Willie Campbell & Myopia

[Jeff_Brauer]

TePaul,

One example of not going to a club would be in researching an NLE club, which could happen to those really interested.  Would the records of the Lido be anywhere in particular, for example?

I believe that we would ALL do well to remember that historical findings can only be analyzed with a percentage of certainty, not absolute certainty, based just on the few cases debated here.  The NLE would probably be less certain than MCC, MH, etc.

It seems to me that most of the personal insults, etc. start when any particular party declares with 100% certainty that they have the answer, and the corrollary that anyone who doesn't agree must be 100% wrong......Again, who could be insulted by a statement that "I am 90% certain that........"?

Speaking only for myself, I find that TMac stating that many club histories are wrong is both factually true and vaguely insulting at the same time.  Again, its all in the presentation of their material.

[TEPaul]

Jeffrey:

The NLE category is definitely a different deal and a different kettle of fish. And for that and with that I can't tell you how impressed I am with Dan Wexler! Believe it or not when I was a young whippersnapping Wisenheimer growing up on the North Shore of Long Island there were a ton of people around me who could've easily told me everything I wanted to know about The Lido because they'd been there and some belonged to it or even started it but dumb me, I never thought to ask them about it. I don't really remember what the hell I was interested in and thinking about back then but it sure wasn't golf course architecture or its history. 

[Jeff_Brauer]

TePaul,

Interesting story about Lido.  However, there has been reasoned debate here and at many clubs over the years about just how good memories are amongst old timers.  In that sense, I would probably give a higher cred to contemporaneous newspaper articles, or at the very least, back up those the 30 year old memories somehow!

As to Myopia, I am not sure that we should discredit Bush's recollections as completly appears to David has on this theory, even if 14 years later in 1908 as President.  He was still in the prime of life, presumably, and while he might have gotten some details wrong, he was on the golf committee in that period and he would surely know if Willie was out there, whether some club members laid out a course to present to the annual meeting for consideration, and the like.  That's a lot different than asking an old timer about stuff that happened at his club many, many years ago.  Heck, its even closer in time than the Francis recollections in 1950.

But, that is the crux of the argument, isn't it?  Contemporay, but outsider newspaper article vs a 2-15 year old remembrance from an insider?  I just can't convince myself that either one is totally reliable, and think both have value to the discussion.  Why does that idea seem so unreasonable to David?

[Tom MacWood]

"TEP
Throughout this whole process you have intentionally misguided and misrepresented what you've seen. As someone interested in discovering the truth you have no credibility as far as I'm concerned. You have no idea how Myopia evolved."


Tom MacWood:

Of course you can just keep saying things like that on here and the fact is you do keep saying things like that and you have for years. But the reality of it all is you  have no idea what you're talking about with Myopia or with me or with me and Myopia and its history. In fairness to you, there really is no way you could---you've never been there, you know no one from that club and all you have to go on about it is a couple of 1894 newspaper articles and an Internet discussion board. I've known that club and numerous of its members over a period of fifty years, from all the way back then and until today.

Given all that there is no way in the world you could understand any of it or analyze the history of it as someone like I can.

Nevertheless, I have no doubt at all you will continue to say the types of things you did above and have frequently on here. As far as I'm concerned I hope you continue to say things like that because all it really does is continue to make you look like a bigger and bigger fool, and a very insecure one at that, and on this discussion board as well as in the eyes of people from Myopia if they happen to read threads like this one.

You have proven to be an unreliable source of information, actually worse, you have been proven to be a person who falsifies information and falsifies what records they they've seen and read, and that goes beyond this particular topic.

[Jeff_Brauer]

TMac,

BS. 

While he has made a few transcription errors, your contentions that he is falsely misleading you and DM (well, at least that way) are way off base.  You, on the other hand, have stated that there are no records at Myopia, and that he has sold us a bill of goods with absolutely no proof, not knowing what is at Myopia.

I remind you that discredting TePaul is not the same as discrediting Weeks and certainly provides no real historical value.

[Tom MacWood]

My disagreement with TMac immediately above is his long standing implication that someone outside the club MUST be the keeper of the history, as if these folks are almost counted on to be truth hiders, which I doubt is the case.  I know that we have found errors in some club histories, but I feel his bias is almost too strong in the direction that they ALL have errors.  And, maybe they do. 

When did I say that? What I said is political, religious and social organizations are not the final word on history. If they were the final word our history books would have no mention of the Spanish inquisition, the Armenian genocide, Irish famine or the mistreatment of the Native Americans.

Golf clubs are a great source of information, and by all means they should keep their own histories, but they do not have an inalienable right to be the final word.

[Tom MacWood]

TMac,

BS.  

While he has made a few transcription errors, your contentions that he is falsely misleading you and DM (well, at least that way) are way off base.  You, on the other hand, have stated that there are no records at Myopia, and that he has sold us a bill of goods with absolutely no proof, not knowing what is at Myopia.

I remind you that discredting TePaul is not the same as discrediting Weeks and certainly provides no real historical value.

TEP has discredited himself from urinating on CBM's grave to his portrayal of Emmet as a homosexual to intimidating the poor fellow at Clementon to misleading info about what he had access to at Myopia to the transcribing errors at Merion to privatizing the Flynn book to promoting an attitude of secrecy with historical documents. And you have supported him all the way.

[DMoriarty]

Jeff Brauer,

Your defense of TEPaul's credibility is indefensible and completely undermines yours.

He for over a year now he as been telling us about how he has personally reviewed Myopia's Run Books and Administrative Records, and has not only made a number of specific claims about those records, he has demanded that we accept his version of what is in these records as entirely correct.   For just one example he claims to have seen an actual entry into the 1894 administrative record where Club Secretary Bush entered that the course had been staked out by AM&G.  

There are numerous other examples of his making particular claims that are highly questionable or outright false, and of course we have his habit of falsifying source material and presenting fudged version as it were real.  You laughably claim that these were "transcription errors" as if it was just some sort of coincidence that TEPaul happens to always accidentally leave out the portions of documents that cut most directly against whatever fib he is shilling at that particular point, and that it only seems to happen when he thinks no one will check up on him.  Do you really want me to start listing out his past instances of dishonesty here?    If not then stop with this nonsense about how all it amounts to are are a couple of transcription errors.  

And what about those Drexel Documents?

A while back you claimed that TEPAUL TOLD YOU that he had been lying about these documents from the beginning to try and make a fool of me.    You even had the nerve to accuse me of being dishonest for taking his claims at face value and asking him to confirm them or come clean.   What kind of bizarre logic is that? How can a person have so little credibility that those of us who chose to believe him are dishonest for even believing him?  

Well Jeff, as of two days ago your good pal was still claiming that he had these Drexel documents, and was having trouble accessing them from some sort of "abstract."  

So Jeff, what is up here:
-Is TEPaul lying to me, Ran, and the rest of the website about this supposedly crucial source material?
-Did TEPaul lie to you about lying to me about the documents?
-Or are you the one who is lying about TEPaul lying to me?

Whatever the answer, to say that he has any credibility whatsoever is a fiction.

[Jeff_Brauer]

TMac,

When did I say that? What I said is political, religious and social organizations are not the final word on history.

I believe one of your overall missions - and a worthy one I don't disagree with - is the continued study of club histories to supplement what we know, and that has been clearly implied by the words and tone in many of your posts over the years.  I don't think there are any real guidelines on who controls history - in many cases, like Pearl Harbor or 9-11, I am sure that there are two completely opposite interpretations of the event.  Both sides maintain their is the accurate one when its all a matter of perspective, with the other side being a really warped one in our view.

I once compared our debates of club histories to the official and unofficial bios of celebs and I still think that is apt.  One might be sanitized, but the other might be over sensationalized, given the different motives of their authors.  If your motives are to potentially change club histories, right or wrong, its going to draw the ire of those involved, since it seems like sort of an unauthorized attack on them.  Its human nature.

As to your last parapgraph in 1681, the pee on the grave line was revealed as a joke, I doubt the privatising of the Flynn books was a matter of anything other than funding, and we have had discussions here about sexuality, which is either distasteful or the new way of looking at things.  

As to the secrecy of historic documents, I think its an open question as to whether any private institution has any obligation to share documents with anyone who would care, any more than I have to share my check book contents with you.  I believe this is especially true when those who demand them also act like horses asses or are total strangers, and you are both, unfortunatly..  

Lastly, of all the actions of all of us men behaving badly (and I put myself in that group) you publicly declaring Merion's historian a poster boy for unethical behavior was by far the worst example of discrediting your self and anyone on this board, not to mention a gross distortion of any obligation he has to you.  As a practical matter, what club in America would have anything to do with you at all?  You could whine all you want, but it would be better to catch something with honey than vinegar.  

Yeah, I don't even know anyone at Myopia or Merion, but I would defend them or any golf club from the likes of your actual approach to their history, even while acknowledging your right to do it.

David,

I am not sure of your exact claims, but it is true that TePaul has strongly suggested that he understood more than he may have actually been able to learn with his 45 minutes with the Myopia documents.  Like he is the only one to make strong claims on these threads!  I believe we all - you included - have made assumptions in our claims and beliefs here that don't exactly pass the smell test.  It may not be personal, but somewhere in December 2010 it went from fact finding to a personal test of wills.

As to his hoax at your expense, I think you protest too much at being had.  It was revealed within a day that it was a hoax, and you keep bringing it up like its fresh material to you.  I do believe that your continual bringing this up in light of all the evidence that is was a hoax is a dishonest straw man to keep your battle with TePaul going.  I will tell you this - I am not lying one iota.

As to his credibility being fiction, I will agree that to you and TMac, its zero. To others, it is reduced. And to many, it is still intact.  Credibility, like history itself is not all black and white, nor is it in the possession of one person or their naturally biased opinion.

[DMoriarty]

David,

I am not sure of your exact claims, but it is true that TePaul has strongly suggested that he understood more than he may have actually been able to learn with his 45 minutes with the Myopia documents.  Like he is the only one to make strong claims on these threads!  I believe we all - you included - have made assumptions in our claims and beliefs here that don't exactly pass the smell test.  It may not be personal, but somewhere in December 2010 it went from fact finding to a personal test of wills.

This is absolutely offensive and outrageous. I have NEVER lied about source material to try and make my case.  I have NEVER fudged text and tried to pass it off as accurate.  I have NEVER made up things about documents that I thought only I could access and refused to back up my claims.  Comparing what this guy does regularly to what Tom MacWood try to do here is beyond the pale.  You've stooped to a new low.  You owe me an apology, and TomM.

As to his hoax at your expense, I think you protest too much at being had.  It was revealed within a day that it was a hoax, and you keep bringing it up like its fresh material to you.  I do believe that your continual bringing this up in light of all the evidence that is was a hoax is a dishonest straw man to keep your battle with TePaul going.  I will tell you this - I am not lying one iota.

Then, according to you, your friend is still lying and still trying to milk whatever he can out of his lies.    Because it was two days ago that he last indicated that he had these documents  Yet you defend his credibility?  If so, you have none yourself.  

As to his credibility being fiction, I will agree that to you and TMac, its zero. To others, it is reduced. And to many, it is still intact.  Credibility, like history itself is not all black and white, nor is it in the possession of one person or their naturally biased opinion.

Honesty and integrity are not subjective, and it who we choose to stand by is a reflection on us.   Who you choose to stand by here speaks volumes about you.  

[Mike Cirba]

Before that we were mostly talking info and facts, and not personalities.  At that point, Mike Cirba even agreed with you that WC laid out the original course.  Not sure what changed his mind, or simply left him wondering about the lack of WC in club records, which for anyone wanting to know the truth, should be part of the story, no?

Jeff,

Yes, at that point it did seem to me that Wilie Campbell was the sole designer of the original course at Myopia based on the evidence that had been presented to date on the thread, even if there were some obvious open questions.

He still may very well have been.   However, I now believe it most likely that both stories are true.

What changed?   Well, after having the privilige of playing at Myopia this past October, and after David resurrected the old thread to make some other point on another thread, I began my own search into Myopia's early origins using my own limited newspaper archive subscription, and began to get a much fuller, if still incomplete picture.

Before then, I did no research at all on the club and only knew very sketchily what had been presented here over months, as I periodically followed along.  

However, even just simple searches for "Appleton", "Merrill", and "Gardner" yielded a whole lot of new information that somehow had never been presented here previously.

Before then, we were told they were dunces who didn't even play the game, who were derided as "Master of the Hounds", who had no experience with the game prior to Campbell's arrival.   We were even told that HC Leeds didn't play golf until the spring of 1894 and then learned everything he knew about playing the game and about architecture from Willie Campbell.   We were also told that all of this information came from well-documented, multiple news sources.

What I found was very different.

Instead, ALL of these men had been playing the game from the inception of golf at The Country Club in Brookline.   Leeds in particular was already mastering it, being the best player there by six shots.  

I also learned that Appleton and Merrill were assigned sometime before April 15, 1894 to a subcommitee charged with bringing golf to Myopia, and that the third, AP Gardner, was in Hamilton that spring as well at his in-laws.  

We also learned that Appleton was golfing on his estate, probably with the same group of friends.  

But what really led me to start doubting the story of Campbell being authoritative was the number of flagrant errors, plagiarism (or the same writer for multiple papers), and base misunderstanding of the game of golf so self-evident in many of those articles appearing in the high-society gossip columns of that time.

I had previously found, and posted, and article from one paper talking about Myopia opening "two new links".    A few weeks liater, Joe Bausch sends me an article from another paper that reported the same thing in slightly different words.   This to me confirmed what I'd seen earlier, where David Moriarty posted about sheep coming to Myopia in mid-May, and then I found a only very slightly differently-worded article in another paper saying the same thing.  

Also, strangely, almost all the articles seemed to intermingle the goings-on at Myopia and Essex, as if they were a single entitiy.   And...we DO know that Campbell was employed at Essex at that time and that he had indeed enlarged the course at that club in the same timeframe.

But the coup de grace for me was when Joe Bausch sent me an article that had the Opening Day tournament played at Myopia reported as happening on the Essex CC course in Manchester!!

So, at this stage, I can neither sincerely discount what Weeks or John May of Golf Digest found that indicated that Appletion, Gardner, and Merrill staked out the original course, and I don't think anyone could do that without seeing what sources exist within the club that they used.

Neither can I sincerely discount that Willie Campbell may have done the whole thing, sometime in late May.   Still, that doesn't seem to make any sense to me when I consider that reports were that the greens were sodded and cut prior to opening.   That just feels like something that would take some time to get done

So, I think the very sincere position is we don't know.   I think anyone who argues that they KNOW what happened is either deceiving themselves, or trying to deceive us.

I find it funny that someone would accuse me of being a "preservationist", which is something I'd like to take up on another thread at an appropriate time.   I have no issue with modifying the stories of the creation of our courses as new evidence surfaces....when we found others involved besides Hugh Wilson with the creation of Cobb's Creek we EMBRACED those stories because they added a richness of detail and complexity that we hadn't previously known, that ultimately enriched the history of that course, not detracted from it.

But I guess it's easier to argue against a stereotyped strawman than against reality.

I don't object to the addition of new materials and evidence about any course's origins;   I object to the bending of facts, the straining of phrases, the introduction of new myths seeking to wholly replace old ones.    

I want the rest of the story.

Have a great day!





I guess it's easier to talk about TePaul than to address these issues.  

I notice they didn't generate much response.

[Jeff_Brauer]

David,

In the real world, TePaul is the USGA archivist.  He has enough cred to have achieved and hold that position with a very august body in the world of golf.

You are a horse's petute who likes to argue everything way over the top, and who could avoid arguments simply by admitting he MIGHT be 1% wrong, but simply isn't capable of doing it, at least on the internet (I have actually heard you were a fine gent in person, but that is, for the purposes of this thread, only to be considered "speculation."

As it stands, I am much less ashamed of standing with TePaul than actually interacting with you, which sadly, does say volumes about my character, mainly that I don't have the common sense to avoid a useless cat fight.

[DMoriarty]

Mike,

I saw the highlighted parts but I quit reading your posts after the shenanigans you tried to pull on the NGLA thread.  Surely this latest bit is just the same old nonsense and not worth our time.
_________________________________________________________


Jeff Brauer,

I'd rather you not communicate with me at all.  Yet despite promises to do otherwise, you cannot seem to help yourself.  You are correct that this too speaks to your character, as do posts such as the one above.  

As for TEPaul being "the USGA Archivist"  that will come as a surprise to the USGA, I am sure.  You have been exaggerating and making things up quite a bit lately, as if your friend is rubbing off on you.   What's next?  Will you announce yourself Architect of the Decade?

It is true that your pal is somehow involved in the USGA Archives project, but for you to say he has "achieved" this by any doing or merit of his own is a joke.   His involvement is in and of itself is a serious black eye to the credibility of that organization and endeavor as far as I am concerned, and more than enough reason for me to doubt their intentions and ability to accomplish anything positive.  Apparently, like your pal, some at the USGA must think that credibility comes as some sort of birthright, handed down like a trust-fund, regardless of merit or accomplishment, or even honesty.

Surely it does not bode well for the future of golf that our governing body still behaves as if one's value to golf is dependent upon what "crowd" that person happens to be born into.   While your pal and his writing partner are involved, the USGA will have to figure out a way make due without my nominal contribution to their evergrowing riches.

Meanwhile,  I am confused by your duplicitousness regarding the Drexel Documents.  TEPaul just indicated to me that they were real two days ago. You think he is lying to me, even claiming he has admitted it?  And yet your conclusion is that TEPaul is honest and credible, and I am dishonest for taking him at his word? I really hope you are embarrassed for writing such things.

[Jeff_Brauer]

David,

Well I'm confused, too.  If I have this right, you insist on denying the existence of documents TePaul has seen, but continue to believe that the Drexel documents that he merely made up really do exist?

I agree, and we should just let this thread die of natural causes. However, if you continue to show a sense of humor, like over on the embarrasing moments thread, I reserve the right to stay in touch with you.  Otherwise, you are probably safe!

EDIT - David, TePaul just contacted me and told me he had offered to have a civil discussion with you about the documents he did find, which he did think briefly might be Merion related, but turned out not to be.  When he told me it was a hoax, it was, but then later he started looking more, and then found the documents he thought he might have found were not what he thought they were.

So, it turns out that over several months, he was originally tweaking you, still looking for possible documents, and admitting they might exist, and offering to share his knowledge with you if you cared.  Contrary to your assertions, neither he or I had been lying all along, but I still understand your anger at the original tweak.

[Mike Cirba]

David,

Thank God you've stopped reading my posts...I've stopped reading your laborious, verbose, and petulant posts too, so that will save everyone here a lot of time and grief, I'm certain.    

Hallelujah and may God kill this thread, mercifully!  

[TEPaul]

"...I've stopped reading your laborious, verbose, bloated, and petulant posts too, so that will save everyone here a lot of time and grief, I'm certain."


Michael "The Pelican" Cirba, you old clever dude you! You are some kinda smart, do you know that? You are something else with all the clever stuff you have stored up in that big drooping bill of yours? It seems you have finally figured out how to effectively utilize David Moriarty's amazingly clever albeit specious logic-----eg if you don't actually read something then somehow it can't even exist!!! You have finally figured out how to make all his laborious, verbose, bloated and petulant posts go away and into non-existence without actually making them go away.

You are something else my boy; you are my new hero but maybe you already knew that!    

[DMoriarty]

David,

Well I'm confused, too.  If I have this right, you insist on denying the existence of documents TePaul has seen, but continue to believe that the Drexel documents that he merely made up really do exist?

I have never denied that Myopia has records.  They obviously just don't say what you wish they said or what TEPaul claims they said.   As for the Drexel documents, all I have done is take him at his word that they exist, and ask him to either come clean (if lying) or back up his claim (if not.)   Surely that is the only reasonable way to handle it.

Obviously you and TEPaul (and unfortunately, Ran, who has let it happen) have reduced this website to a complete laughingstock, where posters are left to guess where other posters are telling the truth, and where they risk having their own honesty questioned for not adequately deciphering out posts which others think might be lies.  A pity.

How can you claim he has been lying about the Drexel documents from months ago to as recently as two days ago, yet still claim he has credibility.  I guess you too are just making shit up.   Not surprising.  

I agree, and we should just let this thread die of natural causes. However, if you continue to show a sense of humor, like over on the embarrasing moments thread, I reserve the right to stay in touch with you.  Otherwise, you are probably safe!

 

I never said this thread should die.  I think you and your buddies should go on making fools of yourselves.

And I hate to break it to you Jeff, but I'd no sooner turn to you on matters of humor than I would on matters of history.  While you consider yourself quite an expert on both, you are equally ill equipped to deal with either.

______________________________________

Mike Cirba,

I see you bought yourself a thesaurus. Next step; learning how to properly use it without making yourself look foolish. Good luck with that.

[TEPaul]

David Moriarty:

About those things you call the Drexel Documents and your claims that the honorable Jeffrey Brauer Esq, Past President of the ASGCA etc, etc, etc told you that I told him I was lying about them-----his official position as of now is that you must have misunderstood him or taken what he said to you about them COMPLETELY OUT OF CONTEXT!! On the advice of my lawyer and Jeffrey's lawyer our positions are that neither of us did anything wrong!  

[TEPaul]

"I never said this thread should die.  I think you and your buddies should go on making fools of yourselves.

And I hate to break it to you Jeff, but I'd no sooner turn to you on matters of humor than I would on matters of history.  While you consider yourself quite an expert on both, you are equally ill equipped to deal with either."



FOOLS?? US?? I don't think so. Basically Fools don't know how to laugh at the ridiculous as we are laughing now about the ridiculousness of these threads you and MacWood start and try to keep going every way you can think of. Fools don't even see the humor in this kind of ridiculousness because they are too foolish trying to constantly take themselves too seriously.

[Jeff_Brauer]

TePaul,

David has apparently used up his 2011 humor quotient, so what a waste of a post.

BTW, did you spell "Pelican" correctly?

David,

Since you like to disagree with everything I say, please note I said "I agree, and we should just let this thread die" not "I agree THAT we should just let this thread die."  Just another typical example of your inability to parse words and analyze things correctly, oft displayed here.

BTW, I am still waiting for an explanation of how you can decipher what is in documents that you have never seen...... No one has to guess if what you say is the truth or not.  Most just assume you are lying out of your ass all the time, and we are right most of the time, and just pleasantly surprised once in a while that you are actually making some kind of a contribution.

[Tom MacWood]

David,

In the real world, TePaul is the USGA archivist.  He has enough cred to have achieved and hold that position with a very august body in the world of golf.

You are a horse's petute who likes to argue everything way over the top, and who could avoid arguments simply by admitting he MIGHT be 1% wrong, but simply isn't capable of doing it, at least on the internet (I have actually heard you were a fine gent in person, but that is, for the purposes of this thread, only to be considered "speculation."

As it stands, I am much less ashamed of standing with TePaul than actually interacting with you, which sadly, does say volumes about my character, mainly that I don't have the common sense to avoid a useless cat fight.

Jeff
You are much less ashamed to stand with TEP? At least you admit you are ashamed...that is a step in the right direction.

Why do you have to stand with anyone, why not stand for the truth, wherever it comes?

TEP is the USGA archivist? Is that the correct description? I'm sure it is an august body, but even august bodies make mistakes.

PS: I forgot about the fabricated disc...please add that to my previous list of his transgressions. And speaking of that august body, how about the time TEP sent me a message that he would be forwarding to me derogatory messages (about me) sent to him by other members of that august body. By the way there were no messages. Add that one too.

[Jeff_Brauer]

TMac,

I am always for standing for the truth.  If something proves right or different about Myopia, I will be the first to congratulate the sluth who found it out, or high five the team, if we ever work together.  As for a few posts above, I still don't see a lot of absolute truth in these matters, and when there is, not a lot of absolute certainty when interpreting a partial record of old documents.  That is what gets our little group into trouble.

And, I will admit I get my feathers rankled mostly at the arrogance of claims that anyone here has found the absolute truth.  I just doubt it, I really do. At least at this point.  Its all speculation, no matter how much we "logically" believe our positions.

I really don't know TePaul's title, but as David suggests, I know he is working with the USGA on their architecture history efforts, which I support.  I would love to see some results out of that program some time soon.  And, I have stated on this site many times, that occaisionally, TePaul exceeds the bounds of good behavior.

All that said, I will stop insulting you now.  How many posts of all of us have been devoted to personal insults rather than really discussing real history?  We are all guilty of letting tempers go a bit.  What's the point?

If you or David fire back one last insult my way, I will let it go unchallenged.  After all this time, someone needs to act like a grownup on this thread.

[DMoriarty]

PS: I forgot about the fabricated disc...please add that to my previous list of his transgressions. And speaking of that august body, how about the time TEP sent me a message that he would be forwarding to me derogatory messages (about me) sent to him by other members of that august body. By the way there were no messages. Add that one too.

He pulled the same bullshit with me, about four or five years ago, long before my Merion IMO.  He claimed that he had been speaking with a number of those who ran various committees at Merion (he named some names) and insisted that they were all very upset about my various theories about Merion (I had just figured out the that Wilson trip abroad story was largely fiction) and that they wanted me to stop posting on the club altogether.  I have since confirmed that this was all lies, of course, as were many of the other representations he made over the years about what various people at Merion said about my work.  

But my favorite lie of his comes from around the same time.  He sent me a number of emails referencing an unnamed Canadian "expert researcher" who was very concerned with the low quality of my research.  So to help out TEPaul suggested, repeatedly, that I send all my emails to TEPaul so that his unnamed Canadian expert researcher could vet them all before I posted them, to make sure they passed muster.   I told him to pass on my contact information to this Canadian Expert but for some reason it all had to take place through TEPaul.   Hmmmm.

 I always liked this lie because it was just so desperate and also because reminds me of the old jokes about supposedly losing one's virginity on a trip to Canada, including the scene in the Breakfast Club where the nerdy kid claims to have lost his virginity with the unnamed woman while on a family vacation in the Niagara Falls area.    Interesting how we implicate the Canadians in our most pathetic lies, as if that mere mention of Canada brings honesty and credibility where none otherwise exists.

[TEPaul]

JEFFREY!!!!

This is totally amazing. This is the little fates of life and the timing is mind boggling. Just after speaking to you guess who called me? The Myopia historian. He went over to the club and he went through some of the archives and particularly Dacre Bush's reminiscences (Reminscences) including that thing he titled "Hope over Experience."

NEWS FLASH!!

Bush was really detailed in what Willie Campbell did for Myopia and the original 1894 nine in the spring of 1894. The Reminiscences is quite long but the only problem is in one paragraph he called him Willie Campbell, in another paragraph he called him Willie Dunn and in another he called him Willie Davis!! Apparently S. Dacre Bush was afflicted with what has become known amongst expert GCA historians as "Samuel Parrish Shinnecockitis Reminscobulbus." Doctors are beginning to diagnose it as a form of Teretts Syndrome where old golf club administrators babble "Willie, Willie, Willie over and over sometimes interpersed with interchangeable Scottish surnames.

So I don't know what the hell to say now. Was it Campbell or was it Willie Dunn or Willie Davis who actually designed Myopia? I guess to those early Boston elitist snobs any professional from Scotland back then was just a Willie and their last name was totally inconsequential or meaningless.

Or maybe I should start a new thread that might run on for a thousand pages in which we could discuss and debate and argue and insult each other about whether or not Willie Davis, Willie Dunn and Willie Campbell were all actually the same guy who used numerous surnames and aliases.

If that turns out to be the "verifiably provable" fact and case then all I can think to say, at this point, is Georgina Campbell must have considered herself to have been a very luck Scottish Lassie, for sure----eg more money, more sex, more architectural attribution, whatever. No wonder she lived so long and became so beloved around Boston----which by the way seriously and historically is the Goll-danged truth and "verifiably provable" as long as you are as good a researcher/analyst/historian as I am.

PS:
I'm gonna tell the Myopia historian that the club's archives has so many Scottish Willies going right now for attribution that he ought to just alter that official Dacre docuument and throw in Willie Park Jr too so they can at least have one early Scottish Willie architect who did something over here that actually lasted and was architecturally significant!

[DMoriarty]

Jeff Brauer

If you want to act like a grownup then call out your immature and dishonest friend for what he is, or at least quit your pathetic attempts to defend him.

Only children think they live in a world without consequences and it is about time your friend learned this.