Mike,
Its not just Francis. Its really easy to discount any addtional contact with CBM by the consistency of the entire Merion record, as follows:
In Nov they report on the prospects and advisiblity of buying the new land, and mention CBM's letter. No mention of the extra time he was supposed to have spent on routing by that time. Seriously, there is no way that they would forget to mention that it had been routed by CBM by Nov, when discussing his recommendations is such great detail.
They also hire engineers (usually noted for their precision!) to prepare a plan for the same meeting. While capable of drawing accurate roads, and routing plan if available, they draw an approximate road, and blank golf land. Seriously, there is no way that they would not show a routing by CBM if they had one, if trying to inform the members of where the process stood.
In Dec., in buying the land, Culyers says they will start work at once on the plans. No mention that the world famous CBM supposedly had already figured it out. Same as above. For that matter, the housing developer, maybe even more than the club, would have trumpted the next great CBM golf course next to his development from the moment he had signed on, or at least at some point, but no one has brought forth any hint of that.
In the April report, they mention going to NGLA for a visit, and taking their plans, but no mention of any previous visits, or CBM plans. They mention CBM returning to approve one of their plans. If as David suggested, they wanted a CBM golf course, they would have called them his plans.
In their 1926 remembrances, the committee repeats the chronology of the meetings and the contributions of CBM's impact, but do not recall or mention any other contact with CBM.
In his 1950 remembrances, Francis tells of going to get approval from Lloyd, and goes into great detail, but doesn't mention CBM at all.
While its not hard to believe that there may have been some lost records, as happens at some clubs, they had many opportunities to mention CBM's work pre 1910, and didn't, even though, given the obligations they were asking of the membership, they were under obligation to report accurately. They are remarkably consistent in their reports and recollections.
We might buy one misstatement, but David and Patrick are asking the world to buy at least five mistatements and/or intentional omissions.
Now, given there are a few CBM/H Wilson letters in the Oakley file, I can believe there may have been a few more. But I think they had to have been minor, because Merion seems to have recorded all the game changing occurrences in their process. I envision those four days with CBM as non stop question and answer sessions, and I can believe there were a few more letters along the lines of asking "Hey, Charlie, we forgot to ask you about your water system."
BTW, I cannot really fathom any real routing collaboration by phone. Tried it, doesn't work! And, given what they reported on the process, and how consistent it is, I cannot believe that they would have written at least once that they recieved some routings via mail from old Charlie. Again, they had at least four opportunities do so, and while giving both broad outlines and some detail of the status of the new course process at each of those opportunities, they did not mention the specific detail that CBM had routed their course.
I have no problem in believing that while on site in April, CBM approved one of their routings (although I think it was largely already determined by Francis swap) and after doing so, saying "The tenth looks like an Alps to me!" (or some such)
If you check any source on the historic process, it will tell you that if contemporaries involved all say the same or similar things, you can belive its probably true. Off hand, I don't recall what Wiki says about eulogies from 70 year old men 20 years after the fact as far as being valid documentation. I guess at the minimum, it would have to be corroborated by another 70 year old man? (add smiley) And nothing in the historic method says that you can substitute your woulda, coulda, shoulda's in place of interpreting documents, like Patrick and TMac try to do.
Is there a reasonable scenario where MCC would fail to mention additional CBM contributions so many times? I think not. But I am fairly certain the Moronics will try to concoct one.