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BEFORE we begin to chronicle
the great feats of
Young Tommy, who for a time alas! it was for
too short a time quite overshadowed even his father's great reputation as a
golfer, let us consider what Tom Morris was in his prime as one
of the greatest players of his day. Let his
friend, Mr H. S. C. Everard, introduce him. "Turn we now to his golfing capabilities," says
that excellent player and equally excellent
writer in the Badminton Golf (Longmans).
"As to that, there is no doubt he was, when in his
prime, a very fine player, though perhaps there has been a tendency in some
quarters to with-hold from him that recognition of his merit
which is undoubtedly his due, and to make use
of such a phrase as 'respectable mediocrity'
when referring to him; and, indeed, as one writer
has well remarked, we really are perhaps apt to
forget how good a player he was owing to the
fact of his fame in a great measure being over-shadowed by that of his son, Young Tom, with
whom he freely admits he never could cope.
Then, too, the standard of play has reached a
height never approached in Tom's younger days:
so many men, professionals and amateurs alike,
are so very good that his best performances are
equalled and excelled every day; this, too,
tends to the belittling of his deeds of fame.
"But," Mr Everard goes on to say, "it is to
be borne in mind that four Open Championships
have fallen to Tom's share, viz., in 1861, 1862,
1864, and 1867, with scores of 163, 163, 160 and
170 respectively, over Prestwick, and that he
was at least the equal of any man living for a
great number of years."
Then Mr Everard comes to what, amongst
the greatest living players, has been his besetting
sin, judged from the standard of perfection.
"True it is that but for one peculiarity he would
have been better still; one weak place there
has been in his armour, and not a golfer but will
know to what we refer. Those short putts!
Put him 12 feet from the hole and not a better
holer-out could be named. But with 18 inches
or 2 feet as the measure to be negotiated
but it were kinder to allow the figure of aposiopesis to come to the rescue. Candour, however,
compels the admission that of late years he has
evinced (the first edition of the Badminton Golf was issued in March 1890)
an enormous improvement in this latter respect. In his own words,
' I never miss thae noo! but it is improbable
that he will ever live down his shady reputation
regarding them; and if he were to hole 5000
consecutively, but miss the five thousand and
first, it is a moral certainty that the taunts of the
scoffers would be levelled at him as of yore. One
day, many years ago, he had a most successful
encounter with a putt of some six or seven
inches, not with his putter, which he habitually
used, but with his iron, and for many a long day
afterwards, being convinced that he was now
at last happy in the possession of the magic
secret, he toiled on valiantly with this weapon
with varying, but, on the whole, tolerable
success. His one theory is (and few golfers
will be prepared to question it) that whatever
the club used, 'the ball maun be hit,' but the
trouble is, or rather was, with him, that he
couldn't hit it. ' Gin the hole was a yaird
nearer him, my fawther wad be a guid putter,'
Young Tom used to say of him, with a touch of
unfilial satire; and Mr Wolfe Murray once went
so far as to address a letter to ' The Misser of
Short Putts, Prestwick,' which the postman
took straight to the champion."
Mr H. G. Hutchinson, in his chapter on
"Elementary Instruction" in the same volume,
in writing of the manner of the grip for putting,
says, "We should say that since putting is a
very delicate matter, requiring great niceness
of touch, the putter should be held well within
the fingers not home in the palm of either hand
and we would advise that the thumb be laid
down along the handle of the club. This gives
a greater delicacy of power of guiding. ' Old
Tom ' used at one time to carry this tender
fingering of his putter to such a length that he
putted with his right forefinger down the handle
of the putter. But when it was suggested to
him on his missing a short putt, ' If you would
have that forefinger amputated, Tom, you
might be able to putt,' Tom said he would not
go to the length of that, but that he would try
the effect of holding it round the club, as most
human beings do; and he has been putting in
this, the normal fashion, ever since, with manifest improvement."
In regard to Tom's driving,
Mr H. G. Hutchinson, in his paper on "Elementary Instruction" in the Badminton Golf, says,
"Of all
good players, Old Tom Morris is probably he who
plays with the most supple club, which he is able
to do only by reason of the comparative slowness
of his swing." He always liked a club with the
right amount of life in it, what he himself has
called the proper note of "music," and which
Mr Hutchinson well elaborates. "A fine steely spring is what the golfer
wants to feel, a spring
that will bring the club back, quick as thought,
to the straight. Then it feels, in his hands,
like a living tiling, full of energy, of controlled obedient energy to do his service."
When the club feels in your hand like that,
answers this description, then it is that it,
according to Tom, is full of music. One part
of the game at which he excels, Mr Everard
thinks, is the running shot up to the hole with
his iron. Of this I think there can be no doubt.
In his prime, then, Tom may be said to have
been a driver who, as a rule, could be depended
on as a long and straight hitter, a splendid
approacher, and, with the exception of those fatal
short putts, a most admirable putter. His
judgment in play of all descriptions was sound.
He always played with the club he fancied at
the time, and his "fancy" was seldom at fault.
He was deliberate, cautious, and yet not too
cautious, and steady. He knew the game
thoroughly. His intuitions were seldom at
fault, and he followed them. Yet he could
always give a reason for what he did; and when
he made mistakes was not slow to admit his
judgment or execution had been at fault. He
had plenty of nerve, and always a great reserve
of strategy.
And now let us look at some points in regard to
Young Tommy's play, and to some of the matches
that he engaged in with his father and others.
Tommy was born at Prestwick in 1951. It
was in 1864, when a boy of thirteen, that he
made his debut as a golfer, when he played and
beat Willie Greig on the North Inch of Perth.
Next year, in 1865, he took up his residence with
his father, in St Andrews, and began that
brilliant career as a professional golfer which,
alas! lasted only for ten years, for he died at the
pathetically early age of twenty-four.
It was in 1868 that he won his first championship "the belt" at Prestwick, with the
fine score of 154 - 20 strokes less than that in
which it was won by Willie Park eight years
before; nine strokes better than his father's
best (163) in 1861 and 1862; 8 strokes better
than Andrew Strath's record in 1865 (162); 16
strokes better than his father's winning score
in the previous year, 1867.
In 1869 Tommy won it again in 157, but
next year, 1870, he eclipsed his previous record
by 5 strokes, and won it with a score of 149.
He thus became the possessor of the trophy a
rich red Morocco belt, ornamented with massive
silver plates, bearing appropriate devices a
fine piece of workmanship, which cost, we believe,
some thirty guineas. Of course, it is still in his
father's posse>Mon. And the grand old man is
always proud and pleased to show it to any one.
After an interval of a year a challenge cup was
substituted, to be played for annually in turn on
the three greens, Prestwick. St Andrews, and
Musselburgh. In 1872 he won the championship
for the fourth time in succession, this time with a
score of 166, which was the same total with which
Willie Park won on the next occasion on which it
was played for over Prestwick 1875. His record "belt" scores, 149, 154, 157, were never beaten,
though Jamie Anderson won the cup at Prestwick in 1878, with the score of 157, young Tommy
being second. On the same links in 1881 Bob
Fergusson was champion with 170; in 1884 Jack
Simpson won it with 160. In 1887 W. Park,
junr., stood first with 161, and in 1890 John Ball,
junr., with 164.
After 1891 the competition was extended to
72 holes.
In 1869 Tommy achieved a record on the links at St Andrews. While playing
for professional prizes he tied twice with Bob Fergusson
of Musselburgh. They went out a third time,
and he was round in 77. Here are the details:-
Out, 4 4 4 5 6 4 4 3 3 - 37
In, 3 3 4 6 5 4 5 5 5 - 40
It was about that time that I used to see him
play most frequently; and I shall never forget
- and no one can his dash and style. His
grand swipes, the Glengarry bonnet falling oil his
head every time he took a full drive, his accurate
approaches and his phenomenal putting can never
be forgotten, and how, when necessary, he could "press," and with success!
Let us look at what some of the cognoscenti
say of various parts of his game.
Mr H. G. Hutchinson, in his chapter on
Elementary Instruction, in the Badminton Golf,
incidentally alludes to him. He says: "All
through the upward swing of the club, the eyes
are never, for the fraction of a second, to be
seduced by the temptation of looking to see
where it is going. It is a temptation, most of all
a temptation, so poor Young Tommy Morris used
to tell us, with the attractive glitter of the well-polished iron."
Again, writing of the proper and improper
"waggle," he says, "Now this ideal ' waggle '
is so smooth and quiet a performance as almost
to belie the name which it has, in common
parlance, earned, from its exaggeration. Even
such a brilliant player as Young Tommy Morris
used to ' waggle ' his driver with such power
and vehemence in his vigorous young wrists
as often to snap off the shaft of the club close
under his hand before he even began the swing
proper at all. But genius is superior to rules
of grammar." Again, in regard to the great
No 1 rule of golf: "Do not take your eye off
the ball"; "It was the opinion of the late Young
Tom Morris than whose no opinion is entitled
to greater respect that the reason amateurs so
often failed in their iron approaches was that
they allowed their eye to wander back after the
glitter of the iron lace; and certain it is that
taking the eye off the ball is a very frequent
and fatal cause of failure in playing approaches."
And here is the same writer's description of
Tommy as a putter: "The favourite position for
putting is very similar to the favourite position for iron play, i.e., off
the right leg. This, we believe to be, almost without exception, the position adopted by professionals. One of the very
finest of professional putters was the late
lamented Young Tom Morris. His attitude
was typical of the later professional putters.
His right leg forward the ball nearly opposite
his right foot. The putter held with perhaps
about equal grip with both hands if anything
rather firmer with the right. If he were drawing
the ball to the left of the hole at all he would
probably have told us that it was because he
was gripping too tight with the right hand. If
he were pushing it away to the right of the hole
he would have said that he was rather too firm
with his left hand. And most likely he would
have been right. Let us have a glance at J. O.
F. Morris, brother of the above, and a very fine
putter. His style of putting is a modification
of that of even his more famous brother. In
one point, though, we see that the latter is not
typical of the run of good players. He seems to
hit his ball much upon the toe of the putter.
Doubtless he does better execution than if he
were to bother himself about striking the ball
truly in the centre of the club; but for the
learner the centre is the place in which to strike
it." Further on Mr Hutchinson adds: "Most
of the professionals, playing off the right leg,
give a curious little knuckle inward of the right
knee, just before they draw the club away from the ball. This is probably of
no essential assistance to the stroke, but is more likely only an
evidence of the imitative tendency of the golfer
a survival, we should fancy, of the dashing
style of poor 'Young Tommy' though it may
date further back."
Before leaving Tommy as a putter, let
me quote what Major Chalmers of Blairgowrie
has to say in regard to him in that capacity:
"The best golfers will admit that while they
have days when their putting is quite at its best,
they have also days when it is very bad indeed. To this failing Young Tom
was a notable exception. Whatever the rest of his game may
have been on an odd occasion, his putting never
varied from its wonderful accuracy. Most
players have occasionally to own that they
were short with a putt because of sclaffing the
ground behind the ball. Tommy never from
this cause failed in a putt, because in putting
he always half-topped his ball, which caused
it to run like a high-hit billiard ball. The ball thus rolled over slight
obstacles instead of jumping, as sometimes happens. In addressing his
putt there was no crouching with right forearm
on knee. He stood well up, legs nearly straight,
right foot pointing straight to the ball, and so
near it that the spectator almost expected to
see him hit the toe of his shoe, but this never
occurred. If the green was good he always
used the wooden putter; if rough, he putted
with the common cleek. Many have tried to
imitate Tommy's method of putting; we have
never heard of one who succeeded.
"Those were the days of small putting-greens.
The lawn-mower had not come into use. This
implement has revolutionised golf and made
the game of games practicable all the world
over." So says Major Chalmers, and he is
right.
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