
Then the next day, when "Mr. Shaw" wasn't present he spoke far more freely and made many more suggestions? One might also infer, and not necessarily correctly, that "Mr. Shaw" may have been overseeing the financial side of the club's interest's, again because of the use of the phrase "as much as possible would be made."
It seems from this there were restrictions on what could and would be done and quite obvious that just a few years later, after the changes, major or minor, suggested by Old Tom, that the club realized that they hadn't gone far enough.
Heck, I can even picture the cursing over a good port in a smoke-filled room at the club about these young players hitting the ball so very far as a result of this new golf ball...
I believe all of the above is an example of "revisionist historical interpretation!"
