"Tom,
Most of it is not hard to understand...
but when Evans approves a lease of the land the Special Committee on Golf Grounds recommends, with affirmation from Macdonald and Wigham that it'll make for good golf turf etc...on July 1, 1910 and you tell me that means nothing...when my whole theory is based on these guys having access to the grounds in the summer and fall of 1910...I guess you'll have to explain a little better why it means nothing."
Sully:
What land are you suggesting above was leased?
"For starters - why is it impossible that the club, through Lloyd or otherwise, leased the land prior to deciding to buy it outright through Lloyd? Is it simply because you haven't found that paperwork yet? Or is there some fundamental train of logic that I'm missing? I'm serious."
Sully:
Well, to go to your three questions: By the way, I did have all the MCC meeting minutes that mention leasing that you asked me about yesterday.
"Why is it impossible that the club, through Lloyd or otherwise, leased the land prior to deciding to buy it outright through Lloyd?"
It is certainly not impossible that they could've done that and that idea and that suggestion was made by the "Search Committee" report of July 29, 2010 to the MCC Board but not in the specific way you're apparently imagining and suggesting above, because they actually recommended the creation of a 'land company' to purchase the land and lease it to the club. The president (Evans) and secretary (Sayers) immediately called a "Special Meeting" of the board for July 1, 1910. The board minutes of that July 1, 1910 "Special" board meeting record that the subject and agenda of that meeting was only to consider 'new grounds for golf.'
Those board meeting minutes of July 1, 11910 record that among other items the subject of forming a 'land company' to buy the land and lease it to the club was discussed at length. At the end of the meeting Sayers moved that a resolution be voted on. With all resolutions, they must be articulated and recorded word for word. The resolution was thus:
"Resolved, that the officers of the club be authorized and instructed to execute a lease for the property recommended by the Special Committee on Golf Grounds upon such terms as may be approved by the president of the club."
That resolution was "Carried" and that was recorded in the July 1, 1910 Special Board meeting.
That was the initial discussions at the board level of what would become in Dec. 1910 the second class Pennsylvania corporation known as the MCCGA corporation (the 'land company' referred to above) that bought the land (actually Lloyd bought it for them under his own name for specific reasons that have already been given on here and did not turn in over to MCCGA until July 23, 1911).
"Is it simply because you haven't found that paperwork yet? Or is there some fundamental train of logic that I'm missing?"
There was no lease for the land in the summer and early fall of 1910 between MCC and HDC or any of the other land owners of land that HDC had been cobbling together from 1908 until the fall of 1910. If there had been it most certainly would have been recorded and reflected in the MCC board meeting minutes. The logic of why there was no lease as you suggest (which frankly neither the Search Committee nor the board actually suggested or said or wrote if you read this material carefully) is because by Nov. of 1910 Lloyd and a group of other MCC members that were called the "Guarantors" (this in specifically mentioned in that Nov. 15, 1910 "circular" to the MCC members) had already both "secured" all that land (all 338.6 acres of it) through a $30,000 down payment (for the 117 acres) as well as a recapitalization of HDC itself which accounted for approximately 1/2 of the stock capitalization value of HDC being held by people not from MCC and approximately the other half being held by MCC members, at that point including those "Guarantors" of which apparently Lloyd was the primary one. That too is reflected in that Nov. 15, 1910 "circular" to the MCC membership!