Bryan,
That's very cool...
Thanks for infusing some much needed rationality into this discussion. If it wasn't for you popping in now and again I'd lose all faith in humankind.
Patrick,
I know you don't want and refuse to admit that CBM didn't route NGLA in 2 days on horseback as you've insisted all along even though not a stitch of evidence supports that, including CBM's own words. It's ok...we all understand.
David,
Yes, of course a finalized, topographically mapped routing was completed by summer 1907 at NGLA...I even showed you that article with the elevation changes which you weren't aware of prior. However, there wasn't a completed routing in the period of Oct/Dec 1906 when they got agreement from Alvord to sell them an undetermined 205 acres (the number of acres they were looking to buy since 1904) at the price CBM wanted.
But, there was very likely a contour map already created by Raynor by the time of the agreement with Alvord, or shortly after, which is my point. I think the evidence shows it's highly like that a contour map was used to assist the routing process at NGLA during the winter/spring of 1907, as we know CBM tells us it was first created, and then LATER he gave Raynor his topos of holes abroad, telling him he wanted the holes laid out along those lines.
The December 1906 news articles announcing the agreement to secure 205 acres, which allowed them to AGAIN spend the next several months studying the contours earnestly and specifically routing the course before staking out the final boundaries during the spring, followed by a specific purchase agreement all confirm what CBM wrote in Scotland's Gift.
Related, do we know for certain when that actual purchase took place? I think George's book has a different month in 1907 from what CBM wrote, so he may have seen the actual contract. I'm not at home this weekend, so perhaps someone could confirm?
Again, I don't know what point you're trying to argue.
I think we both are saying much the same thing, except perhaps I think the evidence point to a timeline where he secured the property in December, and AGAIN studied the contours earnestly over the next several months and completed a routing which he ended up formally purchasing sometime in the spring of 1907. You seem to think it came earlier, which I don't believe is supported by the evidence.
In either case, this routing process didn't take 2 days as Patrick will still argue, I'm sure, but at least we both seem to agree this planning took place over a number of months.
I think ultimately you simply don't want to admit that he didn't first secure some specific 205 acres that fit his routing like a glove as you've argued in the past. Instead, that was his estimated number he'd need from 1904 on his original prospectus to potential members which included roughly 110 acres for the golf course and 1.5 acre building lots for his founding members.
He first secured, and then locked into that number, later purchased 205 acres that encapsulated all the best features he had found for golf on the property, but even his 1912 Founders Letter mentions again the fact that there is surplus land, referencing his original 1904 letter. Of course, as the course building progressed, there just wasn't enough of it (about 30 acres) to do much with it when all was said and done.
Even the December 1906 articles in multiple competing newspapers mention that plan for golf and member lots...did they all independently get it wrong in articles that directly quote CBM? I don't think so.
One last thought...
If NGLA was fully routed by the time CBM secured the property in December 1906, then why did it take until August 26th of 1907 for that routing of the most famous golf project in America to finally be revealed to a waiting public? Off to play Longaberger...