Tommy's Honor: The Story of Old Tom Morris and Young Tom Morris, Golf's Founding Father and Son by Kevin Cook

Author:Kevin Cook
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Old Tom, Autobiography, Golfers, Golf, , Golf - General, 1821-1908, Scotland, Sports & Recreation, Sports, Morris, 19th century, Biography & Autobiography, Sports - General, Biography, History
ISBN: 9781592402977
Publisher: Gotham
Published: 2007-04-17T07:00:00+00:00

Tommy’s victories over Fergusson restored the Morrises’ honor but did nothing for Tom’s reputation. There were whispers on both sides of the Forth that “Old Tom” was no longer a golfer of the first rank. Wasn’t it sad that only two years after winning the Open he needed his son to fight his fights? Or, if you lived in Musselburgh, wasn’t it amusing?

Tom heard the questions. He joked about them. It wasn’t idle gossip that said Tom Morris was twenty yards shorter off the tee than his son and worse than ever with his putter. It was plain fact. Putting practice was no cure—he could hole twenty consecutive three-footers in practice and then miss half of them in a match. The caddies joked that Tom should make the hole bigger. He was the greenkeeper; he could find a brickworks that made hole liners six inches across; or he could make the hole a bucket. But Tom laughed and said no. As a stiff-backed Presbyterian he intended to earn his way into heaven; and as a golfer he would earn his way into the hole. He knew he could sink putts if he kept his head still and his wrists calm. But it was easier vowed than done, and it didn’t help that his current plight echoed an earlier embarrassment. As everyone knew, Tom had made his name as a golfer by avenging his brother George’s loss to Willie Park. George Morris, routed by Park in 1854, was renowned for asking for mercy: “For the love of God, man, give us a half!” Tom had no desire to be remembered as a charity case, not after four Open titles. Yet he could feel the game moving past him like a quickening breeze. After yielding the Belt to Tommy at Prestwick he had lost the course record at St. Andrews—the famous 79 he’d shared with Allan Robertson—to Tommy’s now-famous 77. When people saw Tom on the street these days, they asked about Tommy.

Tom was proud of his son. In addition to pride he felt stirrings of regret. A sharper pang than Burns’ nostalgia, this was the regret of an athlete who feels his body faltering. The reflex slows, the muscle aches. A physical forgetting erases part of what the athlete is, the main part, leaving him as clumsy as other men, but unlike other men he remembers a time when he never stumbled.

Tom sensed that he had set all the records he would ever set. Still there were reasons to rejoice: Scotland was full of golfers who thought they were better than they were; even an aging athlete could part them from their money. Tom’s family was increasingly respectable, the children healthy. Tommy was the best player the game had seen—with professional golf growing and purses fattening he might be wealthy before he turned twenty-five. Seventeen-year-old Lizzie was a pattern girl, well schooled in manners, Bible stories, and piano playing. Jimmy was a golfer of promise and still Tommy’s acolyte. Even lame Jack, a diligent club-finisher, had a trade.

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