Merion Misrepresentations: What did Alan Wilson Really Write?

[DMoriarty]

Mike,  in the golf course context, to lay out a golf course means to arrange the course upon the ground.   "Advice and suggestions as to the lay-out" means advice and suggestions as to how to lay the golf course out upon the ground.  

__________________________

Phillip,

I do think it takes some nerve for Mike to compare my subjective interpretation of a document with outright manipulation of the historical record.   These are different by many magnitudes and the former is a necessary part of honest discussion and the latter is despicable and antithetical to honest discussion.  No one likes to have their intellectual honesty questioned, and by making his comparison Mike was calling my intellectual honesty into question without basis. 

That being said, I do understand what you are saying.    I have been on the receiving end of way to much here over the past few weeks and as is my instinct I have taken off the gloves and am fighting back with venom.    While I don't quite understand what choice I had, I will try to put the gloves back on and behave civilly.   That being said, I will also continue to defend myself where necessary.    Hopefully I can strike a balance.

Thanks for the sound advice.    It is easy to get self-righteous when constantly under attack, but that is not necessarily productive, so I will try to dial it down.

All that being said, the issues I presented in my initial post still stand.

1.  Correcting the Alan Wilson letter clarifies what happened at Merion and NGLA.    Namely, it should leave no doubt about what was going on at NGLA.  These was not a general tutorial on the great holes, or agronomy, or construction.  M&W were teaching Wilson and his Committee how to arrange the golf course at Merion.

2.  For years now TEPaul and Wayne have asked us to rely on their representations about what Merion's records say about the origins of the East Course.   And for the last couple of years, they have been referring to UNVERIFIED source material to attack me and my theories.  In so doing they have placed their credibility and competence squarely at issue in this discussion.   Given that TEPaul is asking that we "take his word for it" that what he has been claiming is true,  I think we need to know that HE CANNOT BE TRUSTED.   

[Michael Dugger]

Imagine if the amount of time and effort which these men have devoted to fighting over this issue was instead spent on something like educating kids or developing alternate energies.

We'd have colonized Mars by now.

[Ulrich Mayring]

I wonder whether the moderators are finally going to do something about this ridiculous situation. They already promised to kill the last thread, but didn't pull it off in the end.

Ulrich

[Mike_Cirba]

David,

Honestly, a big part of the problem conversing with you is exemplified in that last post of yours.

If someone gives you a rhetorical inch, you assume a mile.

You take my stipulation that M+W provided advice and suggestions as to the layout and all of the sudden your putting words like "arranged the holes"in Alan Wilsons mouth when he said nothing remotely close nor even remotely implied it.

Why the constant need to act as an interpreter for statements that are clearly stated by others?

If your inerpretation is correct and your case is strong, don't you believe those truths should be self-evident?

[Mike_Cirba]

Michael,

Don't let reading the Merion threads stop you from achieving world peace. 

Ulrich,

I know...I bet deep down you're hating yourself for excitedly reading every word. 

[Melvyn Morrow]

Michael D

I though we had and that you lived on Mars

Melvyn

[DMoriarty]

David,

Honestly, a big part of the problem conversing with you is exemplified in that last post of yours.

If someone gives you a rhetorical inch, you assume a mile.

You take my stipulation that M+W provided advice and suggestions as to the layout and all of the sudden your putting words like "arranged the holes"in Alan Wilsons mouth when he said nothing remotely close nor even remotely implied it.

Why the constant need to act as an interpreter for statements that are clearly stated by others?

If your inerpretation is correct and your case is strong, don't you believe those truths should be self-evident?

Mike,  that is my understanding of the use of the phrase and has been my understanding since before the entire Wilson letter came out.  You need not agree with me, but I am entitled to make my case.  

I don't think it is self-evident for a number of reasons.

1.  The way we use these terms and phrases have evolved over the years.
2.  There is an understandable inherent bias toward reading these documents the way they have always been read even in the face of overwhelming evidence that the old reason is not sound, so it is necessary to go into it in great detail.  (for example, not so long ago you yourself suggested that the NGLA meeting was about preparing Wilson for his trip even though this has long been debunked.   If you cannot get this through your head imagine how hard it is for everyone else to change the way they look at the NGLA meeting.
3.  The record has been distorted and misrepresented so many times that many people have no idea what Alan Wilson really said or what Hugh Wilson really said, or what they agreed happened at the NGLA meeting.  

[Mike_Cirba]

David,

The whole purpose of those NGLA articles were to show you that "laid out" meant precisely to golfers at that time as it does today.

If you have examples where it means something besides architecture please let's see them.

[DMoriarty]

David,

The whole purpose of those NGLA articles were to show you that "laid out" meant precisely to golfers at that time as it does today.

If you have examples where it means something besides architecture please let's see them.

Those NGLA articles used the term exactly as I would have expected them to.   

There are many examples, but one such example was HH Barker at Columbia.  I don't have details in front of me but he planned the course in 1909 but others would reportedly lay it out later. 

Take any one day player.  Do you really think that after one day they have laid out the course? 

[Rich Goodale]

More importantly, Dave, why do you feel compelled to post it on two threads?  It's not really good enough for even one thread, unless you are of that ilk that thinks that hockey fights are anything more than WWE style "entertainment."

[Rich Goodale]

Thanks, Dave.  I'll take your word for it.

[RJ_Daley]

Perhaps Ran is making an exception in not putting these threads out of their misery because these years of Merion bickering serve a higher purpose to the scientific study of human behavior within the context of the brave new medium of internet interpersonal relationships and pathologies. 

I'd have to believe that most GCA.com participants have long since gotten all they need or want out of the actual debates about the creation of Merion.  But, perhaps the behavioral scientists are just getting started.  Maybe great dissertations and symposiums are probably being written or held in obscure corners of academia where these human behavior studies get elxamined and conducted.

I am very disappointed that Dr. Katz has not given it the old college try to help mediate, mitigate or therapate among these otherwise fine golfingly sociable and agreeable fellows.  Lord knows Phil and others have tired to steer the bus from the edge of the cliff which leads to the mental abyss of some new form of social cognitive dissonance pathology spawned from the endless debate of the inconsequential and nearly irrelavant minutia of who came first, the C.B chicken or Wilson egg. 

[Michael Dugger]

Michael D

I though we had and that you lived on Mars

Melvyn

Ah touche, Melvin.

And you appear to have found a time machine and fast forwarded to the present.

[Mike_Cirba]

There are many examples, but one such example was HH Barker at Columbia.  I don't have details in front of me but he planned the course in 1909 but others would reportedly lay it out later. 

Take any one day player.  Do you really think that after one day they have laid out the course? 

Yes, in that example, H.H. Barker laid out the course and any news reference I've seen from that time would have likely reported it so.

[henrye]

From TEPaul's recent version of the Alan Wilson letter: 

They also had our committee as their guests at the National and their advice and suggestions were of the greatest help and value.

From TEPaul's version of the Alan Wilson from 2006, from posts which he has conveniently deleted (my underline):

They also had our Committee as their guests at the National and their advice and suggestions as to the lay-out of the East Course were of the greatest help and value.

Tom Paul, I truly hope that you can explain this inconsistency.  Regardless of your thoughts on David's essay and his further comments; this is no way to debate or battle.

[mike_malone]

 RJ,

   I think it is this crazy economy and market that is to blame for all bad behavior

[Mike_Cirba]

Several years ago, Tom Paul typed out that entire Alan Wilson letter for our collective review because no one had it.

Why is he being judged guilty here without a single person here even giving him the benefit of the doubt?

Why would he type all of that just to omit that phrase?  Why mention M+Ws contributions at all?

If the letter bolstered Davids theory, why bother even typing it?

[JESII]

The most remarkable aspect of this entire debate is that the two sides are so close in their ultimate understanding it is almost indescribable...the interim steps that ultimately led to attribution are the building blocks that can only support or hurt one side or the other, but there are about 10,000 building blocks and these guys probably agree on 9,975 of them and only have minor disagreements of interpretation on the other 25.

For example; IF the Francis Swap occurred prior to November 1910, both Tom and David feel supremely confident that this shifts some design credit to CBM...that's why this one building block has caused so much furor...

Being the objective one that I am I have to ask, WHY?

Francis was an instrumental member of Merion well before November 1910 and for a very long time after...his Swap was not necessarily tied in any way to CBM.

[Mike_Cirba]

Sully,

Especially considering that the only single day thing Macdonald did at Merion in all of 1910 is both well documented and insubstantial.

[Mike_Cirba]

The more I think about it the more Jim's question is fundamentally important and completely unanswered to date.

[henrye]

Jim.  I think this has been mentioned numerous times.  The Francis land swap was made to accommodate the final 5 holes.  The first 13 were in place (or at least decided) prior to the swap.  If the swap happened before 1911, then it was before Wilson was involved.  If the first 13 holes were routed prior to Wilson's involvement, he didn't route them.  I'm not saying that any of this is what happened, I'm just answering Jim's question.

[JESII]

Mike and Henry,

I understand all of that, that's the point...it still doesn't tell us that CBM has done more than credited for to date without speculation.

I have said to many parties involved that I feel strongly (based on what has been thrown out here) that it was imperative for the Merion folks to maintain a technical timeline for various reasons but that in reality there was much more going on through the summer and fall of 1910.

Please note that this is not meant to discredit anyone at all, but it's tough for me to imagine CBM doing anything with them during that timeframe based on his June 29 letter which washes his hands of the immediate work...I also doubt CBM was just in town on a whim considering (this is a date I may have missed) he was hosting an innaugural event at NGLA July 1.

I think the committee needed and wanted his help in many respects, not the least being an understanding of his experience with the development package from NGLA which gives the golf course right of first refusal on a subset of land purchased with the remainder going to real estate...

[Carl Nichols]

Michael D

I though we had and that you lived on Mars

Melvyn

Ah touche, Melvin.

And you appear to have found a time machine and fast forwarded to the present.

I think Melvyn would decry the use of time machines.....

[henrye]

Ok Jim.  We know Barker did a routing, but we don't know whether any of it was incorporated into what was developed.  We know CBM was involved, but we don't know to what extent (at least we are unable to prove to what extent).  We know Wilson was very involved, but not until 1911.  If those holes were planned prior to 1911, who is the likeliest candidate to have done that given all the info to date?  If, as Tom Paul  suggested, the course was planned and routed in the Spring & Summer of 1911, then I guess it's all moot.

[Peter Pallotta]

Jim's last few posts reminded me: I've been thinking that neither Wilson nor Whigham was lying, that both were telling the truth, but the truth as they understood it and from their differing perspectives -- and I've been thinking that those differing perspectives could be instructive in terms of discussing the nature (and changing nature) of golf course architecture.  But those differing perspectives should, I think, be understood in the context of what can be documented, and, while there is much that can be documented, the minutes that refer to the Committee developing five plans for Merion after their visit with Macdonald at NGLA seems to me as direct and documented as we get.  What I've disagreed with David about recently is his "linking" of hole concepts and hole placements, as if to suggest that they necessarily went hand in hand back then -- he believes (I assume) that this linking can be documented or at least reasonably inferred from the documentation; I don't see that, and can't bring myself to agree.  But if one "de-links" them, i.e. separates the notion of/discussions about hole concepts from the actual routing of a golf course (i.e. hole placements), I think one could argue that the advice and suggestions on hole concepts that Macdonald provided (during the two days the committee spent at NGLA, and maybe during his one day visit in 1910) was what Whigham -- who, with Macdonald "conceived of" NGLA and its emphasis on the hole concepts of the great British links courses -- would likely focus on in writing his eulogy of CBM, and thus have in the front of his mind when he thought of design credit; while on the other hand, Alan Wilson -- who knew that his brother and the committee developed five plans/routings for Merion and then built the course according to one of those plans/routings (that CBM help to choose) and then came back from Britain to fine-tune the course -- concluded that it was Hugh Wilson who had, as the lead Committee member, designed and built Merion...who was, in short, its "golf course architect."  And in the end -- and this is what Jim's post reminded me of -- it's hard not to come back to what the traditional account has always been, i.e. that Hugh Wilson was the golf course architect responsible for Merion, and that CBM should be given much thanks and high praise for his invaluable advice (as Merion has always done).*

Peter
*recognizing that I am apparently congenitally incapable of following the land-swap details.