Merion clarification

[Dan Herrmann]

Patrick,
Fortunately, my guess is that Merion membership couldn't care less about this, let alone admonishing people.

David,
Since you're not interested in anything from SE Pennsylvania, perhaps we should end this discussion at this time?  To me it's obvious that you will not be convinced of anything that doesn't sync with your thesis, which is your right.   In other words, agree to disagree and be done with it?

[DMoriarty]

David,
Since you're not interested in anything from SE Pennsylvania, perhaps we should end this discussion at this time?  To me it's obvious that you will not be convinced of anything that doesn't sync with your thesis, which is your right.   In other words, agree to disagree and be done with it?

Dan,  I never said was was "not interested in anything from SE Pennsylvania."  Fortunately for SE Pennsylvania, you and your lurker buddies don't represent everything the area has to offer.  

Besides, you can thank your "lurker" friends for my returned interest in the subject.  The only reason I started posting again at all was because Wayne Morrison actually had the gall to take credit for the Tom MacWood's hard work in that Golf Digest article, and because TEPaul came here to tell tall tales about who figured what out and when.   Now Cirba is doing the same thing.  

What kind of a person would take credit for a dead man's hard work?  And what kind of people would ruthlessly fight against obvious and proven truths for year after year, employing every dirty trick in the book, and then turn around and pretend that they were the ones who figured it all out?   Your pals would, that's who.   That is precisely the kind of men they are.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Patrick,
Fortunately, my guess is that Merion membership couldn't care less about this, let alone admonishing people.


Then why did a non-member and a new member take it upon themselves to speak on behalf of the membership ?

And why did the club indicate that neither spoke on the club's behalf ?

David was berated for his work and Tom MacWood's work before it was even published, and once it was published, the attacks only intensified and became personal.

Stop lecturing David and stop being a lackey and a shill for the "Merionettes", and start being an independent thinker.

[Patrick_Mucci]

From a lurker

Patrick:
 
Wayne and I don't look at it as speaking for the club's membership; we look at it as speaking for the club's administration (who hopefully represents the membership) because that is what they let us do, tell us to do, and encourage us to do. And it's probably because in the last ten or twelve years Merion's administration and the USGA have realized Wayne and I knew far more about all the details of the architectural history of Merion than everyone else combined. In the last ten years and more we have been Merion's "go to" guys on the details and questions of Merion's architectural history. I guess that's what happens when someone has done as much research and leg-work on that subject and that club's architectural history as we have. It does not surprise me at all that you're not aware of that and apparently never have been. The result of all that all came together at this year's US Open when the whole world of golf was in convocations there. To me personally, the USGA's first forum this year at Merion dedicated exclusively to the investigation and presentation of the Open site's architectural history was the real highlight and that type of architectural forum will be annual at US Opens. Someone like you may not understand something like that because you've apparently never done it or been a part of it as Wayne and I have with Merion GC and with the USGA over the last decade.
 
You've picked the wrong allies and the wrong people to defend with Moriarty and MacWood, and probably because, like them, culturally you basically have a chip on your shoulder with clubs of the likes of Merion and just cannot see your way clear to any real objectivity about them. And also, Merion and clubs like it are of the world I come from, and not of the world you come from; and I will neither forget or forgive you for what you said to me about the world I come from. It was a revelation to me, and I suppose I am thankful for it. It basically confirmed for me that the people my father and I argued with for so many years about exclusionary practices and an exclusionary mentality at the clubs we came from were right after all.
 

[DMoriarty]

Boy this lurker sure is a "class" act.  The membership and administration at Merion must be very proud that this guy is out there pretending to represent them.

With regard to the first paragraph, I have been informed on numerous occasions by the relevant "Administrator" at Merion that neither TEPaul nor Wayne Morrison is authorized to speak on behalf of Merion on issues relating to Merion's history.  To put it much too delicately, this lurker seems to be . . . mistaken.

From the lurker's post above:
You've picked the wrong allies and the wrong people to defend with Moriarty and MacWood, and probably because, like them, culturally you basically have a chip on your shoulder with clubs of the likes of Merion and just cannot see your way clear to any real objectivity about them. And also, Merion and clubs like it are of the world I come from, and not of the world you come from; and I will neither forget or forgive you for what you said to me about the world I come from. It was a revelation to me, and I suppose I am thankful for it. It basically confirmed for me that the people my father and I argued with for so many years about exclusionary practices and an exclusionary mentality at the clubs we came from were right after all.
 
On another thread someone asked about the motivations and mindset of those from Philadelphia who have been fighting this battle. I'd say this above paragraph pretty well summarizes the mindset of this particular "lurker." Obviously for him there are deeper (or shallower) issues involved than getting to the truth.

Pretty creepy stuff if you ask me.  

[Patrick_Mucci]

David,

Not giving you and Tom MacWood credit for your discoveries was improper.

Taking credit for your discoveries was despicable

It would seem that "INTEGRITY" is not part of their world

[Dan Herrmann]

From Tom Paul in response to post #254:
David Moriarty:
 
In the winter of 2008, some months before you wrote your essay, a group email was sent out by Patrick Mucci that was only some photo joke about some naked woman in golf. Both you and Tom MacWood had been off Golfclubatlas.com for an extended time. Via that group email I asked you to return to the website. You said you would only do it if you could produce an essay on the origins of Merion East. Wayne Morrison and I offered a couple of times to collaborate with you on it and you refused both times.We asked if we could see your drafts and you refused.
 
In April 2008 your essay was posted in the IMO section of Golfclubatlas.com. You had only shown your essay for review to Tom MacWood, Tommy Nacarrato, Ran Morrissett and Patrick Mucci.
 
If anyone reads the thread in which Ran Morrissett introduced your essay they cannot help but notice we were not critical of your essay until quite a good time later when we began to consider the massive stretches of facts you had made with numerous unsupported inferences off those facts and questioned you about that. We also produced additional information from MCC that you had never been aware of that directly contradicted many of your points, premises and conclusions in your essay. You denied it all and even went so far as to say that they confirmed your premises and conclusions in your essay. That is when this debate really began and it has not changed much since. At one point you even told Brauer that apparently everyone before you who had read this material must have misinterpreted it and that it was not until you analyzed it after a century that it was finally interpreted correctly.
 
And then MacWood claimed a number of times on this website that the historian of Merion was unethical; he even produced some treatise on the ethics of museum and library administrators. Thankfully all of the foregoing is still in the back pages of this website if anyone wants to reference it for the accuracy of the foregoing. That "authorized administrator" you mentioned above told both of you that you could have access to Merion's archives if you followed the same protocol that everyone does with Merion of coming to the archives in person. Both of you refused to do that and insisted that he should just send you any material you requested.
 
So it is of no wonder at all that Merion, its administrators, those who know them all well and have acted with and for them as their architectural historians are pretty disenchanted with people like you. For "outsiders" your actions during this saga and charade has done more to turn that club off to outsiders than can possibly be imagined and why shouldn't it with the way you people have acted?
 
And that is why I think it is complete poetic justice that you have come to this pass---eg you have no credibility with that club and at this point they would frankly just prefer to forget about you and this entire nasty saga that was both perpetuated and promoted by you, MacWood and apparently Mucci as well.
 
Why did you do it? We offered to help you both and you constantly refused. We even heard from a couple of your supposed "friends" in California that you did it just to get us and try to embarrass us for some reason. What was that reason, David Moriarty? Was it some cultural reason that goes to some insecurity of yours about clubs like Merion and their friends?
 
So what really was the story, huh? Are you simply one of those people who is categorically incapable of ever admitting he is wrong? It seems pretty obvious that MacWood and Mucci shared that trait with you. If not, were is any example from all three of you that you have ever actually admitted you were wrong about anything?
 
Also I note you said on a recent post how wrong an early draft of the Nature Faker was. I checked with Wayne and he sent an early draft to MacWood for his review. He did not send one to you. So how did you get it if not from MacWood? And since you must have gotten it from him because he was the only one sent it by Wayne, what was his purpose in sending it to you?
 
This entire decade long charade with you, MacWood and Mucci was just a set-up----there is just no question about it now.
 
Merion would just as soon forget about the whole thing and so would I. Wayne sure would. None of us have any remaining interest in your opinions of the architectural history of Merion East because to date they have been wholly shown to lack credibility. As for Merion's most recent presentation of the East Course's architectural history, the very best example of it now is Jeff Silverman's really good book "A Centennial Celebration of the East Course." In that book anyone can see what the club thinks about your thesis compared to ours and the club's.
 
Dan Hermann asked you recently if you have read Jeff Silverman's Merion East's history book, and as usual you just avoided his question. Why is that? Are you afraid of something? Are you afraid what people may think about your previous opinions if you even attempted to answer that question honestly? I think it's pretty obvious you avoided it because with you it is just more of the same old avoidance and attempted deception that has pretty much turned everyone off. Did you even notice what the world's press, the club and the USGA said about the architectural history of Merion East at the recent US Open when the eyes of the golfing world turned to Merion and the East Course?
 
Apparently not. I knew it would come to this some day; I told you that many times, and it seems after five years it finally has, and thankfully so. You've done a lot of damage to others in the future interested in dealing intelligently with clubs like that who they don't know. Perhaps in some bizarre way you are actually proud of yourself for all this. You've had your fifteen minutes in the sun over it I guess. I can't speak for most others on this website on what they think about it but for me and those I know and respect here the conduct of you three has been despicable, particularly yours.
 
 

[DMoriarty]

It should surprise no one that the latest entry by the "lurker" is full of tall tales, self-serving misrepresentations, and paranoia.  He seems to invent his own reality which each sentence.   His version of what happened is false from beginning to end.  For example, he is telling tall tales about about why I came back to the website, the supposed condition I placed on my return, his supposed offer of cooperation before my essay, his supposed request to preview it and my supposed denial,  and to whom I showed my essay.  And that is just the first few sentences.   It gets much worse from there.

But I am not interested in further enabling his fanciful flights.   He quite obviously has bigger issues which are well beyond the scope of this conversation.   Those "friends" of his who keep posting his rants ought to really consider whether you are really benefiting him by so doing.