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(By WILLIAM HODGSON)
It affords me pleasure here to introduce a chapter by my old
friend Mr William Hodgson, for Iong known as the genial and
able editor of the Fifeshire Journal. Mr Hodgson was always a welcome visitor to the links of St Andrews and the Club-House.
His chapter, ``Among the St Andrews Golfers," in Mr Clark's
book is well known. He has for log been a close friend of
Tom Morris. This chapter appeared as a leader in the Fifeshire Journal on the
19th August 1880. THE Society journals have hitherto omitted Tom
Morris from their lists of modern statesmen.
They continue negligently to follow his fortunes
in brief paragraphs only about his "rounds." With incomprehensive zeal and steadfastness
they devote their energies to infamous beauties
and famous politicians, as if the foremost man
in his world was not Tom Morris. It would
follow from this that the Society journalist is
not a golfer; or if he is, that he has never been
in St Andrews, and is utterly unaware of Mr.
Clark's entrancing book. If he wields the play-club at all, it must be on some back green of
his own, and after the fashion of the man of
whom Allan Robertson once said that he "paps,
paps awa, ye ken; but ye canna ca'd playing."
Anyhow, we can only reconcile Tom's omission
from the galaxy of statesmen in the Society
papers with partial knowledge in their conductors
of men who are noted for skill, worth, and
their indispensableness. For a peerage would
not add a sliver to Tom's fame. Nor would
a seat in the Cabinet adorn his accepted character.
Either would be, on the contrary, in the nature
of a calamity. It would take Tom away from
the links, which were never nearer to perfection
than now, and which, to all seeming, cannot
do without him. The preceding generations of
golfers, not having lived to this day, have been
denied the pleasure of "a round" on links the
like of which they never saw. They should
have stayed till now to enjoy the results of
handiwork which has eclipsed the handiwork of
all predecessors, and which leaves to the most
ardent imagination not an inch of space in which
to flee speculatively. Tom has won and lost
in his day with all the implements in the armoury
of his craft, and has been mainly a hero in
disaster as in triumph. But these are matters
which go into reports and legends and
momentary tittle-tattle. They mellow in the
recollection, and, in a sort, cease to be, like all
human endeavours. It is altogether otherwise
with these links of his, which, notwithstanding
the daily walk of the human race over them,
and the chipping at them of school-boys with ill-favoured irons, are without reproach in being
the utmost reward of diligence, patience and
knowledge. They comprise Tom's monument,
which all men see while yet he lives. No
rival statesman has so commanded the approbation of all classes for
Collective Note or Commercial Treaty as Tom at present commands
the universal and the hearty praise.
It is little wonder that there is a good deal
of prevailing delusion about who Tom is and
where he came from. That is constantly the case
with the careers of uncommon men, who always
come to grief with the archaeologist and the
gossips. In Tom's case this is remarkable, for
his story is clear and quite unique. And it may
be as well to put bits of it on record. Tom's
natal origin was very peculiar. He was found
one dewy morning in the Dyke hole.
The date can be accurately ascertained from
that of the fact that a bovine witness of the
scene was so excited with its novelty as to
have made the bunker known ever since as
"Tain's Coo." The date of that performance
will settle the date of Tom's origin. From this
point on all is luminous in the extreme in the
matters of habit and custom. He rapidly
grew by means of "black strap" (a preparation
of Dublin stout and soda water) and the short
spoon. And that reminds us of the singular
coincidence which is in Prince Bismarck, who
has fed himself all along on equal parts of
champagne and London porter, and whose
concurrent recreation, differing from Tom's short
spoon, has been big dogs. In both cases there
has been the rising superior to the lacteal
mixture. Tom began to play when he was
four months old he felt himself so early to
be "in form." It is an age since now, an age
full of adventure and vicissitude; but Tom's
public performances, from the early day when
in his first round he fell into the hole in which
he originally was found, make all dubiety about
his public career foolish. There is not a break
of heather, a bunch of thyme, or a tuft of bent
on any links in the two kingdoms on which Tom
has not placed his feet, while following that ball,
lie has been the companion of all the heroes
and duffers of the lugubrious past, and of all the
same in the urgent present. He has lived
through the momentous epoch of balls made of
leather and feathers,, and is on the eve of seeing
the commonplace one over of balls made of
gutta-percha. In the course of his peaceful
avocations he has placed men under obligations
to him who are in all ranks of society in all the
islands of the sea. It is an open secret that if
Tom were to be tried by the Lord President of
the Court of Session to-morrow for roughly
vindicating any breach of his authority on the
links, or for driving O'Connell's coach and six
through any one of the statutes that are passing
or passed, a flaw would instantly be found with
the minor or the major proposition of the
indictment. This excessive personal popularity,
and the fondness of amateurs for him, is less
due to the mystery 'of Tom's origin, which is
so much more charming than that of Macduff,
than to the unfailing knack he has always had
of having kept his position in life, which is that
of a gentleman in virtue of his manners. It
is proposed, with the assimilation of the franchises
which is coming with the Greek Kalends, to
have a redistribution of seats, and that The
Parlour is to have two members. In that event
it is quite on the cards that members of all
parties in it will concur in a requisition to Tom
that he should agree to serve the links in Parliament after having served the links so well and
so long near the flagstaff. It will be admitted
on all hands that his courteous bearing there
and his meek assiduity would be an improvement
on the turbulence and the bounce that have
been the main fruits of the recent election.
Marvels about famous men are habitual,
and we so found it in Tom's case. It is said
of him, for instance, that he symbolises more
of thrift and well-being to St Andrews than the United Colleges. The
interest in his own personality, and his fame in the excellence of the links
which he is keeping, are drawing people to St
Andrews, it is contended, who are willing to
spend and be spent for the local tradesmen,
who, without Tom and the links, would never be
in St Andrews. But that is the view which
takes all the romance and repose out of golf
which are in it, and it can be at once set aside
as fitted merely for sinister contrasts. Then
it is said that Tom alone has the secret about
the little sonnet in stone which is over the
Swilcan Burn. He can be quoted if he would
only tell, to the disparagement of the theory
that the bridge was built as part of a lost path
to the old castle. It is even hinted that in the
mists of antiquity it was foreseen, in the remote
future, as to be of use in the short cut to arise
from The Parlour to the Railway Station, and
that as such it was on purpose contrived and
constructed. Tom could tell us more than that, it seems, out of the wallet
of his inspired conjecture, as may be inferred from the "rumour"
about his secret that the arch is yet to form the
picturesque feature of the enlarging scheme of
things, of which the Links Road and its polls which are the latest development. Putting
aside, however, these conjectures and speculations about Tom's known merits and hidden
knowledge, enough remains in what we have
said about him to show that until now the
newspapers, Society and other, have been at
fault. They have been at fault in not recognising
the worth and work of a man who has done his
duty to St Andrews, as its all-important links at present can prove to a
demonstration, according to his lights, of which no golfer can say that
they are darkness. And as that is all that the
best of us can do, it would be impossible to
pitch the tone of the praise any higher. In
lightly touching upon some of the features of
the career in which there has been so little
striving and crying, contrary to the world's
stormy custom, a career associated in their
sunniest hours with those of so many other
people, and in whose elasticity, vitality and
success there would seem to be the gracious
recompense in touching upon some of the
features of it, we say, we have been so bold as
to be marvellous, and so free as to be novel.
It is not the habit that with the mere biographer,
who rarely perceives humour in life, and who
ordinarily is solemnly precise in style. If Tom
Morris had fallen into the hands of one of the
set his lineaments would have been smirched
in the energetic endeavour to give him a
character. It is because Tom has a character,
and that we arc not biographers, that we have
given him none, as all will admit to be wise who
think that "good wine needs no bush," or who
from daily experience are presently aware of
what the condition is of the St Andrews links.
The biography will come by-and-by may it be
a long by-and-by! - - with the proper man;
meanwhile here is the merited tribute while yet
there is time, and before the autumn medal day
comes to close the year with new joys for old
golfers.
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