Remembering young Tom Morris
Any golfer who visits St Andrews (as any true enthusiast for the game must surely do at least once) should make his way from the Course to the churchyard of the ruined Cathedral to stand for a moment before the monument to Young Tom Morris, Golf’s first Superstar, Pioneer of Modern Golf and Monarch of the Green – title of a splendid new biography by Stephen Procter, formerly a senior editor at The Baltimore Sun. Published by the Edinburgh firm, Birlinn, it is a companion piece to the biography by David Malcolm and Peter E Crabtree of Young Tom’s father, the white-bearded Old Tom, entitled “The Colossus of Golf” also published by Birlinn ten years ago.
The monument takes the form of an almost life-sized statue of Tommy, wearing tweed jacket, tie and Glengarry bonnet, in the act of addressing a putt, with a very open stance. Sixty golf societies, or clubs, throughout the United Kingdom subscribed to pay for it, which is itself remarkable. Even more so is the fact that the monument was unveiled by Lord Glencorse, Scotland’s senior judge, Lord President of the Court of Session and Lord Justice-General, while the closing prayer was given by the Principal of St Andrews University. It was not long since caddies had been regarded as ruffians given to drink, but now caddies, turned professional golfers, had become respectable, thanks to Old Tom and his even more gifted son.
Tommy had died suddenly on Christmas Day 1875, aged only twenty-four. He had already won The Open four times and he had won more than two-thirds of all the Singles and Foursomes he had played against fellow-professionals.
What especially impressed contemporaries was his daring. He took risks, and preferred the attacking shot to the safe one. He was also a marvellous putter, unlike Old Tom who had the habit of leaving putts short. “Get it up,” Tommy would say. “The hole winna come tae you.”
How good was he? It must first be acknowledged that professional tournament Golf was still in its infancy, restricted to Scotland and a handful of clubs in England. Fields even in The Open were tiny. Once Tommy had only seven rivals to beat. Then The Open was played over only 36 holes – both rounds usually on the same day – three rounds indeed when it was played at Prestwick, which was only a 12-hole course – laid out indeed by Old Tom who has claims to be considered the first golf course architect.
Scores were much higher than they are today. Tommy shared the record for the Old Course at St Andrews with a round of 77. When Nick Faldo won The Open there in 1990 his four round total was 270 – 18 under par. Back in 1927 the great American amateur Bobby Jones finished on 285 when he won there.
On the other hand, as Stephen Proctor points out, Golf was a much more difficult game in Young Tom’s time than it is now. There were no 350-yard drives. With the hickory-shafted woods and the gutta-percha ball, a really good drive might travel 200 yards. Then the fairways were more like what passes for semi-rough now. Often, they were grazed by sheep, only a few cut by a horse-pulled mower. There were usually deep ruts on fairways. Bunkers were natural, unraked and pitted with rabbit holes. The greens resembled modern fairways rather than today’s manicured ones.
Moreover it was forbidden to pick your ball up on the green, even to clear it of any mud it had collected. The clubs themselves were primitive. Drivers had small heads and a small sweet spot. You couldn’t get back-spin from an iron. Players had to think for themselves and gauge distance by eye, and it was necessary many times in a round to improvise a shot. The rough was just what the name implies, and most of the fairways were lined with whins or heather.
No wonder scoring was high by modern standards.
Incidentally the opening hole at Prestwick, known as the Back of the Cardinal, measured 578 yards, a par 5 even today. In 1870 Tommy did it in 3, holing his third shot from the fairway.
Early in the twentieth century the idea of sizing up the merits of a round by asking how close you had come to level fours became popular. In that 1927 Open win, Bobby Jones was three under fours.
Aged only 19 in 1870, Tommy’s first round on the 12-hole Prestwick course was 47, one under fours. Over the 36 holes he was only five over. “No golfer” Proctor writes “would finish the Open in less than five over fours until the introduction of the Haskell ball just after the turn of the century.” That rubber-cored ball, “known as the Bounding Billy, changed the game forever by giving golfers a tremendous leap forward in distance off the tee and from the fairway.” Andra Kirkaldy, who thrice finished runner-up in The Open, was fifteen when Tommy died and lived long enough to see the Triumvirate of Harry Vardon, James Braid and J H Taylor win 16 Opens between them. He had no doubt that Tommy was the King. “I have seen all the cracks and beaten most of them at odd times, but Young Tom had the gift of golf like no man I ever knew. It is my honest opinion that he was just a golf genius.”
Of course, we are all inclined to believe that the heroes of our youth have never been matched. There hasn’t been an England opening bat to rival Len Hutton or a fast bowler to be compared to Fred Trueman. This is natural, even as it should be. In truth, there is no valid basis for comparison between the generations; you are never really comparing like with like. Nevertheless, Stephen Proctor who has apparently spent years in American news-rooms and yet emerged still capable of hero-worship, makes his case cogently. Young Tom Morris was one of the greatest of them all. Bernard Darwin, whom Proctor calls “the father of golf-writing, wrote that if he was granted one piece of time travel, it would take him back to Prestwick on the afternoon when Tommy won his third Open in successive years and the Champion’s Belt in perpetuity.
It’s good to think of Young Tom in these days before the Masters in Augusta. Well, the Masters has a worldwide reputation, but it didn’t come into being till some sixty years after his death. We have to rely on words and figures, but especially words, to get a sense of how he played. From Proctor’s description, I get the sense of daring and adventure, of a player much like Seve Ballasteros or Rory McIlroy. Moreover, like them or indeed young Tommy Fleetwood, my pick for victory at Augusta – so don’t bet on him – he seems to have attracted affection as well as admiration. On the other hand, he resembles Tiger Woods, for his dominance in his brief life seems to have been as complete as that enjoyed by Tiger for a dozen or so years.
I suppose we’ll again be treated in the run-up to a lot of speculation about McIlroy’s chances of completing the Full House of Majors. Perhaps he will, perhaps not. What is tiresome is the suggestion that his career can’t be counted a real success until he does so. This is not only tiresome; it’s nonsense. Only Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods have won all four – The Masters, U.S Open, The Open and the (American) PGA. Far more haven’t, among them San Snead, Arnold Palmer, Seve Ballasteros, Nick Faldo, Phil Mickelson, all of who have won at least four Majors, but not the Full House. Failures all, you might think, to hear the way some people speak.