Not to bring up a sore subject, but,

[Phil_the_Author]

Tom the Mac,

To quote an ancient philosopher, "Surprise, Surprise, Surprise!"

Now that you know and can NOT say that you didn't read what I posted, how about stopping ignoring the question I asked and answer it?

[TEPaul]

"I'm just asking what is your level of interest, are you a searcher, interpreter, or defender?"


In my opinion, that's a fairly sophomoric question on a thread like this one and at a point in it like this is---but anyway, coming from you very little surprises.

But let me ask you----how would you answer your own question in describing yourself and your interest, particularly with a thread subject like this one?

But I'd like to take one guess on your answer. Tell me someone to sent it to who's objective and I will guarantee you some serious money that my guess of what you say will pick the right answer!  



I am also interested in your definition of "independent" as in independent research. Something tells me that to you the idea of "independent" as in independent research must mean never having to go to the subject club to do research because the truth is you seem very good at never actually going to the subject club or the subject itself to do research. Is that what you mean by "independent?"   

[Jeff_Brauer]

TePaul,

I considered the same question and truly believe, as TMac likes to say sometimes that it is revealing about where he stands as its poster.  Specifically, there is no counterpoint to defender, such as "historical debunker."  IMHO, we all have an agenda or at least POV here.  TMac is not immune.

[DMoriarty]

Jim Sullivan,

Given the cluster . . . bomb this thread has become since my post 373, before moving on I wanted to make sure I answered your previous question regarding "advised" in my post 369.  I wasn't sure I understood your question and if I didn't address it, let me know.

David,

Regarding your post 373...the plans those minutes were talking about are the plans the committee developed both before and after the March visit to NGLA. In no way do they specifically say, or even imply really, that M&W developed them, simply that they identified their preference of the group and that based on that preference the committee was recommended it for Board approval. If it were anywhere near as clear as you seem to make it I would have been gone long ago because the matter would be pretty well settled for me.

I agree that the plans discussed in the April Board Minutes had been in the works before Macdonald and Whigham's  return visit to Merion in April 1911 to determine and finalize the lay out plan.  While it really was outside the focus of my post, I did mention that Wilson and his committee were involved in the planning process.  As I tried to explain in post 369, this was a process.  

But post 373 was not a definitive statement about what had occurred before.  It addresses the conclusive stage in the process where the plan was ultimately finalized and presented to the Board.  We may not yet fully understand everything that had occurred before (and probably won't as long as Wayne and TEPaul continue to play games with the source material) but there is plenty we do know about how the plan was finalized.  

Merion's minutes confirm that, regarding Merion East, planning the course and laying out the course were NOT synonymous.   First Merion East was planned, and then Merion East was laid out on the ground according to that plan.  

And while Wilson was obviously the person in charge of laying the course out on the ground and building it, and while Wilson likely had some yet to be determined involvement in the planning, the Merion Minutes confirm that CBM and HJW were responsible for determining the final routing plan.

No mention of Wilson at all, so far as I can tell.

[JESII]

No mention of Wilson at all, so far as I can tell.

Agreed, and I think that's important...but not as important as the fact that these same minutes say it was the committee's work that created these multiple plans that M&W were able to select from.




Let me look back at 369 and get back to you if need be.

[JESII]

To be more specific, while Wilson and his committee were involved in the planning process, MACDONALD AND WHIGHAM DETERMINED AND FINALIZED THAT PLAN, AND NOTED THAT IF MERION WOULD LAY IT OUT ACCORDING TO THE PLAN that M&W had approved, Merion would have a First Class golf course.

David,

I don't remember having any questions on your post 369, but this passage above is what bothers me. Your use of the word "FINALIZED" is not used anywhere in the minutes to my knowledge. To me, "FINALIZED" implies making some changes and I don't know that the record supports that.

TEPAUL think you may be right, but you two will have to be content with each other for now...hahaha.

[DMoriarty]

No mention of Wilson at all, so far as I can tell.

Agreed, and I think that's important...but not as important as the fact that these same minutes say it was the committee's work that created these multiple plans that M&W were able to select from.

Frankly I don't understand what exactly it is that you and others think these minutes say about "the committee's work that created these multiple plans that M&W were able to select from."

Whatever was done to "rearrange the course" and whatever "laid out five plans" means these things were done upon the Committee's return from the NGLA trip and before the M&W's return trip to Merion.  I for one don't buy Mike Cirba's creative sentence parsing or his disingenuous denial of the obvious explanation of what went on at NGLA.  And if they were at all involved in planning at NGLA (and the evidence strongly suggests they were) then 'rearranging the course' and 'laying out those five plans' was done with M&W's input.  

As for post 369, it was in response to a question you had asked before.  I just wanted to make sure I had answered it.

It looks like yours is a valid point about my use of "finalized."   I had thought the minutes contained the word, but perhaps I am thinking of one of the many different versions presented in the past.  Regardless, with or without the word, my point remains the same.  

By the way, when Wayne showed you the Minutes, did you happen to notice who from Merion actually went to NGLA.   We know that Wilson was there, and wasn't alone.  He tells us so.   But who else was there?   For example, were Lesley or other members of the site committee?  

I had originally figured it was the construction committee, and it may well have been, but there are a few things that have led me to wonder just who exactly was there.

[Mike Cirba]

I guess production of evidence and generally productive, civil discussion of same, and the answering of each others direct questions is what is now known here as a "cluster bomb"?

Perhaps we just need more unfounded, wild speculation, bizarre parsing of words, angry insults about hiding evidence and demeaning statements about an "author"s credentials to get things back to normal?

Why don't Tom and David just go to Merion already?  Wouldn't that be a better use of their time if they think there is some smoking gun they've yet to (mis)interpret?

Btw...does anyone understand why David claims he is the only person capable of accurately interpreting the evidence?  He's made the claim on here multiple times now that others aren't able to interpret things accurately and we need him to do it for us.

Are we sure that A+++++++ didn't simply stand for "arrogant"?

[Phil_the_Author]

Mike,

"Btw...does anyone understand why David claims he is the only person capable of accurately interpreting the evidence?  He's made the claim on here multiple times now that others aren't able to interpret things accurately and we need him to do it for us..."

I think Jeff Brauer answered that question very well in his post on the Shawnee thread. He wrote it in post #191 and then deleted it, but take heart! David quoted the entire response in #191.

[Mike Cirba]

Phil,

I did see where that was reproduced.  

I'm trying not to get involved in personal arguments, but I have to admit that Jeff absolutely nailed it.   I'm not sure why David would reproduce it as it was sort of like if Richard Nixon posted Rich Little's dead-on impersonation of him.

[Phil_the_Author]

Mike,

Not to belabor the point, I actually do have a question for David about the reposting. It mentions that david "modified" it after posting it... WHAT could he have modified? 

[TEPaul]

"Merion's minutes confirm that, regarding Merion East, planning the course and laying out the course were NOT synonymous.   First Merion East was planned, and then Merion East was laid out on the ground according to that plan.  

And while Wilson was obviously the person in charge of laying the course out on the ground and building it, and while Wilson likely had some yet to be determined involvement in the planning, the Merion Minutes confirm that CBM and HJW were responsible for determining the final routing plan."




The MCC minutes do not say this. The MCC minutes do not read that way. They do not confirm the above statement. Those words are apparently a fabrication by David Moriarty who seems to be trying to pass his interpretation of the wording of the minutes off as fact. Those words are not historically accurate and are not factual other than as a fabrication by David Moriarty.

If one is genuinely interested in learning the history of Merion's architecture as David Moriarty claims that he is, one does not rewrite the actual wording of some of MCC's most important contemporaneous source material and then claim it is fact and accurate. One uses the exact wording of the minutes and contemporaneous source material and may even consider putting it in quotations to indicate it is exactly as written.

If he wants to see and read and confirm the actual words of the MCC minutes he should arrange with MCC to see them and read them and write them down word for word as they are actually written. Or alternatively they are written on some back pages as they are written in the Wilson report and in the April 19, 1911 board meeting, and he should be able to find them if he is so inclined.

[TEPaul]

"The material evidence from Merion doesn't mention any date on that contour map Tom. It could be July just as easy as January other than the fact that the January one is probably about the 5th iteration."



Sully:

That's true---the material evidence from Merion does not mention any date on that contour map and that's why I've never seen the need to speculate what that date may be or if the map even had one. I'd prefer to just find it first and then look and see. Other than that what I prefer to do is go with the FACT that the first time it was actually mentioned by Wilson was Feb. 1. 1911.

[TEPaul]

"Because it was one thing to be a interpreter and another to be a searcher. And then you have the defenders who are neither searchers or interpreters. IMO there aren't a enough open minded searchers looking at this topic."



Tom MacWood:


Apparently you are still not aware who the searchers and the discoverers of actual MCC source material are. And apparently you are also not aware of when or even where those searchers and discoverers found that all important source material. But then again, it does not surprise me that you are not aware of these kinds of things.

You were not aware either when you found that article back in 2003 mentioning that Macdonald and Whigam had helped and advised MCC back in 1910 and 1911 that MCC mentioned that and thanked them at that time and that we here have always been aware of that. I guess you thought you discovered something neither Merion nor us here knew. You DIDN'T but perhaps you still think you did somehow.

This is part and parcel of why I have often told you that I think you're a good raw researcher but that you should stay away from historical analysis because it is most definitely not something you have any knack for.

By the way, pretty much the sum total of what Moriarty used to research his essay is known as "The Sayers Scrapbook" and copies of that have been reposited at Merion for years, but he did not find that at Merion or MCC, he found it at the Pennsylvania Historical Society in Philadelphia. It is some pretty good source material but it most definitely is limited in scope compared to the material found later at MCC which Moriarty never even knew existed when he wrote his essays.

So who were the searchers and discoverers of the latter material found at MCC? I would bet even at this point you still don't know which is not surprising really knowing you as I know you.  

[JESII]

By the way, when Wayne showed you the Minutes, did you happen to notice who from Merion actually went to NGLA.   We know that Wilson was there, and wasn't alone.  He tells us so.   But who else was there?   For example, were Lesley or other members of the site committee?  

I had originally figured it was the construction committee, and it may well have been, but there are a few things that have led me to wonder just who exactly was there.

I have never seen anything that identified specifically who went to NGLA, but the minutes do say "your committee".

[TEPaul]

For the record, the so-called Wilson Report goes something like thusly regarding who went to NGLA on that early March 1911 two day visit.

[Your committee desires to report that after laying out numerous courses on the new land they went up the the National Course......]

They did not specify who was on the committee or who specifically "they" were in that seminal report that does not mention a thing about going over Merion's plans while at NGLA. Not that they didn't do that, mind you, they just did not mention it although they did mention some other things they did while there.


I know it's total speculation but I think they ran across HH Barker, Willie Campbell and Robert White on the train coming out of NYC and asked them to join the committee and design the course and I also believe they knighted CBM and Whigam and made them honorary royal members of the committee.

Wait a minute! Willie Campbell died in 1900! Oh so what, I'm pretty sure he was there anyway in early March 1911, at least in spirit, and should be given significant architectural attribution for Merion East also! After all, Herbie Barker said they were trying to emulate Myopia and we all know Willie Campbell designed Myopia rather than Herb Leeds.

This must have been the way it was because WE are men of OPEN MINDS!!

[TEPaul]

Furthermore they were not referred to by MCC's minutes in early 1911 as a "construction committee," they were indirectly referred to as a committee on new golf grounds. And by the way, Horatio took over as the chairman of that ad hoc committee from Lesley in November 1910.

I just cannot wait to watch Moriarty parse them apples; sorry, pare them apples. I need a good laugh today, don't you know? 

[JESII]

Tom,

Was that just the site committee renamed?

[TEPaul]

"Was that just the site committee renamed?"


Now that we are in a virtual court of law room, Sully, we must be very specific about our words and terms. At least all of us other than Moriarty who asks us all for only "verifiable facts" but of course produces none himself apparently because he knows how to interpret everything so much better than any of us and likes to remind us all of that on a daily basis. And that includes rewriting the actual words and then claim they must be the actual and factual words or at least their ONLY meaning. 

I think WE referred to the original committee that looked for land as the "site committee" but MCC referred to it back then as the committee on New Golf Grounds and perhaps sometimes informally as the Search Committee.

I really don't know when or who first referred to the Wilson Committee as the "Construction Committee." Who wants to do the research on that one?

I nominate MacWood or Moriarty and we can check their accuracy or inaccuracy, as the case may be, later.

[DMoriarty]

I have never seen anything that identified specifically who went to NGLA, but the minutes do say "your committee".

This in and of itself may be significant.   Keep in mind that no matter how many times TEPaul and Mike pretend to know otherwise,  it was Robert Lesley doing the reporting, not Wilson, and Lesley was not on Wilson's construction committee.  The "so-called Wilson Report" is only "so-called" because these guys insist on calling it that even though there is nothing in the known record indicating Wilson was at all involved with the report.

While we are on the subject, you and anyone else who might actually be interested in an accurate record should know that I have barely skimmed the past 100 posts or so, and while most of it is the same stale, inaccurate, misleading, and typically insulting stuff, I'm not going to bother with it.  

 That said, if you or anyone actually interested in what really happened would like an alternative perspective let me know and I wiil be glad to provide mine.

----------------------------------

Jim,  Yes the site committee and the committee charged with developing the new golf grounds were apparently one and the same.

TEPaul is so busy trying to manufacture gratuitous insults that he has really  jumbled this up above.  That or he doesn't yet realize that Lesley's committee and Wilson's subcommittee were not the same thing.  

Inexplicably, TEPaul claimed "they were not referred to by MCC's minutes in early 1911 as a "construction committee," they were indirectly referred to as a committee on new golf grounds.". Huh?   I dont think Wilson's construction committee was  referred to as committee "on new grounds."   That was Lesley's committee.  





I just cannot wait to watch Moriarty parse them apples; sorry, pare them apples. I need a good laugh today, don't you know?  
[/quote]

[TEPaul]

"TEPaul is so busy trying to manufacture gratuitous insults....."


Henceforth, please try harder not to confuse the idea of insult with one legitimately and accurately pointing out on here the mistakes you make in the posts you put on this website. Your posts are here for all to see and consequently are "verifiable facts."  

But I suppose when one comes to understand that his opinions and contentions are all viewed as wrong by everyone, claiming one is being insulted is an option; not a very good option but a verifiably factual option nonetheless. 

[TEPaul]

"I dont think Wilson's construction committee was  referred to as committee "on new grounds."   That was Lesley's committee."


It was the committee Lesley chaired in 1910 before turning over the chair of the committee to Lloyd in Nov. 1910. Apparently Lloyd turned the chair of the committee over to Wilson in January 1911 when he became the president of the MCCGA Corporation, a Pennsylvania registered corporation. What's in a non-permanent, non-standing committee name? Apparently not a lot at Merion and in the history of Merion. I actually interviewed a few past chairmen of non-standing committees at Merion in the past about that. Have you bothered to do that research yet Professor Moriarty? Have you bothered to do any research at all AT Merion or MCC? If not, why is that? It is what all good researcher/analyst/writer historians do, you know?  

By the way, Wayne and I checked out the MCCGA Corporation with the state corporate registration Office. It still exists even if it has not actually operated since 1942.   

[JESII]

Can you clarify this for me Tom?

Lesley was golf chairman when the April Board meeting occurred, correct?

The committee for new golf grounds was a sub-committee that Lesley was initially chairman of, handed off to Lloyd in November 1910, who then handed it to Wilson in January 1911?

This was not the site committee, correct?

Wilson was chairman of this committee throughout the rest of the process?

Any errors in there?

[TEPaul]

"Any errors in there?"


I don't believe so other than as I explained to you earlier I don't think MCC ever called it the site committee. I think that's what some of us on GOLFCLUBATLAS.com referred to it as. But as it evolved through 1910 and 1911 it seems its chairmen and members changed when it was used for different purposes.

But to claim that it was a committee under the chairmanship of Hugh Wilson to simply construct the course and not route and design the course too is a really ridiculous contention and its the contention made by Moriarty in his essay to apparently attempt to prove that someone other than Wilson was responsible for designing the course or was the driving force behind the course simply due to a name some referred to the committee as and perhaps later.

There are so many examples of fallacious leaps of logic and reasoning in that essay it is laughable at this point and particularly as others have discovered really important factual information from Merion and MCC since that essay. Those people who made those discoveries later will heretofore be formally named the "Committee of SEARCHERS."  

Moriarty always claimed all he really wanted to do in all this is learn something about the history of Merion. That definitely does not appear to be the case and I guess it never was the case.

But don't worry, the history writers of Merion will make all this right when they get around to writing the highly detailed accounts of this time and those people. And C.B. Macdonald and H.J. Whigam will most definitely get their due for what they did for MCC back then (as they always have) and they will get their just due not from rampant leaps of logic and fallacious speculation but from and as supported by the important contemporaneous MCC records that directly address what they actually said and what they actually said they did as it was recorded at the time.

[TEPaul]

"While we are on the subject, you and anyone else who might actually be interested in an accurate record should know that I have barely skimmed the past 100 posts or so, and while most of it is the same stale, inaccurate, misleading, and typically insulting stuff, I'm not going to bother with it."


David Moriarty:

That just may be one of the most welcome pieces of information I have heard from you in a number or years.    

 

"That said, if you or anyone actually interested in what really happened would like an alternative perspective let me know and I wiil be glad to provide mine."





No thanks, and I'm quite sure I can speak to and for the sentiments of Merion and its members when I say that. I think they all have heard quite enough from you and your opinions of the architectural history of Merion. This time I hope you will show us you can be a man of your word and stick to the last statement you made.

As far as you're concerned can we all now consider this subject closed on here? As I mentioned, I fully expect that Merion will produce their own detailed presentation and account of this time and these people. It should be done in the next few years and definitely before the 2013 US Open, and it all probably will be found in the Merion Archives.



Mark the date October 12, 2010 well my good men of GOLFCLUBALTLAS.com!! According to David Moriarty THIS may be the DAY and DATE he is calling a halt to his participation on the subject of the architectural history of Merion East. I hope he has learned something about it as he once claimed it was his intention to do. But if for some odd reason he feels he has not, then all I can say is that like the rest of us who have a real interest in Merion and its architectural history, he should be able to find his way to the door to Merion and to the door to its important and impressive Archives! Will he ever actually see the inside of it?

That is a question for another day, I think.

Later, my Brethren of the Ideal Golf Architectural Diagonal,

Yours truly,

The Crazy Uncle