PeterP:
I'm still thinking about your post #271; it's wonderful stuff, very much heartfelt, I'm sure, and a personal generational chronicle with real feeling.
But in that wonderful post you make such important points sometimes in the form of almost queries:
1. Is is it really doing someone justice who's involved in some important event no matter to what degree to overblow and exaggerate what they really did and really were? Is that in fact the opposite of actually honoring them as a person, as a life?
I would have to say it is not really doing them justice or honoring them---on that I have to agree with you. As you seem to imply it might be the opposite of honoring them as a contribution, as a person and a life. It may even be some exhibition of anger or even embarrassment for their plight but I think it's probably deeper than that in the context of social and economic consciousness. That's probably a large chapter for another time.
Then why do many biographers or present day chroniclers of those times and people of the past and others who tend to bring up and discuss these types of subjects do that and frankly do it so often----eg exaggerate and overblow what people were or what they did?
To me this is even more interesting and maybe more important. It probably has something more to do with the sensiblilities and social consciousness of the biographer than it does the actual work-a-day realities of his subject's life and times and social and economic dynamics.
But this website is not supposed to be about these kinds of things apparently, so maybe I should say enough of this on this particular post. It's supposed to be about golf course architecture and certainly its history and how architects and others, no matter what their social and economic constructs and conditions, were in it all.
I believe the problem some of us have had on here in the last five years or so over some of these subjects (Merion, Wilson, Macdonald/Whigam, Barker, Myopia, Campbell, Leeds, perhaps Pine Valley) is a quest by some (I would say both MacWood and Moriarty particularly) to determine in some real detail who did exactly what, and how, when, why and where; who thought of what, whose concepts or ideas on all things architectural of a course were responsible for and the emanation of what was to be that we see and play or are aware of from old photos or whatever.
The only problem is in course after course after course certainly mostly including the older ones, these things are simply unknowable. The reason is they were almost never recorded; maybe they weren't even that recognized at the time they were happening. We are lucky when we are treated to a story like Richard Francis' of the Merion committee. It is an example of just one of thousands of things that go on out there through the months of design and construction. Obviously his was an important one because structurally (in a routing sense) it was probably hanging up the layout, finalization and construction of the last five holes, and how they needed to fit and connect, certainly for balance and variety.
This is why I think it is so very valuable for anyone truly interested in these kinds of things, certainly the research of it historically, to experience a whole lot of it with a good deal of time on site on projects that are aborning, abuilding and coming into being creatively, conceptually and actually. I believe, out there on those sites, it is not much like I fear most people might expect and think. It has been and continues to be a real surprise for me and a fantastic education in architecture. But the importance of understanding it and experiencing it is you learn that these things some on here seem to want to research and determine as to who did what and when and where and how and why really are unknowable, certainly now----they were just not recorded. Even at the time they aren't much more than a flow and flux of the tapestry of golf course architecture coming into being in the overall. Mostly the individual personalities seem to get collectively taken into the whole thing.
I knew when I read that post in a thread that Tom MacWood started over five years ago about Merion (and I can find it, it's called "Re: Macdonald and Merion") that he wanted to know these details, because he actually asked about them and then not long after Moriarty joined in with that quest. Wayne actually said, I believe, that many of them are probably just unknowable, at this point, for all the reasons stated above.
But that was not well received by MacWood. He said (and I can find it) we need more research. Well, we always need more research as many things have been misinterpreted over the years and many things are probably still hiding in nooks and crannies right around us, unseen for decades if not even a century.
But we should never go past what we have and can consider into exaggerations and illogical deductions, assumptions, conclusions and ultimately and probably inevitably fallacies and inaccuracies historically. And that's what we've done, I believe. And we should definitely not let the research quest and consideration devolve into an adverserial and personal competition of who is the better researcher. And that is definitely were this has gone, you can read it on posts today on this thread and others, and it needs to stop. We don't need to go so low that someone states on here he doesn't want to help someone else or anyone they are associated with, including a club, with their own architectural history.
I'll offer another olive branch that way---I've done it before and I'm doing it again.
But your post #271 is a wonderful one, Peter Pallotta, I wish more on here had your type of sensibilities. It sure ain't about stats and rankings, standardizations or formulaics; it's deeper than that and inherently far more important, and to me, at least, more interesting and educational.
What I want to know is what really was, what really happened, whether it was the good, the bad or the ugly. After that we can talk about social and economic injustices, the failure to give credit where it is really due, the problems back then or maybe still today between the "Haves" and the "Havenots", or whatever. Let's not fall into the trap of looking at and analyzing yesteryear through today's eyes, let's try to look at it through the eyes of those who saw it at the time. They couldn't know us and our times but if we strip away some of what we know they could never have known we should be able to see them and understand it all better back then.
I wish we had 150 more like you on here Peter Pallotta, and there are others I want to mention at another time.
Thanks for post #271.