Merion's Early Timeline

[DMoriarty]

If you believe these men thought Wilson & Co. were experts you must believe they were a bunch of dumb asses.

I don't believe they thought Wilson and his committee were experts. I believe they were exaggerating and making intentional misrepresentations to the members. If you don't think that is the most likely scenario, you've clearly never been a member of a private club run by a board of appointed members

I am not sure why you and others are so comfortable dismissing all source material that doesn't fit in with your desired conclusion.   Yet when it comes to something that supports the desired conclusion, it must not only be accepted, we must draw every possible helpful inference (see the treatment of Barker above, where because Connell reportedly paid him initially we are somehow supposed to conclude that Merion must have never had anything to do with him ever again.)

Is it at all possible that Merion's Committee was telling the truth regarding the experts?   After all, they had already been dealing with M&W and were dealing with them shortly thereafter, so it is that improbably that they were referring to their involvement?  Plus, Barker had been involved.  And they either had a contour map and were getting one, and M&W had indicated that they couldn't know if their plan would work on.

[John_Cullum]

David

Please understand that I have no "desired conclusion."

If Merion's committee was telling the truth, it may well be the only time in the history of private clubs that a board has been truthful with the membership about the progress of a major capital project

[DMoriarty]

David

Please understand that I have no "desired conclusion."

If Merion's committee was telling the truth, it may well be the only time in the history of private clubs that a board has been truthful with the membership about the progress of a major capital project

I understand what you are saying John, but this wasn't about the progress, this would have been a flat out lie about the qualifications of those who were planning the course.  As you note these guys were by no means "experts" and in my research I have yet to find anything like it.

We know that Merion was using the foremost experts for all aspects of the creation of the course.   Why so unreasonable to think they might have wanted an expert plan prepared as well?

[TEPaul]

"This 'expert' debate may go down as one the most pathetic displays of ignorance in GCA history. You have intelligent men with a good understanding of golf architecture history making an argument that not only insults the group's intelligence, it insults their own reputations. It borders on the comical. You can do no better than 1901? That is embarrassing."


In my opinion, this "expert" debate may go down as one of the most pathetic displays of ignorance in GCA history of at least two people on here who apparently have no idea at all how those men from clubs like that used that term back then with people like Wilson, his commitee, Leeds, Emmet, Travis, the Fownses, Macdonald, Whigam and Crump and PV friends who helped him or were so close to him (Carr, Smith et al).

The fact is ALL those men mentioned were the "expert" amateur players of their times and people from those clubs considered that if they were that good at playing golf they surely must understand architecture too. That is why they turned to them, as well as the fact that they could see most of the accumulated product of that early time from the English, Scottish immigrant professional multi-tasking (club pros, golf teachers, club-makers, greenkeepers, part time architects) wasin't worth a damn and isn't it just so interesting how the evolution and history of golf architecture in America has told us and confirmed to us how right they were to turn to those men because their special courses associated with their names and reputations were considered to be some of the greatest courses of their times and still are considered to be some of the greatest architecture in the world today.

This distinction and dynamic is the very reason Macdonald himself proclaimed in that era "the very soul of golf shrieks."

And this is precisely what the truly fascinating quotation offered on another thread from Bernard Darwin by none other than Tom MacWood said about some of the amateur architects compared to the professional contingent of that time!

[John_Cullum]

I hate to delve into more speculation, but why didn't they just ask McDonald to do it? I guess for whatever reason, they were comfortable with their chosen committee

[John_Cullum]

In pondering my own question, I seem to recall McDonald was not at his high point in life around this time

[Mike_Cirba]

Tom and David,

Please name all of the golf course design work that Hugh Wilson had accomplished that was available for critical viewing or even simple attribution at the time he was called a "golf expert" in Philadelphia newspapers in spring 1913?

Please tell us as well what golf courses Robert Lesley had designed by Jan 1915, or which clubs had employed him as a professional when he was called one of the golf experts being consulted by the Philadelphia Press that month?

In the case of Wilson, do you really mean to tell us that the local press was calling him an expert at that time because he sent a bunch of letters to P+O, had a pajama party at Big Mac's house, played pick-up sticks with the commitrtee to someone else's plans, and watched Mr. Pickering supervise the hired hands building the course?  How would the press have been aware of any of that?

And yet, you say our use of the proven term "expert" here as referring to Hugh Wilson is one of the biggest travesties ever on GCA?!?!

He was called an expert by the NY Times in 1901 and in the Philly papers by spring 1913, BEFORE any course you credit him with was even into shaping!  Are you telling us he somehow lost his expertise somwhere along the line, or that his partner Griscom who had headed Merion's Green Committee back when Merion first started playing golf 15 years prior were simply dunces and novices because Hugh Wilson made a humble, seld-effacing comment during a reminisce years later?

These gentlemen didn't need to brag about themselves, and the low-key, classy style of these men would not have had their names boasted as experts in some inter-club communique.

To suggest that they would just exhibits a complete fundamental lack of understanding of these men and their mores.

[DMoriarty]

Mike Cirba, you have a lot of nerve to ask me questions considering you haven't bothered to try and answer mine.

My questions are not just rhetorical flourishes  but came about after much time and effort, because you just made stuff up about how the term was commonly used before 1910.  So at least have the decency to let me follow up with your unsupported claims.

I hate to delve into more speculation, but why didn't they just ask McDonald to do it? I guess for whatever reason, they were comfortable with their chosen committee

What makes you think they didn't ask CBM to do it?   And what indicates that they were at all comfortable that their "chosen committee" or even that they chose the committee design the course?

[Mike_Cirba]

David,

I reject the very assunptions and foundations on which your questions are based and as alternative simply offer historical, direct, contemporaneous proof that cites the major protagonist in this drama, Hugh Wilson, being called a golf expert not once, but twice, and both before he had any golf design work of his own (according to your theories) available or even being shaped in the field.

What answer could I possibly craft more compelling than direct proof that the very premise of your questions is based on a wholly fallacious premise?

[Tom MacWood]

TEP & Mike
The powers that be at Merion - Lloyd, Lesley, Griscom, et. al. - were not dumb asses, as you contend. They knew the importance of a true expert and hired the best of the best.

[Tom MacWood]

Tom and David,

Please name all of the golf course design work that Hugh Wilson had accomplished that was available for critical viewing or even simple attribution at the time he was called a Lgolf expert" in Philadelphia newspapers in spring 1913?

Please tell us as well what golf courses Robert Lesley had designed by Jan 1915, or which clubs had employed him as a professional when he was called one of the golf experts being consulted by the Philadelphia Press that month?

In the case of Wilson, do you really mean to tell us that the local press was calling him an expert at that time because he sent a bunch of letters to P+O, had a pajama party at Big Mac's house, played pick-up sticks with the commitrtee to someone else's plans, and watched Mr. Pickering supervise the hired hands building the course?  How would the press have been aware of any of that?

And yet, you say our use of the proven term "expert" here as referring to Hugh Wilson is one of the biggest travesties ever on GCA?!?!

He was called an expert by the NY Times in 1901 and in the Philly papers by spring 1913, BEFORE any course you credit him with was even into shaping!  Are you telling us he somehow lost his expertise somwhere along the line, or that his partner Griscom who had headed Merion's Green Committee back when Merion first started playing golf 15 years prior were simply dunces and novices because Hugh Wilson made a humble, seld-effacing comment during a reminisce years later?

These gentlemen didn't need to brag about themselves, and the low-key, classy style of these men would not have had their names boasted as experts in some inter-club communique.

To suggest that they would just exhibits a complete fundamental lack of understanding of these men and their mores.

What happened in the Spring of 1913?

[TEPaul]

“I hate to delve into more speculation, but why didn't they just ask McDonald to do it? I guess for whatever reason, they were comfortable with their chosen committee


"In pondering my own question, I seem to recall McDonald was not at his high point in life around this time.”



JohnC:

Those remarks of yours are actually really good ones. For some years now I have been proposing that we all need to know a whole lot more about Macdonald and his life and times than just what he did with American architecture.

First of all, if you look at who the people were from the clubs Macdonald got involved in architecture with there is little doubt it can explain a whole lot about why he did what he did with various projects and courses. First of all, Macdonald never took a cent for anything he did in his entire career in architecture. That is pretty much an indisputable fact (unless he too was engaging in hyperbole or lying in his 1928 autobiography) and so if you were him (you pretty much have to also understand what he did for an actual living) and you look at who he got involved with partially (Merion, The Women's National etc) or completely (NGLA, Piping Rock, Sleepy Hollow, Lido, Creek, Yale, Mid Ocean etc) it might help explain both when and why he did the projects he did and how and how much he did with them. It might also explain his long-going involvement with the USGA board and their Rules Committee and the people on them.

If someone actually put a list together of WHO ALL the people WERE from those clubs and project I just mentioned who Macdonald got involved with throughout the years I can pretty much guarantee you it would absolutely blow your mind and everyone else on this website! It would also explain why he did the things he did in golf in his life!

Was Macdonald a man on the make? Well, you can decide that for yourself when you begin to understand who many of the people were he dealt with in these veins over the years. The point is or was, Macdonald wasn’t considered by them to be exactly a nobody in the way they looked at the culture of that time! But in other ways, he wasn't exactly one of them either, even though his knowledge of all things golf certianly had its effect on some of the ways they looked at him and appreciated him! To them and to him, amateurism in all things golf was huge, just huge. It was sort of the way they wanted to look at themselves communally. They even had a word they used to refer to themselves communally and it wasn’t just “amateur” either! It was, in fact, probably the true expression of all the both good and bad things we today may think of or say about what those men back then thought "elitism" was and should be even in its finest application!! Can you guess what that word was they used so often amongst themselves to describe themselves? It wasn't "amateur" and it wasn't "expert" either.   

I’ve wondered for a few years now whether guys on here like MacWood and Moriarty even sense any of this, much less understand it and what it really meant back then, and how important it was to them back then. I continue to wonder because if they don’t understand it they will never understand much of anything about that world of golf and architecture back then and why some of them thought and did the things they did. And that very much includes MCC and the men who called on Macdonald/Whigam before they (Wilson and Committee) set about designing and building Merion East.

[Mike_Cirba]

Tom MacWood,

I've already shown that Wilson was called a "golf expert" in the spring of 1913, and prior.   So was Ab Smith of Huntingdon Valley.

When you tell us they hired the best of the best aren't you really saying that HH Barker could do a better routing job in a day than these men who had all played golf for about 15 years each could do on the ground every day for months?   Because he was a golf pro?

Your argument is akin to saying that Gary Player could come onto a 130 acre property for 8 hours and because of some foreign birthright, do a better routing job than you, me, David, Tom Paul, and Jim Sullivan could do if we spent 3 months out there.

p.s.  Are you going to answer my question as to what you base your contention on that Wilson and all the other members of Merion's Committee except Francis were also the Green Committee in January 1911?

[DMoriarty]

Mike, your avoidance of my questions is pathetic, and your arguments on this issue have been foolish, ridiculous and disingenuous.  Remember your ridiculous but repeat claims that before 1910 "hundreds" club members designed their own courses, and that they were considered "experts" and designing courses merely because they were good but not great club golfers?  You have changed your positions on this issue almost as often as TEPaul has changed what he tells us the source material says.  

You are wasting our time so, let's agree to disagree.   You obviously have nothing to add to a real conversation.  
  

[Tom MacWood]

Tom MacWood,

I've already shown that Wilson was called a "golf expert" in the spring of 1913, and prior.   So was Ab Smith of Huntingdon Valley.

When you tell us they hired the best of the best aren't you really saying that HH Barker could do a better routing job in a day than these men who had all played golf for about 15 years each could do on the ground every day for months?   Because he was a golf pro?

Your argument is akin to saying that Gary Player could come onto a 130 acre property for 8 hours and because of some foreign birthright, do a better routing job than you, me, David, Tom Paul, and Jim Sullivan could do if we spent 3 months out there.

p.s.  Are you going to answer my question as to what you base your contention on that Wilson and all the other members of Merion's Committee except Francis were also the Green Committee in January 1911?

I must have missed that article. Can you post it?

[Mike_Cirba]

Mike, your avoidance of my questions is pathetic, and your arguments on this issue have been foolish, ridiculous and disingenuous.  Remember your ridiculous but repeat claims that before 1910 "hundreds" club members designed their own courses, and that they were considered "experts" and designing courses merely because they were good but not great club golfers?  You have changed your positions on this issue almost as often as TEPaul has changed what he tells us the source material says.  

You are wasting our time so, let's agree to disagree.   You obviously have nothing to add to a real conversation.  
  

That's fine.

I'm sure you don't want to answer questions related to my direct, contemporaneous proof that Hugh Wilson was called a golf expert before you admit he was a golf course architect, both in 1901 and again in spring 1913.  

I understand how you wouldn't have an answer that fits with your theories that you'd want to discuss.

Tom,

It's back a page or two, near a picture of Wilson and Ab Smith with Clarence Geist and Ellis Gimbel and others.   I'm sure you can find it.

[TEPaul]

"TEP & Mike
The powers that be at Merion - Lloyd, Lesley, Griscom, et. al. - were not dumb asses, as you contend. They knew the importance of a true expert and hired the best of the best."


Tom:

I really don't think there is any reason to discuss that particular point with you further. I, for one, firmly believe you just don't get both how and why MCC looked at men like Wilson and his committee (that included Lloyd and Griscom) when it came to tapping them to design and build Merion East and West.

You just seem completely stuck in some believe that men like that back then looked at people like Barker and Campbell as the experts and the only ones to turn to to design and create great courses and architecture for them. Frankly, I think it was pretty much the opposite back then and their opinions can probably be best reflected in the remarks of the man they turned to in the beginning for a little help and advice on how THEY (the men of MCC) should go about it. Of course that famous remark of the man they turned to was; "It makes the very soul of golf shriek."

Do you really think he was referring to the likes in golf architecture of Leeds, Emmet, Travis, Whigam, The Fownses, Wilson, Griscom, Francis, Toulmin, Lloyd, Crump and even Knapp, Stillman etc, considered to be "expert" golfers all of their times?

I'm sorry, Tom, you may be a good newspaper, magazine and book researcher but I'm afraid you have a whole lot to learn about that time, how to analyze it in a larger sense and what it was all about in a larger sense than just golf architecture.

If you would like, I would be glad to help you understand it better. I really mean that Tom---I think the time has come for us to get over our past differences and try to work together more. This is definitely not a two for one offer, though, with your cohort Moriarty. In my opinion, that guy with me or us here has completely burned his bridges. It's too bad because I did make the same offer to him at least three times, and on the subject of really getting to understand Macdonald with more than just his golf archtitecture. But he refused each time and so I guess it's sort of that old baseball thing---eg three strikes and your out!

[DMoriarty]

John Collum,

If that latest episode of Lifestyles of the Rich and Pompous didn't answer your questions, I suggest we turn back to the actual source material to try and address them.  From Whigham's Evangalist of Golf, as reprinted in Bahto's excellent book of the same name:

"Clubs all over the country asked Macdonald to remodel their courses.  Since he was every inch an amateur, golf architecture for him was very much a labor of love, and it was quite impossible for him to do all that was asked him.  So he used to send Seth Raynor to do the groundwork, and he himself corrected the plans."

While obviously not directly referring to Merion, this provides a good explanation of CBM's general approach for his courses with which he was not directing supervising things.   The primary difference with Merion was that CBM was working with Wilson and his Committee, rather than with Raynor.   Ironically, CBM's directinvolvement at Merion was apparently more extensive than at some of his courses he designed and built with Raynor.   CBM did not just work on the "plans" at Merion, he helped choose the land, he spent two days at NGLA teaching Wison how to lay out the course, and he went to Merion and determined the final routing!  

Additionally, the reference to correcting the plans ought to help put to rest this absurd notion that CBM had to have actually been present at Merion in order to have been helping plan it.

Hope this helps.  

[TEPaul]

""TEP & Mike
The powers that be at Merion - Lloyd, Lesley, Griscom, et. al. - were not dumb asses, as you contend. They knew the importance of a true expert and hired the best of the best."


Hold on here Tom MacWood:

Look very carefully of that remark of yours! Do you see something wrong with IT?

When did Mike Cirba or I EVER CONTEND that Lloyd, Lesley or Griscom were dumb asses??

What you are apparently saying is that since we do not agree with YOU that Wilson was such a novice or lack of architectural talent that those men could not possibly have asked Wilson to do what they did ask him to do (chair the committee to design and build Merion East and West) that THEREFORE WE are contending that Lloyd, Lesley and Griscom were dumb asses!!

We never said anything like that; not ever. YOU are the one who is putting those words in OUR MOUTHS.

YOU have really got to stop that kind of deception, diversion and crap, Tom MacWood and I'm pretty sure even you know that. But if you don't I definitely want every clear thinking participant and viewer on this website to know it! If you don't stop doing things like that above and your credibilty and reputation gets destroyed in the process then I'm telling you now that is not our problem or our doing----it is yours all by yourself!

[Mike_Cirba]

I find the following snippet from the NY Sun in March 1896 interesting for a few reasons.

First, it does give Leeds credit for the golf course at Myopia at that early date*, but more importantly to this discussion, it talks about AH Fenn, who also designed some golf courses shortly thereafter, and states that because he can play within six strokes of CB Macdonald he was one of the very best golfers American Born golfers in the country at that time...an expert, if you will.

Yet, five years later, in an article where Hugh Wilson is on the very same first page with Macdonald (four strokes behind him), Emmett, and Travis, and called an EXPERT in the very same article, we are told to pay no attention to that man behind the curtain....that they really didn't mean to call him an expert, or that he somehow lost his golf expertise over the intervening decade even though his handicap fell from an 8 to a 6 during that time, such that only 11 men in all of Philadelphia had a better handicap than him when he was appointed to the Merion Committee.




* - Unless, of course, Herbert Leeds simply walked around the Myopia property, Zombie-like, placing sticks in pre-ordained places in the ground to someone else's plans, as the article only says that he "laid out" the course at Myopia, but had nothing to do with planning the routing or designing the holes, much like those multitudes of erroneous news articles from Philadelphia that stated that Hugh Wilson "laid out" the Merion East course.    

[TEPaul]

""Clubs all over the country asked Macdonald to remodel their courses.  Since he was every inch an amateur, golf architecture for him was very much a labor of love, and it was quite impossible for him to do all that was asked him.  So he used to send Seth Raynor to do the groundwork, and he himself corrected the plans."


I would not deny or quibble with much of anything at all about that quoted remark about Macdonald and Raynor. The next step in your education should probably be who the people were of the clubs and courses he even sent Raynor to and corrected his plans for.

Someone like you may call them "the rich and the pompous" but I doubt Charles Blair Macdonald would remotely agree with you.

I admit I have sort of a time machine fixation, David Moriarty, and I did come from that world of Long Island and elsewhere of those clubs that Macdonald did ply in his life and times in golf and architecture and business and socially, and it occurs to me if Charles Blair Macdonald could read and see the things you say and the opinions you have about it all he definitely would not think much more of you than I do, at this point!

[John_Cullum]

John Collum,

If that latest episode of Lifestyles of the Rich and Pompous didn't answer your questions, I suggest we turn back to the actual source material to try and address them.  From Whigham's Evangalist of Golf, as reprinted in Bahto's excellent book of the same name:

"Clubs all over the country asked Macdonald to remodel their courses.  Since he was every inch an amateur, golf architecture for him was very much a labor of love, and it was quite impossible for him to do all that was asked him.  So he used to send Seth Raynor to do the groundwork, and he himself corrected the plans."

While obviously not directly referring to Merion, this provides a good explanation of CBM's general approach for his courses with which he was not directing supervising things.   The primary difference with Merion was that CBM was working with Wilson and his Committee, rather than with Raynor.   Ironically, CBM's directinvolvement at Merion was apparently more extensive than at some of his courses he designed and built with Raynor.   CBM did not just work on the "plans" at Merion, he helped choose the land, he spent two days at NGLA teaching Wison how to lay out the course, and he went to Merion and determined the final routing!  

Additionally, the reference to correcting the plans ought to help put to rest this absurd notion that CBM had to have actually been present at Merion in order to have been helping plan it.

Hope this helps.  

That is interesting. I was not aware how McDonald generally went about his course design/building

[Tom MacWood]

TEP
Hugh Wilson himself admitted he wasn't an expert. He said that the knowledge he and the rest of the committee had in construction and green-keeping was that of an average club member.

These were savvy men - Lloyd, Lesley, et al -  who knew the meaning of the term expert. They had already been involved with Macdonald and Barker, arguably the two top experts in golf design. They would later hire the top contractor in the country and one the top grass experts in the world. In comparison to these men was Wilson an expert?

Mike
Wilson was the first green committee chairman of the new course. Oakley wrote that he was sorry he was stepping down in 1914. I don't recall the article reading the Spring of 1913.

[Tom MacWood]

I find the following snippet from the NY Sun in March 1896 interesting for a few reasons.

First, it does give Leeds credit for the golf course at Myopia at that early date*, but more importantly to this discussion, it talks about AH Fenn, who also designed some golf courses shortly thereafter, and states that because he can play within six strokes of CB Macdonald he was one of the very best golfers American Born golfers in the country at that time...an expert, if you will.

Yet, five years later, in an article where Hugh Wilson is on the very same first page with Macdonald (four strokes behind him), Emmett, and Travis, and called an EXPERT in the very same article, we are told to pay no attention to that man behind the curtain....that they really didn't mean to call him an expert, or that he somehow lost his golf expertise over the intervening decade even though his handicap fell from an 8 to a 6 during that time, such that only 11 men in all of Philadelphia had a better handicap than him when he was appointed to the Merion Committee.




* - Unless, of course, Herbert Leeds simply walked around the Myopia property, Zombie-like, placing sticks in pre-ordained places in the ground to someone else's plans, as the article only says that he "laid out" the course at Myopia, but had nothing to do with planning the routing or designing the holes, much like those multitudes of erroneous news articles from Philadelphia that stated that Hugh Wilson "laid out" the Merion East course.    

1896? You are not even in the right century. Stop it, you are making a fool of yourself.

[Mike_Cirba]

TEP
Hugh Wilson himself admitted he wasn't an expert. He said that the knowledge he and the rest of the committee had in construction and green-keeping was that of an average club member.

These were savvy men - Lloyd, Lesley, et al -  who knew the meaning of the term expert. They had already been involved with Macdonald and Barker, arguably the two top experts in golf design. They would later hire the top contractor in the country and one the top grass experts in the world. In comparison to these men was Wilson an expert?

Mike
Wilson was the first green committee chairman of the new course. Oakley wrote that he was sorry he was stepping down in 1914. I don't recall the article reading the Spring of 1913.

Tom,

The article I posted is from May 1913.

At that time, according to revisionist history, Macdonald, or Barker's Merion East course had just opened a few months prior. 

Hugh Wilson had barely turned a spoonful of soil on what was to become Merion West.

Please stop your insults; they are uncalled for.