Old Tom Morris: The Man Who Shaped Scottish Golf

A life set out as it was lived: by date, by course, by what changed because of him. Born 16 June 1821 in St Andrews. Died 24 May 1908 at the same. In the eighty-six years between, more or less every part of the modern game took the shape that Tom Morris gave it.

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Born and raised

16 June 1821: Born Thomas Mitchell Morris, North Street, St Andrews. Father a hand-loom weaver. Family moved soon after to a small house in the South Street.

1832: Aged eleven, apprenticed to Allan Robertson, the leading golfer of the era and the keeper of St Andrews Links. Robertson made featherie balls — leather pouches stuffed with goose feathers, the standard ball of the day. Morris helped.

1839: Promoted to journeyman in Robertson's shop. By his late teens he was the second-best player in St Andrews after Robertson himself.

The break with Robertson

1848: The gutta-percha ball arrives. Made of dried sap from the Malayan gutta tree. Cheaper, more durable, and longer than the featherie. Morris saw the future. Robertson, whose business depended on featherie sales, did not.

1851: Morris was discovered playing a round with a gutta-percha ball. Robertson dismissed him. Morris moved to Prestwick on the Ayrshire coast, taking the post of Keeper of the Green at the new club founded the previous year.

The Prestwick years

1851–1864: Resident at Prestwick. Designed and laid out the original twelve-hole course, which became the standard layout for early links courses across Britain.

17 October 1860: The first Open Championship played at Prestwick. Eight professionals, three rounds of the twelve holes, one day. Willie Park Senior won, Morris second.

1861: Morris won his first Open. Course: Prestwick. Score: 163 over 36 holes.

1862: Won again. Score: 163. Margin: 13 strokes — still the biggest winning margin in Open history.

1864: Won again. Score: 167.

1867: Won his fourth and final Open. Aged 46 — still the oldest winner of the Championship.

The return to St Andrews

1864: Returned to St Andrews as Custodian of the Old Course, a post he held until 1903.

1865: Began the redesign of the Old Course that gave us most of what we play today. He widened fairways, separated outgoing and incoming greens where possible (most still shared), and laid the foundations of the modern layout.

1873: The first Open held at St Andrews. The Championship rotated between Prestwick, St Andrews and Musselburgh from this point.

As a course designer

Beyond Prestwick and St Andrews, Old Tom designed or substantially redesigned more than fifty courses in the British Isles between 1850 and 1900. Some still played, in approximately the same routings:

| Course | Year | Status today | |---|---|---| | Prestwick | 1851 | First 12 holes (course extended in 1882) | | Carnoustie | 1867 (revised) | Championship Course | | Muirfield (current site) | 1891 | Honourable Company | | Royal Dornoch | 1886 | Championship Course | | Cruden Bay | 1899 | 18 holes still in use | | Royal County Down | 1889 | Championship links | | Lahinch | 1892 | Old Course | | Nairn | 1887 (involved in initial layout) | Original routing partly retained | | Tain | 1890 | Still 18 holes | | Crail Balcomie | 1895 | Still 18 holes | | Royal North Devon (Westward Ho!) | 1860 (revised) | England's oldest seaside course | | Machrihanish | 1879 | Original first hole still in use |

Design fee, typically: £1 per day plus expenses. He often laid out a course in three days.

Family

1844: Married Agnes Bayne. Four children survived to adulthood: Thomas, James, Jack, and Lizzie.

Tommy — known as Young Tom — was born at Prestwick in 1851. By age 16 he had won the Open. By 21, four times consecutively (1868, 1869, 1870, 1872; the 1871 Championship was not held).

3 September 1875: Young Tom's wife Margaret and their newborn child died in childbirth at North Berwick. Old Tom received the telegram during a foursomes match he was playing alongside his son. He told Tom in the clubhouse afterwards.

25 December 1875: Young Tom Morris died in his sleep, aged 24. The cause given at the time was "heartbreak." Modern medical opinion suggests a pulmonary embolism. He is buried in St Andrews Cathedral cemetery alongside his wife and child. The headstone, paid for by subscription, shows him swinging a club. Old Tom paid the inscription.

The later years

1880s and 1890s: Continued course design and the running of his shop on the corner of Links Place. Made hickory-shafted clubs that survive in collections today and sell at auction for £400 to £4,000 depending on provenance.

1903: Stepped down as Custodian of the Old Course aged 82, replaced by his son James.

1905: His wife Agnes died.

24 May 1908: Tom Morris fell down the stairs of the New Club after dinner. He died of his injuries the following morning at the age of 86. The funeral procession through St Andrews was the largest the town had seen.

He is buried in St Andrews Cathedral cemetery, twenty metres from his son.

Legacy

The Open Championship: Old Tom won it four times. Young Tom won it four times. Together, the family won eight of the first thirteen Opens — a record never matched.

The Old Course: the layout we play today is essentially Old Tom's. The Swilcan Bridge predates him, but the routing, the green positioning, and the bunkering owe more to him than to any other single hand.

Course design as a profession: Old Tom invented it. Before him, courses were laid out by amateurs or by the local farmer. After him, design was a paid trade. Donald Ross, who learned greenkeeping in Old Tom's shop at St Andrews, took the model to America in 1899 and laid out Pinehurst, Oakland Hills and over 400 other courses. Alister MacKenzie, who collaborated with Bobby Jones at Augusta in the 1920s, traced his lineage similarly.

If you have ever played a course with sand-filled bunkers, a clearly identified target green, and a card that listed nine holes out and nine holes back — you've played a course descended from Old Tom Morris's St Andrews and Prestwick designs.

Where to find him

• Statue: outside the Royal and Ancient clubhouse, St Andrews. Bronze, life-size, club in hand.
• Grave: St Andrews Cathedral cemetery. Shared family plot with Young Tom and Agnes.
• Shop site: 6–8 The Links, St Andrews. The current building is a recreation; the original burned down. A plaque commemorates the location.
• Plaque: Prestwick Golf Club. In the clubhouse foyer.
• Course design credits, in stone: a small marker at the 1st tee of Royal Dornoch reads "designed by Tom Morris of St Andrews, 1886."

Two ways to read his career

The conservative view: a craftsman who happened to be very good at golf, who designed courses by walking the land and making sensible decisions. The architecture, in retrospect, is unfussy.

The expansive view: the founding figure of the modern game. Without his early adoption of the gutta-percha ball, the dispute with Robertson, the move to Prestwick, the establishment of the Open, the redesign of the Old Course, and the export of his methods through apprentices — the game we play today does not exist in its current form.

Both views are correct. The unfussiness was the point. He invented a profession by accident, and a sport by hard work.

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Sources: Old Tom Morris by David Malcolm and Peter Crabtree (Acanthus, 2008); the R&A archives at St Andrews; the Prestwick Golf Club historical record. Dates and Open scores verified against official records held by the R&A.