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SEVERAL years ago I wrote of
Tom Morris as a
"Celebrity at Home" in The World. I have not
my article beside me as I write this chapter.
But in it I intend as well as I can to describe my
golfing hero as he appeared to me some thirteen
years ago at home, on the links of St Andrews,
in his shop and in his house. It is the day of the
Autumn Medal a day of bright sunshine, with
a gentle and cooling breeze making the grass on
the bents quiver a little and tiny crests of white
spindrift to gleam on the tops of the blue
wavelets racing towards the shore along the yellow
sands an autumn day of brilliant beauty, such
a day on which St Andrews, its bay and its links,
looks its fairest.
It is the Autumn Meeting of the year and no
less a personage than Mr Arthur J. Balfour is
Captain of the Club. And I have come literally
from the very top of Ben Nevis to be present
at it. Yesterday at this hour I was climbing up
its white heights with Her Grace, for it was one
of the years Lord Breadalbane, with the good-will
of the whole of Scotland, held the high position
and fulfilled the arduous and honourable duties
of Lord High Commissioner to the General
Assembly of the Church of Scotland, and he and
his distinguished wife were known as "Their
Graces." Just about the time the guns will fire
to-night to announce that the competition is
over for another year, I was bidding her and
Lady Onslow and the party who made the ascent
with us "Good-bye," as they left the train at the
Bridge of Orchy and handed me back my "tall
hat," that had been left in charge of the station-master overnight,
amid laughter and interrogative song as to where I "got that hat" and
whence came "that tile." It was the end of a
pleasant little sojourn at the Black Mount,
where I met Lord and Lady Onslow to be met
again in a few months in the native city of
Jeypore in Rajputana and Lord Colin Campbell
to be met afterwards, and also shortly before his
lamented and all too-young death, at the Byculla
and the Yacht Clubs of Bombay the Beautiful.
And like many another I had left the Highlands
to be present at this particular Autumn Meeting
in St Andrews by the sea.
Above us a great expanse of vivid blue, in
which a few white; fleecy clouds are floating
southwards, wafted by the high wind, which has a
fine bracing touch of autumn in it. So much
expanse is there overhead that Mrs Oliphant has
somewhere said that the sky here gives one a
better idea of the sphere in which we live than it
does in any other place known to her. In the
background a quaint, quiet, academic city with
ruins that carry the mind back to the earliest
ecclesiastical settlement in the country. To the
right a long reach of beautiful blue, buoyant,
restless water. Mrs Craik says that nowhere is
the sea so beautiful as here. The rocks are white
with sea-gulls. The waves, "blue, fringed with
white," are racing up the yellow sands and will
not rest until they reach "the bents," across
which lie the famous links in their long stretch of
green, velvety, springy, elastic turf. To the left
the shops of the makers of clubs and balls, a
large hotel with modern houses on either side
of it. Farther off the woods of Strathtyrum,
where John Blackwood, editor of Maga, used to
live, and where George Eliot, Mrs Oliphant,
Anthony Trollope, Laurence Lockhart, Charles
Kingsley and many other famous people were
wont to come. In front the Forfarshire hills
the sun lighting up their patches of mottled
colour and away in the distance the Grampians
crowned with the crest of dark Lochnagar.
As you stand in front of the Royal and
Ancient Club-House, and coming down the steps
take your place among many more at the first
teeing-ground, you are surrounded by bevies of
smart and pretty women in charming toilets,
discussing the prospects of the favourites and
chatting endlessly about golf, for here "maid
and matron are given over soul and body to a ``tyrannising game." The Royal Standard and
the flag of the Club are floating from the flagstaff
above you. The Captain is striking off the
first ball and thereby declaring himself winner
of the Silver Club the Captain's medal. The
report of a small cannon announces that he has
done so. Hands are clapped, cheers are raised
being led off by a fine-looking old man one
of Nature's gentlemen, "born in the purple of
equable temper and courtesy." With shoulders
somewhat rounded, left hand in trouser pocket,
pipe in hand, he is now superintending the start
of the competitors with sunny smile and apt
greeting for each. What a fine Scots face he
has, full of intelligence, kindliness and humour,
with keen, observant eyes underneath somewhat
heavy and shaggy brows. Look well at him. He is the best known and most
popular professional golfer who has ever lived, he is
watching the outgoing players. As soon as he
sees the couple which has started last across the
burn he turns to the next couple and says, ``You may go now, gentlemen."
The afternoon will find him standing on the
perfect green of the Home hole, flag in hand,
keeping the green clear, and watching the putting
out of the players as they return at intervals of
about five minutes and give in the record of
their scores. Then will the little cannon
declare that the play is over and that the gold
medal presented by his late Majesty, King William the Fourth, has been won, in this year
of grace 1894 the year I am taking as a typical year, the year in which Mr
Balfour is captain
by perhaps the most popular among all the
players Freddy (Frederick Guthrie) Tait, in
the fine score of 78. And the winner of the gold
medal given by the Club is Mr Laidlay. Who
knowing him will ever forget the charming, the
cheery, the affable Freddy, fine soldier, brilliant
player, lovable lad. For one I shall always
cherish his memory and lament his too-early
death. I had watched his career from the time
he was a little boy and I could not count the
number of times I have walked round the links
of St Andrews following, often in company with
his gifted father, his charming mother and sister,
his matches, with all our hopes centred on Freddy
winning. St Andrews, nay, the whole golfing
world, had taken the powerful and brilliant, the
dashing and daring, the unaffected and unspoiled
golfer to her heart as she had taken none other.
St Andrews loved him for his own sake and for
the love she bore to his people. She loved him
as a mother loves her son and because she had
followed his career from its earliest attempts to
its latest triumphant achievements. He was her
affectionate pride, the champion of her traditions,
on whom she could rely with confidence for fresh
laurels for her brow. She loved him because he
was her own and because he was what her links,
surroundings and associations had made him,
and for the simplicity and charm that was
in himself. Feeling thus she set him down to
take an almost similar place in the very heart of
the whole golfing world. His name, his fame,
his achievements were magnetic. Hundreds
who never saw him followed his career and
successes with something of the same affectionate
pride and interest. For the lovableness of his
nature, and for his power and pluck as a player,
his memory will ever live in the annals of the
game which he loved so dearly, which he helped
to make so popular, and to which he imparted so
much interest. Round him the halo of memory
will ever be bright, and his name will be an
incentive and an emulation, a spur and a stimulus,
to future generations of aspiring and enthusiastic
young golfers. May the sand rest lightly on his
brave and blameless, his healthy and his happy,
heart.
When the play is over for the day, and as the
shadows of evening are gathering around and
the sun is setting in glory, lighting up the grey city
and the green links and the tawny sands, you
saunter with Tom up to 'the shop," you
exchange greetings with "Jamie," who is busy
at his desk writing up the transactions of the
day, and with some of the "hands" in the shop,
all of whom are more or less known to you.
The very smell of the shop is redolent of old days
and brings back old associations to you. From
this little shaving-strewed shop, with the water
for the gutta boiling on the stove, clubs and balls
have gone forth to the uttermost parts of the
earth. And if you pause for a little with him
you may hear him tell a consultant "aye to play
wi' the club you fancy." You will see specimens
of an excellent driver he sent out some years ago,
in which the best qualities of the bulger and the
ordinary club were secured. You can hear him descant on the qualities of
dogwood and persimmon, of which he has large quantities well
seasoned and in capital condition, of thorn and
of apple and lunderwood, and hickory and ash for
shafts. And then you will pass with him
through the narrow passage and up the outside
stair which leads to his own particular sanctum.
Inside, he may say, "Maybe it's ga'en to be a
wee cauld the nicht, we'll be nain the waur o' a
bit fire," and he will proceed to light a gas stove.
He courteously invites you to take a seat, and
seating himself down in his arm-chair lights his
briar-root pipe and is ready for a crack. A
large window looks out upon the putting-green
of the first hole, the teeing-ground of the starting-point, the sands, the rocks, the sea of which he
will tell you he "never wearies." He uses it
also as a coign of vantage for supervising his
beloved putting-green at the Home hole; and
sometimes will be heard from it a roar which
has been compared to that of a wounded lion,
"Hand off that puttin'-green." And the youthful offenders tremble and skedaddle. Above his
mantelpiece there is a large picture containing
full-length photographs of his famous son and
champion golfer, "Tommy," and his other son,
"Jamie." In the middle there is a head of
himself. Under the photograph of each son
there is a record of his best score out and in the
links of St Andrews. From it you see that
"Tommy," in 1869, went out in 37 strokes and
returned in 40, making a total of 77. In 1887 ``Jamie" went out in 38, and returned in 39,
making the same total as his greater brother.
The walls of Tom's sanctum are covered with
pictures of famous golfers professionals and
amateurs many of Allan Robertson amongst
the former and of Colonel Fairlie of Coodham
among the latter. His adjoining bedroom, too, is
full of photographs of well-known players and
famous matches, and his toilet-table is literally
covered with golf balls. If he does not dream of
his life's occupation and favourite game it is not
the fault of his surroundings. On the table in his
sitting-room is the big family Bible, without a
chapter of which Tom never goes to his bed.
And if you ask him he will bring out the
Champion Belt won by his famous son and tell
you its story, and many another story, too, of
his life; and, if you have been fortunate enough
to have known him all your life, of many dear to
you both. On one of the many occasions I
have thus "cracked" with him, when bidding him
good-bye, he said, "Bide a wee, I maun tell ye
a story o' yer Faither, the Principal, and the
Doctor Dr Boyd. It was a Monday and we had
baith been i' the kirk the day before. I meets
your Faither at the second hole he was gaun
oot and I was coming in. I says to him,
'Principal, the Doctor was gey guid yesterday.'
And the Principal, he just put his hand on ma
shoulder and gies me a bit clap in that kindly
way he had, and says he to me, ' But, Tom, the
Doctor's aye guid except when he havers! '
And we baith laughed and passed on. I was unco
fond o' baith yer Faither and the Doctor. Like
the links o' St Andrews they were gey ill to beat."
But Dr Boyd had not "departed" on the
memorable occasion of which I am writing. He
was to say "the grace" at the dinner to which
I left Tom to hurry to, and Mr Balfour was to be
in the chair, and Freddy Tait was to reply to the
toast of the medal-winner; and with Dr Boyd I was
to walk home after it was over and listen to his
talk of the speeches and of his "elder," the great
and good Tom Morris, for whom he had such a
warm regard.
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