Hi Jim,
You are able to take that passage from Lesley, in a formal Board meeting, to say it's clear CBM was the most influential person in the proces while Tom is able to take the exact same words to mean CBM had only three days of input/contribution to the project.
While that Lesley report is very important, there is a lot more supporting my claim than just this Lesley report. To name a few things, there is, in no particular order: the previous Lesley report, HJWhigham's statement on the matter; the previous Bd. letters to the members about CBM/HJW's involvement; press clippings emphasizing CBM's involvement in the planning; CBM acting as AWT's source of information about the plan; HWilson's thanks and acknowledgement in his Chapter, AWilson's letter; Lesley's Article; the statements in the press about the course being based on the great holes abroad; Findlay's acknowledgement of CBM's role in creating the layout; the attempt by Merion to build at least CBM's four main templates at the time: the Alps, Redan, Eden, and Road; other CBM "tells" all over the course; etc. While some won't hear of it, there is also Wilson's lack of experience and CBM's role as leader in the nation for this sort of thing,
combined with Wilson's propensity to turn to experts for guidance.
I think it's ludicrous to think CBM and HJW were only involved those three days. Some correspondence must have happened but if they were coming up with the bulk of the ideas for routing the course and designing the holes he would have been mentioned more AND he would have been more personally invested in the outcome of the project.
While I agree with the first sentence, the rest are leaps I am not willing to make. I don't think we are in a position to dictate how he should have behaved once he was finished helping Merion with their plan. CBM had a lot going on in New York and Long Island, including tweaks to NGLA, the design and construction of Piping Rock and Sleepy Hollow, and he was about ready to embark on other projects as well. And he was busy with the USGA and his profession. I think it makes more sense to focus on what he did, than what you expect he should have done later. And what he did was devote a relatively large amount of time to Merion's planning. He may have spent more time on site at Merion than at some courses considered his own designs!
Besides, how long do you think it would take CBM to come up with a plan at Merion? He had already been over the land, and the contour map (the one mentions that he would have needed to determine for certain if he could fit a first class course on the land) had been created. Do you really think that between the first visit, the creation of the contour map, whatever communication he had with Wilson, the NGLA meetings, and the return visit to Merion, that CBM didn't have enough involvement to come up with a plan? HH Barker came up with a rough plan in a single day!
Similarly, you've used their approval of the parcel selection as evidence that they chose the land. They were only shown one site after the committee spent months, possibly years, narrowing their search to this one. No, it wasn't a committee for years, but the search had been ongoing individually for that long.
I don't think I ever said he was solely responsible for choosing the land! I'll defer to Merion's Board on this one, and on Lesley's earlier Committee Report. Your attempts to discount CBM's importance to the selection of the land directly contrast with Merion's own internal statements on the matter, as well as their statements to the membership!
Similarly, Tom likes to fall back on the comment that he's only stating what can be proven by the records. The records only mention CBM twice covering three interactions. This must underplay his contribution significantly based on several things, not the least of which being the several template holes the committee attempted.
I agree, but would add that this not only understates CBM's contribution, it is misleading as to Merion's actual record. There may have only been mention of CBM in the Minutes of two separate meetings,
but so far as I can tell these are the only meetings where the design was actually discussed! It is not as if there were twenty meetings about Wilson planning the course, and CBM comes up in two of them!
There were only two meetings discussing the planning process and CBM and HJW were not only prominently discussed in both meetings, Merion relied on and acted upon CBM/HJW's input at both such meetings!
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You agree with TEPaul that the only thing Tolhurst got wrong is the timing of the trip overseas. I don't want to try and go through Tolhurst again line by line, but I think you know that this is not accurate. To name just one very important aspect of the story, Tolhurst also has the timing of the NGLA trip wrong, and he wrongly dismisses it as merely a meeting to discuss Wilson's travel "itinerary." NGLA had nothing to do with the itinerary or the trip! The trip occurred during the planning of Merion East, and the purpose of the trip was to seek CBM's aid in planning
further Merion East!
Also, Tolhurst and other histories are mistaken as to the very foundation for the initial course! Tolhurst and others such as Wind (who wrote before Tolhurst!) seem to think that Merion was loosely modeled on what Wilson had learned overseas. In reality,
the initial course was modeled on what CBM had learned overseas and on what CBM had done at NGLA! This is a big difference that goes well beyond just the timing of the trip.
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TEPaul's recent efforts are mostly geared toward trying to minimize my findings by his bizarre tangents about who found what, or about how long the myth has been in existence. I am not interested in any of it. Regardless of when they were written just about every history book covering the creation of Merion East has that creation story substantially wrong.