"...... and most had been to school in Philadelphia....isn't that right?"
Wow, you've got to get up here more if you want to understand the history of this town. We're talking Ivy League now if you're talking back then. In the Ivy League school pecking order Philadelphia was fifth string, maybe even seventh string. Probably still is.
Some of those "amateur/sportsmen" architects back then actually left town and went to Harvard, Yale or Princeton but back then intelligence didn't have anything to do with it. Back then it was only about money and social position. Shit, Mike, most all those so-called "amateur/sportsmen" Philly guys like Wilson, Crump and Thomas were so dumb it wasn't until right around the end of the first world war before they even realized there was such a thing as a professional golf course architect.