Tom,
The sources are the minutes of the club's Board meetings, a single volume of grounds committee meeting minutes from 1919, and several early issues of the club magazine, the Olympian. They simply state unequivocally that Tom Bendelow was the architect of Course 1. One mentions that Collis laid out a temporary course, and then Bendelow came in and did course 1. They also state that Willie Watson was the Architect of Course 2, and that they collaborated on course 3.
I am certainly not saying these are definitive; I don't think anything is. You seem to be claiming that many of the news articles and sources cited by Tim, Dan and I are inaccurate. That may well be true, but I don't think it says anything to establish that the articles and sources you cite are likely more accurate. My opinion continues to be that we simply don't have enough evidence to know exactly who did what beyond what I listed earlier. We can make some guesses based on the style of certain features (such as the bunkering on the 14th hole of the South Course, which is also found only on the 7th hole of old course 3), but I think that's it.
Also, if Dan is correct and the Collis course was built on farmland, it could not have encompassed all that much of course 1, a lot of which was heavily wooded. He correctly cites the farmland areas, though I think that there was also farmland to the far west (if I have the directions right) and near the railroad tracks, where the range, shooting area and stable was for a while. This was a BIG place, with nearly 700 acres.
Jeff