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"Here Mr Philp, club-maker,
was great as Philip as any Minister of State."
AT the time of Tom's birth, the only club-maker in St Andrews was Hugh Philp.
This celebrated worthy, whose clubs are now among the unique treasures of
the collector, was a joiner and house carpenter by trade, and had his place
of business in Argyle Street. Till he was induced to open a little shop on
the site of the present Grand Hotel, there were no other club-makers in St
Andrews or on the links. A representative of the M'Ewans from Edinburgh
would come over to St Andrews a week or two before the spring and autumn
meetings, bringing an assortment of clubs with him. In time, however,
golfers in St Andrews began to send their clubs to Phil]) to get repaired,
and it was probably on this account that he opened his small shop on the
links. Finally, he bought the property where Tom Morris's shop [Willie
Paterson, retired slater, "one of Tom's oldest chums", says "The auld wa's
o' High Philp's shop are stannin' yet".] now is, and won the fame which he
so thoroughly earned as a maker of first-rate clubs.
Very little seems to have been preserved in regard to him. From the Minutes
of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club we know that he was appointed "club-maker
to the Society" in September 1819. And in terms of an earlier minute (1812)
the members no doubt undertook to "countenance and support" him. He died in
1856. At the time of his death the late Mr Robert Forgan was his assistant,
and worthily succeeded to the business which he made so famous. A former
assistant was Mr James Wilson; who appears to have left him in 1852 and
started business on his own account in a shop situated where the Marine
Hotel now is. Andrew Strath was one of his apprentices, while Jamie
Anderson, thrice champion, served his apprenticeship with Forgan. Of Hugh
Philp's clubs, Mr Horace Hutchinson has written: "Some golfers early in
their career are in the habit of giving a sovereign or even more for a club
which they have taken a fancy to. ... Most of these fancy clubs are known as
old Philp's. Mr Philp must have been as prolific a master of his craft as
some of the old masters of the painter's art. The best recipe for making an
old Philp is a mixture of soot and varnish."
Subsequently Mr Hutchinson, however, writes: 'The wooden clubs in use by our
ancestors of the time of the St Andrews museum would seem to have been of a
stubborn, stout, inflexible nature, bull-dog-headed. Then arose a great
master club-maker, one Hugh Philp by name, who wondrously refined golf-club
nature. Slim and elegant, yet, as we of these days would say, of but
insufficient power are the specimens of his art which have descended to us.
His true specimens, it should be said: for there is many a club boasting
Hugh Philp as its creator which that craftsman never saw nor can we expect
it would have been otherwise, since it is a matter of common report, that at
least two subsequent club-makers had a 'Hugh Philp' stamp with which upon
the head of the club they would imprint a blatant forgery. The golfing
connoisseur will inspect the time-matured head of the old putter which
claims Philp as its father with as cultured and microscopic a criticism as
the dilettante lover of Stradivarius or the Amati will bestow upon their
magic works."
It seems that Hugh Phiip was a good golfer, and Mr W. Dalrymple tells us
that he once took every hole in the homeward course at St Andrews from his
opponent. Writing his reminiscences of the year 1837, Mr Tom Peter says:
"The only club-maker was Hugh Philp. It is questionable if any other whether
before or since his time has shaped and set a club better than he did. Hugh
was a dry-haired man (whatever that may be), rather gruff to strangers, but
quite the reverse to those who knew him, with a fund of dry caustic humour,
but withal a kind heait. If a man, after a match, went to him complaining of
a club, Hugh would merely say, 'You'll hae lost your mautch?' and conversely
with the jubilant. When gutta-percha was first introduced, Mr Peter and his
brother carried out a number of experiments with the new ball, and succeeded
in inserting and fixing lead securely in the centre of the ball, so that it
putted accurately. "Nearly all the medals I gained," he says, "were won with
leaded balls; and I used them regularly until my stock was exhausted. (The
making of them ceased at my brother's death.)
They were well-known at the time; and when I played at St Andrews with Hugh
Philp (a good player and deadly at the short game) he used to ask me for one
of my leaded balls. They were, however, severe upon clubs, the
fairest-struck ball often breaking the head through the centre. Many of
Philp's line clubs have been broken in this way, and when I complained of
rotten wood, he would answer, 'Hoo the deevil can a man mak' clubs to stand
against lead?'"
We find from the Minutes of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews
that the Club had paid a club-maker for coming over. The Minute, 11th
October 1827, runs: "The captain proposed that as the funds of the Club were
at present inadequate to payment of their debt, the salary or allowance of
Two Guineas now payable annually to the Leith club-maker for attending at
the General Meeting should be discontinued." Philp would thus reign supreme.
Mr W. Dalrymple says that in those days "A stranger -- the tradition has
come down to us had no choice in his purchase of a club. He had to take what
Philp gave him, or go without." That is, of course, unless he could wait
until one of the M'Ewans or one of their representatives came from Edinburgh
with clubs to sell, if they continued to come after the Club Minute was put
in force.
Mr T. Anderson thus writes of Mr Douglas M'Ewan and St Andrews. Mr Douglas
M'Kwan was born in 1809 and "it was during his life-time that golf clubs
were, so to speak, civilised. Vast improvements were made in their
manufacture; the thorn tree-cuts, hitherto in use, were discarded, and first
apple, and thereafter beech, substituted therefor it being found that beech
was a better driving wood and the shape and style of the heads were made
more elegant. When about the thirteenth year of his age M'Ewan paid his
first and only visit to St Andrews. It is curious that, notwithstanding his
long and intimate connection with golf, he should never have gone back, but
the journey in former days may have accounted for this. Getting to St
Andrews was then very different from what it is now. There were in the days
referred to no railways. A boat from Leith carried travellers to Kirkcaldy,
and the rest of the way had to be walked. Would golfers crowd St Andrews
links if they had to walk in the same way? It is not surprising therefore
that Mr M'Ewan did not visit St Andrews frequently in his youth, but it is
somewhat remarkable that in later days, when railways afforded greater
facilities, he did not renew his acquaintance with the famous old green. It
is understood that he and his son, Mr Peter M'Ewan, several times made
arrangements to go over, but something or other always came in the way. As
showing the connection between Mr M'Ewan and St Andrews, it may be remarked
that the present Mr Douglas M'Ewan showed the writer a miniature feather
ball, completely finished in every respect, on which is written, '15th Oct.
1826; from St Andrews, in 10½'. There can be little doubt that this ball was
not made for actual play, but was given to Mr M'Ewan as a memento, very
probably, by his agent at St Andrews, but this cannot be stated as a matter
of fact; it is merely conjecture."
This "agent" was Davie Robertson, ball-maker, and Allan's father.
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