Jim,
That could be. But because TMac acts like he hasn't seen them, here is the passage from the minutes read by Leslie to the board. I presume it was written by Hugh, although who knows, some other member of the committee may have been the wordsmith. That said, it was NOT Leslie’s report:
“Your committee desires to report that after laying out many different golf courses on the new ground, they went down to the National course with Mr. Macdonald and spent the evening going over his plans and the various data he had gathered abroad in regard to golf courses. The next day we spent on the ground studying the various holes that were copied after the famous ones abroad.”
"On our return, we re-arranged the course and laid out five different plans." - MCC Minutes April 1911
David tells me that I "Just don't understand". I think I do. I read that as "plans and data gathered from abroad" and DM reads it as "The routing CBM did for Merion and the data he collected from abroad." I believe that if the committee wanted to say the plans CBM developed for MCC, they would have written it that way, whereas DM thinks nothing they wrote really meant what it says.
From David's own post earlier in this thread, here is Hugh Wilson's recollection just a few short years after in 1916 (which he can use to prove CBM's involvement, but if I mention a 1914 dinner, I am of course stretching the record a bit):
The members of the committee had played golf for many years, but the experience of each in construction and green keeping was only that of the average club member. Looking back on the work, I feel certain that we would never have attempted to carry it out, if we had realized one-half the things we did not know. Our ideals were high and fortunately we did get a good start in the correct principles of laying out the holes, through the kindness of Messrs. C. B. Macdonald and H. J. Whigham. We spent two days with Mr. Macdonald at his bungalow near the National Course and in one night absorbed more ideas on golf course construction than we had learned in all the years we had played. Through sketches and explanations of the correct principles of the holes that form the famous courses abroad and had stood the test of time, we learned what was right and what we should try to accomplish with our natural conditions. The next day we spent going over the course and studying the different holes. Every good course that I saw later in England and Scotland confirmed Mr. Macdonald's teachings. May I suggest to any committee about to build a new course, or to alter their old one, that they spend as much time as possible on courses such as the National and Pine Valley, where they may see the finest types of holes and, while they cannot hope to reproduce them in entirety, they can learn the correct principles and adapt them to their own courses.
Note what it specifically says they went over. Yes, they studied HIS plans, which I agree could have been NGLA, GBI sketches, etc. It MAY have been Merion plans, but the two taken together says they took their plans to him, and they modified into FIVE DIFFERENT plans them based on his advice on their return. Of course, DM takes that to mean one plan with five minor variations, and the definition of minor and major can vary among the most civil of debaters.
Also, while they never mention design, preferring and referring to everything as construction, they talk about the principles of laying out holes, and I can’t believe CBM was telling them how to use surveyor’s tools, or hammers and wood lath, as DM would have us believe.
please note that they learned PRINCIPLES of architecture.
They suggest to OTHER COMMITTEES to visit the classics like NGLA and PV.
When talking about the design and construction of their course, it is ALWAYS in the WE tense.
So, again, yes CBM was a great help. The meetings with CBM were key to the process. But for DM to tell me the record says CBM routed the course, either before that meeting or before the Nov. 15, 1910 meeting, land swap included, I just don’t see it in what the participants wrote about it. Sorry, maybe I am just too dense.
If DM and the Philly guys are arguing smaller details than that, then in many cases, they really seem to be arguing past each other for no apparent reason other than to keep arguing. While all sides claim their motivation is to find out what happened, keeping up the good fight is really more important, because truly, actions speak louder than words.