Niall,
I asked you for your support for your understanding that the advice and help was general and you referred me to Merion's website and suggested the burden of disproving it was mine to meet.
As it relates to the initial creation of the course, Merion's website is mistaken, and has been proven so. In other words, I have more than met my burden.
I won't argue with the general sense you may have gleaned from an error ridden history, except that to suggest you focus on the actual facts. That is what I have tried to do.
Are there any facts whatsoever that support your notion that the advice was of a general or hypothetical in nature?
You mention a few of my facts, but not in a way that the record supports.
You erroneously assume that M&W never contributed more than what was in the June 1910 letter, as if the June 1910 letter was M&W's only contact and was the end of their involvement, and we know this isn't the case. It is a mistake to assume that if it isn't in the minutes that it did not happen -
the only letters that made it to the minutes were those presented to the board. Nothing else. So whatever else M&W did, it wouldn't be in the Minutes. Plus, the letter itself explains why it is not more specific as to how the course would fit, they didn't have a contour map.
It seems that only a map in CBM's hand would convince you or detailed correspondence. We know more correspondence existed but we don't have it, because there was no reason for it to have gone to the board. And we don't have the blueprint that Wilson sent to Oakley near the beginning of his involvement with the issue.. So we have to be reasonable and figure out what is most likely given all the facts. Yet your approach seems to be to rely on a history that has been largely or completely disproved.
If you have some facts to support YOUR position, I'd be glad to consider them, but it doesn't appear you do.
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The real question is, from DM's perspective, is "Could Merion have done it without CBM?"
Because of the lack of information, I believe this is an unanswerable question. However after years of this, I think this is the first time I have seen that question, and it is a very interesting one to me.
Unanswerable? I think that Hugh Wilson and Merion's Board answered it already.
Wilson wasn't even involved until well into the process, and he admits that when he did finally get involved, he was in way over his head and didn't know a thing about what he was trying to do, and that he never would have taken on the job had he known.
From what I can tell, Merion's Board had not placed their faith in Wilson, but in Macdonald and Whigham.
- The June 1910 Site Committee report to the board makes it clear that their recommendations for the purchase were based on M&W's inspection and thoughts, and the Nov. 1910 Board announcement reaffirms this by inclusion.
- The fragments released of the April 1911 Minutes indicate that the final routing was ultimately determined by M&W, not by Wilson and Committee.
As Wilson noted in a related context, they realized the value of CBM's advice, and they followed it.