"Synopsis. While Hugh I. Wilson is credited with designing the great Merion East course that opened in 1912, he did not plan the original layout or conceive of the holes. H.H. Barker first sketched out a routing the summer of 1910, but shortly thereafter Barker’s plans were largely modified or perhaps even completely replaced by the advice provided by the famous amateur golfers, C.B. Macdonald and H.J. Whigham who provided their written opinion of what could be done with the land. Richard Francis and H.G. Lloyd of Merion also contributed to the routing plan. After the course was planned and land finally purchased, Merion appointed Hugh Wilson and his “Construction Committee” to build the golf course."
Ulrich:
Above is about the first half of the synopsis of the essay "The Missing Faces of Merion."
Having read the essay many times and very carefully and then having gone over the administrative records of MCC and the events and the timeline and all the supplemental material therewith, I will show you both how and why a number of the statements contained in even the first half of that synopsis are completely wrong----they pretty much have to be when you begin to see the details of the events of that timeline.
Personally, I think the essay's synopsis is a pretty darn good one of what the essay is and says and the essay itself shows that it is just as wrong as its synopsis is.
If you are really interested in this subject, Ulrich, I suggest you read that essay very carefully and familiarize yourself with just how the essayist tries to establish a point or points into an assumption, premise or conclusion and uses that hopefully accepted premise to actually go on and to establish the next one and so on and so on. In fact the reliability or factual accuracy of each premise must hold or the final "a priori" established conclusions and contentions will fall apart as does a toppling house of cards!
The real problem here, for us at least, is we know all the details and recorded events by MCC's administrative records that establish the over all timeline of 1910 and 1911, but we recognize that very few others on this website do and that therefore makes this kind of distorted logic of this essay somewhat believable or interesting AT FIRST!
This is what some call "a priori" reasoning but in this case we will show just how many of those premises which necessarily must support one another are not only not true but virtually can't be because of the inevitable facts of the over-all timeline and how some events cannot possibly be put before or even put after some other events in the manner in which they occured or for the very reasons they occured. This is what the essayist attempted to do and it just doesn't work logically or factually or any other way!
But unfortunately when we have pointed all this out to the essayist using the written material and and even in one case survey map material and what it pretty clearly shows and means from the men of Merion and others around them and helping them at that time, the essayist continues to dismiss, discount, or rationalize away what it all clearly says and means.
At this point, we feel all that is left to him is to just constantly argue and not for facts or the truth of the architectural history of Merion but simply for argument's sake alone. Apparently he does this because argument for argument's sake is his real interest on here or else for whatever his reasons he simply cannot admit that he was wrong and is wrong and how he is and was wrong.
Occasionally, when faced with the fact that some of the things he has said or maintained really are illogical even apparently to him, rather than admitting that on here and particularly to us, he will revert to the last ditch defense question type of; "Well isn't it at least possible?" OR "Can you prove to me how it's IMPOSSIBLE or even isn't IMPOSSIBLE?"
You know, Ulrich, we here aren't really interested in discussions like that and certainly not over Merion's history. They are basically futile and pointless discussions and we feel we have better things to spend our time on that stuff like that!