Merion's Early Timeline

[DMoriarty]

Niall,

I am not sure your interpretation addresses what I view as the key point of the article; the described "object" of Wilson's trip.   According to the author, Wilson was there learning about the golf holes so he could keep those at his club as much like the originals as possible. 

I don't think you can ignore the "object" of the trip even if you think the author may have been confused about the identity of the club. 

[JESII]

David,

I see a contradiction in your position on the Redan (especially CBM's words about 'infinite variations') and your reading of the importance of "The Object" of Wilson's trip. I agree with you on the reading of the object of Wilson's trip, it was the first thing that jumped out at me, but when CBM states that there are only 4 or 5 kinds of good golf holes, then it's easy to assume every hole they were building at Merion would have some degree of the principles of the originals in Great Britian.

I guess my point is that, of course Wilson was hoping to learn how to maintain the holes at Merion as much like the originals as possible, he was working on building a world class golf course and he wanted to study the classics AND his advisor strongly suggested that line of research.

That Hugh Wilson was in great Britian studying the great holes and how they work does not, on its own, say anything (one way or another) about Macdonald and Wigham's involvement at Merion.

The article is cool, but not a declaration of anything.

[TEPaul]

"Guys,
Stop with the sniping and stick to the issues."


Pat:

Issues? What issues? The only issue on this thread or any of the Merion threads is from one or two people who keep trying to contend that Wilson or anyone who studied the principles of architecture abroad should attribute anything they did in architecture to Macdonald as the driving force behind any and all of it. That's not an issue, it's only a speculative fantasy and completely close-minded, not to mention i, ig, ign-----Oh never mind. 

[DMoriarty]

David,

I see a contradiction in your position on the Redan (especially CBM's words about 'infinite variations') and your reading of the importance of "The Object" of Wilson's trip. I agree with you on the reading of the object of Wilson's trip, it was the first thing that jumped out at me, but when CBM states that there are only 4 or 5 kinds of good golf holes, then it's easy to assume every hole they were building at Merion would have some degree of the principles of the originals in Great Britian.

I guess my point is that, of course Wilson was hoping to learn how to maintain the holes at Merion as much like the originals as possible, he was working on building a world class golf course and he wanted to study the classics AND his advisor strongly suggested that line of research.

You've lost me here Jim.   I don't understand the contradiction.

That Hugh Wilson was in great Britian studying the great holes and how they work does not, on its own, say anything (one way or another) about Macdonald and Wigham's involvement at Merion.

The article is cool, but not a declaration of anything.

That he was studying the great holes may not say much, but that he had already built a golf course based on the great holes abroad - holes he had never seen - says plenty.   If you already agree that he had build a golf course based on the great holes abroad before even seeing the great holes abroad , then article only provides further confirmation of this fact.  But others are apparently having trouble coming to grips with this fact.

[TEPaul]

"But others are apparently having trouble coming to grips with this fact."


And is it any wonder most all others are apparently having trouble coming to grip with that fact?

What great holes abroad were the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, 16th, 17th and 18th at Merion East based on? One can throw the 6th in there as well if a drive skirting OB on the right is what-all someone thinks constitutes a road hole replication. There is nothing at all about the rest of that hole that replicates the Road Hole of TOC. So that would be 14-15 holes at Merion East that don't seem to use template holes from abroad that were attempted replications.

But of course that does not seem to mean that a couple on here won't continue to try to force that contention on Wilson and Merion East.

[JESII]

David,

It's that CBM states there are only 4 or 5 good hole concepts...that means most every hole built has some degree of those concepts included...if a Redan can have infinite varieties of slope and angle of approach and green-to-tee elevation change and all the other "principles" and really only needs one or two of the principles anyway than it's a pretty wide range so there is no reason Wilson wouldn't have some knowledge of the characteristics of a good hole and a bad one.

PLUS...he spent, at a minimum, a full 24 hours with CBM at NGLA learning his opinion of the best holes, and how they work. He also had at a minimum the benefit of his opinion at Merion in April. So it is very logical that he would have geared his initial attempt around those principles.

[DMoriarty]

"But others are apparently having trouble coming to grips with this fact."


And is it any wonder most all others are apparently having trouble coming to grip with that fact?

What great holes abroad were the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, 16th, 17th and 18th at Merion East based on? One can throw the 6th in there as well if a drive skirting OB on the right is what-all someone thinks constitutes a road hole replication. There is nothing at all about the rest of that hole that replicates the Road Hole of TOC. So that would be 14-15 holes at Merion East that don't seem to use template holes from abroad that were attempted replications.

But of course that does not seem to mean that a couple on here won't continue to try to force that contention on Wilson and Merion East.

Once again we have modern partisan telling us that he knows better than the reports of the time. 

NGLA only had three or four recognizable attempts copying entire holes from abroad.   The rest is an amalgamation of concepts and features from a variety of holes and courses.   Why would we hold Merion to a different standard than NGLA?


Besides, TEPaul missed many of the obvious similarities and CBM tells.

David,

It's that CBM states there are only 4 or 5 good hole concepts...that means most every hole built has some degree of those concepts included...if a Redan can have infinite varieties of slope and angle of approach and green-to-tee elevation change and all the other "principles" and really only needs one or two of the principles anyway than it's a pretty wide range so there is no reason Wilson wouldn't have some knowledge of the characteristics of a good hole and a bad one.

I don't think that is exactly what CBM says or what he means.   To be honest I don't really understand what he was getting at there or what he meant, as it seems to contrast with what else is in the sentence.  Was he talking about one shot holes?   Was he talking about strategic concepts that combine to make up holes?  I don't know.  It is a mystery.    He certainly doesnt say that a Redan could have infinite varieties of slope and angle of approach, and I still think you are exaggerating the flexibility of the concept.    He defines what a redan hole is up front and describes in detail how it works.

I don't know whether Wilson had any independent knowledge of a good hole or a bad one.  I do know that he built a course based on the underlying principles of golf holes he had never seen, and as Mike Cirba points out the information that allowed him to do this came from CBM and HJW.

PLUS...he spent, at a minimum, a full 24 hours with CBM at NGLA learning his opinion of the best holes, and how they work. He also had at a minimum the benefit of his opinion at Merion in April. So it is very logical that he would have geared his initial attempt around those principles.

Not as logical as that M&W told him how to lay out the course.

[JESII]

David,

There is a Redan, an Eden and and Alps hole at NGLA, were the there in 1911?

[DMoriarty]

There is more than that.  There is a hole which was repeatedly described exactly as one would describe a road hole.  There was a "short hole" of 125-130 yards with a large, wild green terraced above the surrounds, with trouble on all sides.    There was a double-plateau green.  There was an Eden green.  There was a green with a biarritz-like swale running across it.   There was a hell bunker placed exactly where CBM would have placed it.  There was even what may have been CBM's first Chasm hole. 

There is more as well, but I don't want any heads to explode. 

[JESII]

My point was that Wilson could have very easily absorbed those features (however debateable) in March and April 1911 without CBM "calling the shots". Please tell me you can agree with that.

[DMoriarty]

My point was that Wilson could have very easily absorbed those features (however debateable) in March and April 1911 without CBM "calling the shots". Please tell me you can agree with that.

Wilson was certainly capable of learning about the concepts underlying CBM's holes, and he could easily have learned from CBM why CBM liked water or some such hazard a bit short of his 175 yard par 3 threes, and he could have learned why CBM always placed his hell bunker in a different location than the original, and he could have learned what makes the road hole a great strategic hole from tee to green.  

But could he have learned all this and then managed to figure out where to place the golf holes so as to best implement these concepts at Merion?  And could he have done so while wasting virtually no space whatsoever?    I honestly don't know.  Merion is an extremely sophisticated course with holes built around very subtle strategies that are largely dictated by the flow of the land itself.    Take the seventh.  The hole is designed not only to put a premium on placing the ball next to the out of bounds, but also to take advantage of a natural bottleneck feature, defined by a combination of ground slope and the border.  This is subtle stuff and well beyond the kind of sophistication that Wilson was used to seeing.  It is also another CBM tell, and may have been the reason Wilson was photographing the 12th at Troon.

But I think this is beside the point.  Even if he could have, I don't think he did.   There was a course there when he got involved, and as far as I can tell CBM was involved in planning the layout.   Why else bring him back to approve the layout?  

How about you? Can you at least acknowledge that CBM and HJW could very easily have been calling the shots when it came to the layout?    And doesn't this make much more sense and fit better with what we know?  

[TEPaul]

"Once again we have modern partisan telling us that he knows better than the reports of the time."


Once again what we have here is a modern partisan telling us he knows better than all the reports of the time and all the reports over the last century not a single one of which ever contended, suggested or intimated that C.B. Macdonald was in charge at Merion, that he was the driving force behind Merion East or that he and Whigam routed and designed Merion East and that Hugh Wilson and his committee merely constructed it to that routing and design! 

[JESII]

David,

It is not a fact that Hugh Wilson was not involved until there was already a course there...and your insistence on suggesting it is ludicrous.

I also think it is unreasonable for you to suggest CBM and HJW were calling the shots for only one reason...it was never mentioned by a single person at the time. They all said the committee, Wilson's committee did it.


What I do think is reasonable is that M&W pointed out a potential routing or two in June 1910. Why else would the small plot of land behind the clubhouse make it into their letter when there was plenty of land all around if it were just a matter of having enough?

I think based on that general idea of how to flow the holes around the property, the committee sketched out some ideas and fine-tuned exactly where GHR would become.

And lastly, I think it is very reasonable to think CBM suggested what made a good hole, on paper and on the ground, and they tried to build good holes.


If the strategies of a Road Hole are to tack your way left and then right unless you want to take on some risk, that one also has thousands of new examples today...

[DMoriarty]

David,

It is not a fact that Hugh Wilson was not involved until there was already a course there...and your insistence on suggesting it is ludicrous.

I am not sure "ludicrous" is the right word.   There is absolutely no evidence that Wilson was involved before appointed to the Construction Committee.  

I also think it is unreasonable for you to suggest CBM and HJW were calling the shots for only one reason...it was never mentioned by a single person at the time. They all said the committee, Wilson's committee did it.

What about Whigham?   And who are "they?"   Lesley said the committee laid the course on the ground but had M&W as advisors.   AW said the Committee did what M&W didn't do.    Not even Hugh Wilson claimed to have designed the course!

What I do think is reasonable is that M&W pointed out a potential routing or two in June 1910. Why else would the small plot of land behind the clubhouse make it into their letter when there was plenty of land all around if it were just a matter of having enough?

I agree.

I think based on that general idea of how to flow the holes around the property, the committee sketched out some ideas and fine-tuned exactly where GHR would become.

Yet Hugh Wilson claims to have known nothing before NGLA and that CBM gave them a good start.

And lastly, I think it is very reasonable to think CBM suggested what made a good hole, on paper and on the ground, and they tried to build good holes.

Jim, Why wouldn't CBM have told them where to put the holes?    He knew the land, he had some ideas about the routing.  So why wouldn't he tell the where to put the holes?

Are you seriously claiming that it is unreasonable to conclude that CBM told them where to put the holes?

If the strategies of a Road Hole are to tack your way left and then right unless you want to take on some risk, that one also has thousands of new examples today...

You misstate what the article described.  And today doesn't matter.  1911 matters.  I don't think there were thousands of holes that fit the description then.

[JESII]

David,

Evidence shows that this will go round and round if I let it, which I will not.


Simply, my contention is that CBM very likely advised on where to go with a routing in June 1910 becaus ewithin the 350 acres were very attractive golf features.

He then likely made suggestions of the holes that stood out to him (the Redan for example) as fitting certain spots once the land that contained the routing THEY decided on had been purchased.

The committee then worked out the details and made their own adjustments and asked him to come in and tell them what he thought. He selected in his view the best iteration and they started building it on their own.

Most important in my opinion is that the men of Merion stated that this was a home made course, CBM would not have taken over without being asked to and the evidence of what he was asked to do is crystal clear, and lastly, if he were "calling the shots" he would have been around more.

Those are my opinions.

[DMoriarty]

Jim I agree with much of what you wrote in your last post.   Just a couple of comments:

1.  If CBM and HJW came up with routing(s) then they already had hole concepts in mind for the entire course, or close to it.  It is not as if their m.o. was to route holes anywhere and then figure out what to do with them.  To the contrary, they looked at the landscape and then found holes that would fit that landscape.   That to me was the most surprising and maybe most impressive thing about NGLA -- how well it uses the natural contours to provide crucial strategic and shot making elements.  Not necessarily talking about the greens here, but the fairways and surrounds.   

So while we might disagree about the extent to which they followed M&W's suggestions and advice, I don't think it reasonable to suggest M&W's routings and holes concepts weren't at least provided to Merion in some form or another.

2.  I think we had different ideas of what "call the shots" means.   I am using the phrase as to refer to nothing more than the routing and hole concepts.  (Although CBM obviously would have had a major influence on other factors as well.)   I don't think the sources indicate that Wilson planned the course.   

[Tom MacWood]

Tom Mac

Re your post 3935, are you deliberately being obtuse or are you just having a laugh ?

The discussion was about what a Scottish writer, living in Scotland in 1912, knew about Merion. It was not about what I know in 2009.

Niall

Neither. I was trying to get you back on track. The conversation has moved on. No one cares what the writer knew, its immaterial to Wilson and Merion. No one cares about Willie Fernie, its immaterial to Wilson and Merion.

[Mike Cirba]

Apr. 19,1911  - Whereas the Golf Committee presented a plan showing the proposed layout of the new golf ground which necessitated the exchange of a portion of the land already purchased for other land adjoining...Resolved that the board approve the exchange...and the purchase of 3 acres additional for $7,500.   - Thompson Resolution


I just hate unsolved mysteries.  

What land would Merion think they had "already purchased" as of this date?

On 11/15/1910 Merion reported that they had "secured" 117 acres for a new golf courses from HDC, followed by HG Lloyd actually purchasing the full 161 acres of the Johnson Farm and Dallas Estate from HDC in late December of that year, but the transfer of the final 120.1 acres of land for the golf course didn't actually transfer to Merion until July 1911.

Might the land in question that needed to be exchanged for have been located outside the bounds of the 161 acres Llloyd had purchased?   We do know that some of the 1st green and hole were outside the Johnson Farm boundary, correct?

[TEPaul]

MICHAEL CIRBA:

Holy shit man, did you really have to do that??? I'd almost forgotten the true extent of this incredible monstrosity----this particular thread!!! Close to 4,000 posts and 114 PAGES!!!  

Any chance you can just descretely throw it back where you found it in the back pages? 

[Mike Cirba]

Aye, Tommy...where's your sense of adventure, mon.   

[TEPaul]

"Aye, Tommy...where's your sense of adventure, mon."


I know; I'm sort of kidding too. I'll be glad to tell you the specific details of all of that and the answers to your questions because I sure haven't forgotten the details----all of the historic and documentary material is on Wayne's computer and on my computer because of him and someone else too who's name I will not mention because if I do we might have to kill him or someone else might try to.  

But first I'm going to wait a while to see who else tries to answer your questions. To me I think that will be very instructive because I have always felt very, very few on here ever did understand even some to any of those details in the first place as logical as it actually all was in the end. If one only considers the entire sequence and progression of the whole thing (from about the late summer of 1910 to July 1911) they might start to understand it, including the really important and central presence and specific participations in it all with not just MCC but also HDC of the inimitable Horatio Gates Lloyd and sometimes et ux.

But for starters go back to WHERE and particularly WHEN the unraveling of that semi-mystery first began to occur-----eg along that entire line from College Avenue to Ardmore Ave which would eventually become the road from which the original entry into the clubhouse would be from!

And PLEASE, whatever you or anyone else does, do not start drawing those hypothetical colored lines and then trying to measure them with some damn thing like Google Earth. That is what started all these Merion threads off on the wrong foot years ago when Moriarty started to try to do that with card and hole yardage distances trying to prove the club or someone around here WRONG about SOMETHING!!  

The answers to your questions are all very explanable and they were very explanable long before GOLFCLUBATLAS.com and GOOGLE-EARTH came along!        

[Mike Cirba]

Tom,

I was hoping after getting away from this question for some months that I might come at it with a fresh perspective, so I spent a few hours going back over some of the old posts here.

We know that the course that opened in September 1912 was 123 acres.

We know that the land Merion purchased in July 1911 was 120.1 acres, so we can deduce that the 3 acres additional that made up 123 was the leased railroad land where the old #12 green and 13th hole were located.

We know that Merion reported that they had "secured" 117 acres in November 1910, that Lloyd purchased 161 acres in December 1910, and that Hugh Wilson mentioned the 117 acres again in his first letter to P&O in I believe early February 1911.

So, that tells me that we need to figure out how we went from 117 acres "secured" in Feb 1911 to 120 acres "purchased" in July 1911, which is mentioned in the "Thompson Resolution" in an exchange of land "already purchased" for "land adjoining" and the (resultant?) "purchase of 3 acres additional" that seemingly took the course from 117 "secured" acres to 120 "purchased" acres a few months later.

The fact that the 130x190 triangle of land mentioned by Richard Francis is about 5 acres seems to disqualify it as the additional purchase in question, but I'm curious what others think as well.

[JESII]

Mike,

I think a 130 X 190 rectangle is 5 acres, but the triangle they bought is about 60% of that...sorry, but seriously.

We also know that HDC and Lloyd et ux would have been more than happy to have the eventual border be as flexible as needed to get teh job done, so Golf House Rd wouldn't have cut off the first green because it wasn't there...

[TEPaul]

"I think a 130 X 190 rectangle is 5 acres, but the triangle they bought is about 60% of that...sorry, but seriously."


Sully:

First of all, you have to remember that when MCC actually bought the land that was the original course all the holes had probably been rough shaped or completely shaped and ready for the "grass-in" phase that would last a year and MCC bought the land via the MCC Golf Assocation Corporation just about two months before the course went into its year long "grass-in" phase.

Horatio Gates Lloyd bought 161 acres from HDC in December 1910 and some of that land was probably never even considered by anyone for golf----eg his 161 acres compared to the 120.1 that the club first bought from HDC via the MCC Golf Association Corp.

It's also important to remember that there really was only one stretch on that entire proposed golf course boundary that was even arguably negotiable for golf with HDC after H.G. Lloyd bought the 161 acres. Furthemore, the general agreement between MCC and HDC that was struck in Nov 1910 was only that MCC agreed to buy 117 acres of HDC's land in a fairly specific area and boundary not a completely specific boundary all the way around. Of course there was a very logical and practical reason for that which was reflected in Francis's solution and in his story about his solution.

[JESII]

Tom and Mike,

We covered this several times back when this thread was really cooking...I know, and understand, what your opinion of the Francis Swap is but it never made a lick of sense to me. The triangle was adjoining as well, and the fact that Golf House Rd was not locked in place leaves open the chance that the use of the triangle was determined vital.