One in a Series
Tom Morris Jr. was so good he nearly brought an end to the oldest tournament in golf – almost before it even even had a chance to get going.
The year was 1870. In ten prior iterations of the tournament now known as the Open Championship (more commonly the "British Open" in the U.S.), the Challenge Belt had six times been presented to a man named Tom Morris: four times to the Senior ("Old Tom") and twice to the Junior ("Young Tom"). Young Tom had won the previous two championships, and with a third straight title, according to the tournament's charter, the cherished belt would become his permanently. Despite the best efforts of the world's best golfers, Young Tom claimed the Belt again – this time, by 12-strokes, a margin bettered only by his own father's 13-stroke triumph in 1862. But we can cut Young Tom a little slack, seeing as he was was just 19 years old when he won his third consecutive Open.
The following year, due to squabbling over where it would be played and who would pay for a new trophy, the Open was temporarily shut down.
There is perhaps no more mythical figure in golf than Tom Morris, Sr. He defined the game for a generation in the land of its birth. With sweat, persistence, and vision he turned the links of St. Andrews from a scruffy collection of nondescript holes into the finest course of its day. He won the Open four times – the first at age 40. But it was his son who showed the world just how well the game could be played.
By the time he was 13, Young Tom was beating some of the best adult golfers in the world (which, for all intents and purposes, meant in Scotland). At an exhibition match in Perth, he won 15 pounds, a small fortune. Though very well-educated for his time and his station – his auld dad saw to that – it was clear Tommy's future was as a golf professional.
Young Tom was the first golfer to routinely use spin to make the ball curve or stop more quickly on the greens. Heretofore, golf was a game played primarily along the ground. Tommy's aerial assault changed the way the game was played forever. In the first round of the 1869 Open, Tommy flew the bunkers at Prestwick's 166-yard seventh hole to score the first recorded ace in golf history. In 1870, he opened the tournament with an unheard-of 3 on the 578-yard first, holing out an uphill, semi-blind, 200-yard third shot for what today would be called an eagle. (Photo: Tom Morris Jr. with the Challenge Belt, public domain)
To borrow from Bobby Jones, Tommy was playing a game with which the rest of the world was not familiar – nearly 100 years before Jack Nicklaus inspired his idol's famous quote.
Author Kevin Cook writes of Tommy's dominance in his book, Tommy's Honor:
And though it's undoubtedly true that the talent pool was not very deep in that day, it must also be remembered that the victory margins were achieved over just 36 holes – three trips around Prestwick's 12-hole course*.
After Tommy won the Open in 1870, tournament organizers faced a bit of a quandry. They had no prize, as the Challenge Belt had fallen permanently into Tommy's hands. And members of the various clubs involved began to bicker over the tournament's site. If everyone was expected to help pay for a new trophy, why should the Open be played exclusively at Prestwick? A stalemate of sorts resulted, time passed, and the 1871 Open Championship was canceled.
The tournament resumed in 1872, again at Prestwick. A new trophy was commissioned, but the result was the same: Young Tom won the tournament for the fourth year in a row. Perhaps because the conclusion seemed a forgone one, only eight players bothered to enter. And though the now-famous Claret Jug would not be awarded until the following year, Tom Morris Jr. is the first name inscribed on it.
As in the era of Jones and Hagen in America, however, professional golfers in mid-eighteenth century Scotland did not enjoy elite status. Far from it. The wealthy amateurs were the gentlemen of the game, while the lot of the professionals was to serve them, by carrying their clubs, by maintaining their courses, and by providing entertainment in the form of high-stakes challenge matches. It was a role Old Tom accepted with remarkable grace and dignity; Young Tom, meanwhile, champed furiously at the bit.
It tore him up to see his father, the best golfer in the world before Tommy surpassed him, kneel before lesser men to "tee up" their balls on a small mound of sand. In one incident, when admonished sharply by an R&A (Royal and Ancient) captain to "tip your cap to a gentleman," Tommy replied, "I would if I saw one."
Perhaps it was this rebellious side that was drawn to Margaret (Meg) Drinnen, a tall, dark-haired beauty from the dirty coal-mining town of West Lothian. She was older than Tommy, "experienced," some said, and not like the St. Andrews girls (most of whom idolized him). But Tommy loved Meg. He courted her, he played golf, he made a very good living winning challenge matches. On November 25, 1874, Tommy and Meg were married.
Twenty-six players took up the Open challenge in 1873, the first to be held at St. Andrews, but torrential rains made a literal mess of the competition. Tom Kidd, a local boy, emerged the winner with 18-hole scores of 88 and 91. Young Tom finished tied for third, four strokes back. Weather was again a big factor in 1874, where Tommy finished in second, two strokes behind Mungo Park. It was the first Open played at Musselburgh, and the last one Tommy would be a part of.
On September 3, 1875, Morrises Sr. and Jr. traveled to North Berwick for a big-money challenge match against brothers Willie and Mungo Park. The father was eager to have a chance to win some money back from his arch-rivals, having lost a big match to them a year earlier. The son was reluctant, with a wife at home due to give birth at any time. But men in those days took no part in the childbirth process, so it would not have been considered scandalous if he'd been away if the blessed event came early. (Photo: Old Tom Morris and Young Tom Morris, public domain)
The 36-hole match was a close one, and the teams stood dead even with two holes to play when a messenger slipped a piece of paper into Old Tom's hand. Meg had gone into labor, it said, but it had not gone well and the situation was dire. Come home. But the next train would not leave for hours, and if they walked off the course they would lose. "Tom put the telegram in his pocket," Cook writes. The Morrises then proceeded to win that hole and halve the next, to secure a narrow victory.
Tom advised Tommy of the situation after the match. It was late in the day, and no trains were due to leave for quite some time, so they hired a boat to take them across the Firth of Forth back to St. Andrews in the fading light. Writes Cook:
The 1875 Open Championship took place just six days later. For the first time ever, no man named Tom Morris took part.
On Christmas morning that year, Old Tom went to wake his son only find him dead in his bed, lying peacefully with a bit of blood at one corner of his mouth. Though science tells us his death was likely caused by a ruptured pulmonary artery or pulmonary embolism, legend tells a more satisfying story: that he died of a broken heart.
Tom Morris Jr. was just 24 years old.
In Tommy's day, organized competitive golf was in its infancy. Given the relatively small number of people who played the game then, it would be a stretch to say Tom Morris Jr. had the most dominant five-year stretch in golf history. But by winning golf's first major championship – indeed its first true championship of any kind – all four times it was played from 1868-1872, Young Tom Morris certainly had the first half-decade of dominance in the game's storied history.
Young Tom was the first golfer to routinely use spin to make the ball curve or stop more quickly on the greens. Heretofore, golf was a game played primarily along the ground. Tommy's aerial assault changed the way the game was played forever. In the first round of the 1869 Open, Tommy flew the bunkers at Prestwick's 166-yard seventh hole to score the first recorded ace in golf history. In 1870, he opened the tournament with an unheard-of 3 on the 578-yard first, holing out an uphill, semi-blind, 200-yard third shot for what today would be called an eagle. (Photo: Tom Morris Jr. with the Challenge Belt, public domain)To borrow from Bobby Jones, Tommy was playing a game with which the rest of the world was not familiar – nearly 100 years before Jack Nicklaus inspired his idol's famous quote.
Author Kevin Cook writes of Tommy's dominance in his book, Tommy's Honor:
"A man generally wins a championship by the narrowest possible margin," Bernard Darwin [the leading sportswriter of the day] wrote. "Tommy for the three years he won the Belt was on an average nine strokes better than the runner up." ... No other player would so outshine his peers until 130 years later, when Tiger Woods began winning major championships by double-digit margins.
And though it's undoubtedly true that the talent pool was not very deep in that day, it must also be remembered that the victory margins were achieved over just 36 holes – three trips around Prestwick's 12-hole course*.
After Tommy won the Open in 1870, tournament organizers faced a bit of a quandry. They had no prize, as the Challenge Belt had fallen permanently into Tommy's hands. And members of the various clubs involved began to bicker over the tournament's site. If everyone was expected to help pay for a new trophy, why should the Open be played exclusively at Prestwick? A stalemate of sorts resulted, time passed, and the 1871 Open Championship was canceled.
The tournament resumed in 1872, again at Prestwick. A new trophy was commissioned, but the result was the same: Young Tom won the tournament for the fourth year in a row. Perhaps because the conclusion seemed a forgone one, only eight players bothered to enter. And though the now-famous Claret Jug would not be awarded until the following year, Tom Morris Jr. is the first name inscribed on it.
As in the era of Jones and Hagen in America, however, professional golfers in mid-eighteenth century Scotland did not enjoy elite status. Far from it. The wealthy amateurs were the gentlemen of the game, while the lot of the professionals was to serve them, by carrying their clubs, by maintaining their courses, and by providing entertainment in the form of high-stakes challenge matches. It was a role Old Tom accepted with remarkable grace and dignity; Young Tom, meanwhile, champed furiously at the bit.
It tore him up to see his father, the best golfer in the world before Tommy surpassed him, kneel before lesser men to "tee up" their balls on a small mound of sand. In one incident, when admonished sharply by an R&A (Royal and Ancient) captain to "tip your cap to a gentleman," Tommy replied, "I would if I saw one."
Perhaps it was this rebellious side that was drawn to Margaret (Meg) Drinnen, a tall, dark-haired beauty from the dirty coal-mining town of West Lothian. She was older than Tommy, "experienced," some said, and not like the St. Andrews girls (most of whom idolized him). But Tommy loved Meg. He courted her, he played golf, he made a very good living winning challenge matches. On November 25, 1874, Tommy and Meg were married.
Twenty-six players took up the Open challenge in 1873, the first to be held at St. Andrews, but torrential rains made a literal mess of the competition. Tom Kidd, a local boy, emerged the winner with 18-hole scores of 88 and 91. Young Tom finished tied for third, four strokes back. Weather was again a big factor in 1874, where Tommy finished in second, two strokes behind Mungo Park. It was the first Open played at Musselburgh, and the last one Tommy would be a part of.
On September 3, 1875, Morrises Sr. and Jr. traveled to North Berwick for a big-money challenge match against brothers Willie and Mungo Park. The father was eager to have a chance to win some money back from his arch-rivals, having lost a big match to them a year earlier. The son was reluctant, with a wife at home due to give birth at any time. But men in those days took no part in the childbirth process, so it would not have been considered scandalous if he'd been away if the blessed event came early. (Photo: Old Tom Morris and Young Tom Morris, public domain)The 36-hole match was a close one, and the teams stood dead even with two holes to play when a messenger slipped a piece of paper into Old Tom's hand. Meg had gone into labor, it said, but it had not gone well and the situation was dire. Come home. But the next train would not leave for hours, and if they walked off the course they would lose. "Tom put the telegram in his pocket," Cook writes. The Morrises then proceeded to win that hole and halve the next, to secure a narrow victory.
Tom advised Tommy of the situation after the match. It was late in the day, and no trains were due to leave for quite some time, so they hired a boat to take them across the Firth of Forth back to St. Andrews in the fading light. Writes Cook:
A myth would grow up around their journey. In the myth the yacht races across the firth as if it were a river, the Morrises' hobnailed boots clanking from the North Berwick dock to the St. Andrews pier in an hour or two. In fact it was a long night's voyage, most of it in the dark, thirty-two miles in a ketch that made four knots in calm seas. Such a trip would take at least eight hours, which means they could not reach St. Andrews before one in the morning. ...
"A long, weary crossing," Tom called it years later, remembering "the frozen look Tommy had on his face."They arrived to the news that both Meg and the boy she was carrying were dead.
The 1875 Open Championship took place just six days later. For the first time ever, no man named Tom Morris took part.
On Christmas morning that year, Old Tom went to wake his son only find him dead in his bed, lying peacefully with a bit of blood at one corner of his mouth. Though science tells us his death was likely caused by a ruptured pulmonary artery or pulmonary embolism, legend tells a more satisfying story: that he died of a broken heart.
Tom Morris Jr. was just 24 years old.
In Tommy's day, organized competitive golf was in its infancy. Given the relatively small number of people who played the game then, it would be a stretch to say Tom Morris Jr. had the most dominant five-year stretch in golf history. But by winning golf's first major championship – indeed its first true championship of any kind – all four times it was played from 1868-1872, Young Tom Morris certainly had the first half-decade of dominance in the game's storied history.
* Though St. Andrews is widely considered to be the birthplace of modern golf, the Open Championship would not be played there until 1873.
Half-Decade of Dominance: 1868-72
Major wins/appearances: 4/4 (100%)
Open Championship: 1, 1, 1, (No Tournament), 1
Personal
Born: April 20, 1851 (St. Andrews, Scotland)
Died: December 25, 1875
Open Championship: 1, 1, 1, (No Tournament), 1
Personal
Born: April 20, 1851 (St. Andrews, Scotland)
Died: December 25, 1875
Sources/Recommended Reading
Tommy's Honor: The Story of Old Tom Morris and Young Tom Morris, Golf's Founding Father and Son, by Kevin Cook
Excellent snap shot of one of the first all time greats. Other than being one of the first competition was too thin for him to ever get as much respect as those who followed. Which begs the question: when did competition become deep enough that the thin fields argument does not apply?
ReplyDeleteThanks, Phil. And that's an interesting question about the strength of fields. The way I see it, it all depends on how you define your terms. I think it's fair to say that Young Tom was clearly one of the most "dominant" golfers of all-time. But if the question is who's the "greatest," it gets more complicated. I wonder what the folks who run college football's "national championship" system would say? (Check out Phil's blog at capelleongolf.com.)
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