“The point is that Macdonald did not work like that at all in terms of designing courses at that time, much less doing a "paper job" based on a single day's visit for Merion.
What evidence exists that he did?"
Mike:
That is a fascinating question and one I've been thinking about for some years now. To even attempt to answer it we pretty much have to put Macdonald's career in architecture into a timeline! It's amazing just how useful and helpful "timelining" can be with these kinds of subjects and questions.
First of all---and to use a timeline of Macdonald's career, I personally am not aware that anyone or any other club had called on Macdonald/Whigam when MCC did in June 1910 or before June 1910. MCC may've been the first to do that and if any others did before MCC did there doesn't seem to be any evidence anywhere of it or that Macdonald responded and came to them at their request and offered his help and advice as he and Whigam did to MCC in June 1910.
Piping Rock called on him as did Sleepy Hollow but neither before 1911 or later. Macdonald himself chronicles this in his own biography and I hope it will not be something we do now to begin questioning and parsing Macdonald's own words on that from his biography. “Scotland’s Gift Golf.”
We need to ask what MCC actually asked Macdonald to do in June 1910 and then again in March 1911 and April 6, 1911, as those were the ONLY times it seems they asked him to do anything for them relating to golf architecture, and we surely do have that Wilson report of all the work they did on the Merion site in the winter and spring of 1911 on their own and without Macdonald there with them. It seems to me what they asked him was to explain to them how he went about creating the course at NGLA with himself and his initial group of "amateur/sportsmen" expert golfers----eg Whigam, Travis, Emmet and even James Stillman and Joseph Knapp.
We also need to ask ourselves what they seemingly DID NOT ask him to do. For that we can just look to see if any evidence at all exists that they ever asked him to spend the time routing and designing holes for Merion East perhaps in the mode he had used at NGLA which of course interestingly is the only course MCC mentioned when they referred to M/W in their meeting minutes. Is it recorded anywhere at any time by anyone that MCC EVER asked him to route and design a golf course for them as Piping Rock and Sleepy Hollow and the rest that he would do later clearly asked him to do?
I don't think so and if they did then why in the world did MCC never say so as Piping and Sleepy Hollow and all the rest clearly did do and did say?
I think all MCC ever even asked Macdonald to do for them was to explain to them how they could go about doing with Merion East what he did at NGLA with a committee of "amateur/sportsmen" expert golfers, and that is precisely why they formed and appointed a group of expert golfers in Wilson, Griscom, Lloyd, Lloyd and Francis that replicated Macdonald's Whigam, Travis, Emmett, Stillman and Knapp. It has never been lost on me that Macdonald very likely may've told them to put a professional engineer on the project like he had done with Raynor. Merion found that person in their own Richard Francis. And that is why Wilson and his committee has always been given the credit for Merion East unlike all the rest of the other courses Macdonald did which I do not believe any amateur/sportsman committee of the ilk of NGLA and MCC was ever even mentioned!
To me this is not only all MCC did with Macdonald/Whigam but it was all they ever really asked him to do. To show them what he had done both architecturally and agronomically at one day meeting in June 1910, at that 2 day visit in March 1911 to NLGA and that one day visit in April 6, 1911 at Ardmore to review THEIR plans just seems like a natural evolution of what kindly advice and help is all about that it is clear to see they very much appreciated and thanked him for in their own club records.
But to actual take the time to route and design a course for them at that point----I don't think so and there is no evidence of that whatsoever and if they had even ASKED him to do that or actually had him do that then there is just no reason in the world why they would not have said so and recorded that too for all the world to see for the rest of time!
The next and really fascinating question is why did Macdonald accept the call to come to MCC that way in 1910 (perhaps the first request of him from anyone after NGLA) and why did he accept the request to design Piping Rock, Sleepy Hollow, Lido, Old White, St Louis, The Creek and Yale later, particularly since he never took a fee for what he did for those clubs.
For the answers to those questions I think we pretty much need to look very carefully at who the people were who were making those requests of him that he actually accepted. And I believe in every single case we will find they were hugely rich and powerful men of business, particularly Wall St and related business and in most all cases Macdonald knew most all of them beforehand. I wonder how and why? Yeah RIGHT!
What does that mean then? What did it mean to Macdonald? How can there be much question that by spending his time and UNPAID to boot to do these favors for these clubs and these types of really powerful people he must have felt he would get back in kind their favor in what his real job was----eg a stock broker specialist, perhaps floor broker specialist for Barney and Co.
And lastly, did any of the other clubs that utilized Macdonald's architectural services and for which he was given complete design and architectural attribution and credit both then and in the future have in place an "amateur/sportsmen" committee as CBM did at NGLA and MCC did with their Wilson Committee?
If we look closely at the history and historical club records of Piping, Sleepy, Lido, Old White, St Louis, The Creek, Mid Ocean and Yale I think not and that is part of the key or perhaps most of the key to understanding MCC, The Wilson Committee, Macdonald/Whigam only receiving help and advice attribution from MCC rather than complete design and architectural attribution that the other clubs that he was personally involved with that followed MCC and Merion East always gave him!
That's my overall take on MCC, Merion East, Wilson and Committee and Macdonald/Whigam's help and advice that was the description of their attribution to him and them (M/W). That has been Merion G.C. recorded and reported history for a century now and there does not appear to be one single good reason to reconsider it or revise and rewrite it. I don't need to say more and probably shouldn't.