Rub of the green

Thomas Mitchell Morris was born in 1821 in St Andrews, the home of golf, in a house just around the corner from the first tee of the world-famous links, where his father worked as a caddy. Nothing’s totally predetermined in life, but some things, one suspects, are just meant to be.

Who could doubt it, on seeing the stout, masterful figure – so comfortable in his own skin – painted by H J Brooks in 1897, and offered in July by Bonhams in the single-lot sale, Tom Morris Senior Online. It had been commissioned by London art dealers Dickinson & Foster, with an eye to the profits that might accrue from etchings of a golfing luminary. The periodical Golf enthused that “the bronzed face is depicted with marvellous accuracy, and the artist has succeeded beyond cavil in catching the genial expression of frank benevolence which is such a fine trait of the old golfer’s character.” Golf Illustrated concurred, in more measured style, a few years later: “It is considered an excellent likeness of the St Andrews golfer.”

Brooks was a noted portraitist: he painted Gladstone, Edward VII and all-time cricketing great Ranjitsinhji, and exhibited in the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition four times. But his portrait of ‘Old Tom’ – one of only three known contemporary oil paintings of Morris – was almost misplaced. At some point, possibly around the Second World War, it was removed to the cellars of Killermont clubhouse – and forgotten until Club Captain Bob Scully rediscovered and retrieved it in time for Killermont’s bicentenary in 1987. Morris had laid Killermont out in 1908, just before he died, and it remains the best-preserved of his many golf courses.

Portrait of ‘Old Tom’ Morris (1821- 1908), captured by John Fairweather at the turn of the century

Tom demonstrating his unrivalled swing – his putting, however, became “lamentably feeble”

‘Old Tom’ was arguably the most influential sporting figure of the Victorian age, but as ‘Little Tom’ he had already shown aptitude for golf, improvising by knocking bottle corks up and down the streets with a stick, then tagging along with his dad to St Andrews as a teenager. Offered an apprenticeship in carpentry, he instead took up an offer of employment with pre-eminent local golfing equipment manufacturer Allan Robertson.

For the next four years, Morris was put to work making featheries, stuffing hand-sewn leather sacks with goose down to form the premium ball of the age. They weren’t perfectly spherical, and tended to split when given a good whack, but what else could you do?

Robertson wasn’t just the leading club and ball maker of the age; he was also the best golfer. One of the first professionals, he proved his worth time and again during the 1840s and 1850s in challenge matches, purses provided by a member of the landed gentry or a wealthy businessmen. Highly regarded golfers came from all four corners of the land, but Robertson never lost a singles match played for money, retaining his unofficial but widely accepted title as champion golfer for two decades.

There was also a lucrative doubles market, and this would offer Morris his big break. Robertson identified his protégé’s talent and the pair teamed up to great effect, most notably in 1849, when they found themselves four holes down with eight to play in a winner-takes-all match against Musselburgh brothers Willie and Jamie Dunn. Reports of the day speak of Morris showing “an indomitable will and unshaken nerve when the crisis came”, as he turned the tide of the £400 match – just over £54,000 in today’s money – and won it on the last hole.

Morris and Robertson became known as The Invincibles, but boss-employee dynamics are delicately balanced at the best of times, and positively combustible in the intertwined and high-stakes worlds of business and elite sport. In 1851, Robertson caught Morris playing with a new hard-wearing ball destined to consign the delicate featherie to history: the gutta-percha or guttie, a rubber-like sphere made from Malaysian tree-sap. Robertson, assuming the innovative new ball would ruin his business, took it all out on Morris. “It ill becomes you to use that nasty stuff,” he ranted, “when you’re making your living with me at the feather ball.” Morris later recalled dryly that the pair exchanged “high words”, and a split was inevitable. Soon after, Morris accepted an offer to work at Prestwick, a fancy new club over on the west coast.

That new role took in the usual equipment making and tuition, but also greenkeeping and course design. Morris helped Prestwick to lay out its original 12-hole course; discovered and pioneered a cure for bare patches on the greens, resting them under a thick coating of sand, gifting the grass roots time to recover; and was constantly spotted wandering the course in the gloaming, replacing divots and treading them back into place with his boot.

First and foremost, Morris was still a top player, a fact established by an ironic chain of events set off back in St Andrews. Robertson had been correct in his doom-laden prediction for the featherie, and his business collapsed. But you can’t keep a wily businessman down, and he pivoted to guttie production – with which he became the first man to break 80 at St Andrews. There would be no reconciliation with Morris, though, as a bout of jaundice took Robertson away in 1859 at the age of 44.

Robertson had still been considered the best golfer in the world, and his death left a void. James Ogilvie Fairlie, a close friend of Morris and one of the founding members of Prestwick, decided to fill it with a Challenge Belt, sending invitations to the most prominent clubs in Scotland, asking them to send their best two players for a tournament in 1860. The Open Championship was born.

Morris took the first shot of the nascent tournament, and was expected to win on the course he designed, but Willie Park – whom Robertson had declined to play when challenged a few years earlier, as was the incumbent’s prerogative – became the first Open champion. No matter, for Morris would win the following year, then the one after that, and then two more Opens in 1864 and 1867. Morris was 46 when he sealed that final victory, and remains to this day the oldest man to win the Open.

He would most likely have won a few more had he not become the first high-profile star to develop the yips. He earned himself a reputation as a “shockingly bad” and “lamentably feeble” putter, regularly missing efforts between eight and 15 inches. One tinder-dry wit addressed a letter to ‘The Misser of Short Putts, Prestwick’. The envelope arrived safely.

The influence of Tom Morris – on everything from style of play to design of courses – was foundational to the development of the modern game

Morris was enticed back to St Andrews in 1864, where the links were in a dreadful state compared to Prestwick. His innovations with sand helped the greens; he widened the fairways and maintained the tee boxes; he thought strategically about the placement of bunkers, rather than let nature decide. Within nine years of his return, Morris’s greenkeeping was rewarded when St Andrews hosted its first Open.

By this point, Morris was no longer the pre-eminent player of the day. The game’s new superstar was his son Tommy, or Young Tom Morris. Young Tom won the Open in three consecutive years as a teenage sensation, between 1868 and 1870, winning the Challenge Belt outright and forcing the postponement of the tournament for a year while everyone decided on a replacement prize. Young Tom won again in 1872, though the Claret Jug had yet to be struck, and he never got his hands on the new trophy, dying three years later (apocryphally) of a broken heart after his wife died in labour. He was just 24.

Old Tom was heartbroken, too. He remained the most well-known golfer right up until his death in 1908, when he accidentally tumbled down the stairs of the New Golf Club of St Andrews aged 86, but it was said his only source of pride remained Young Tom. Modesty prevented him replaying his own legion achievements, though perhaps he knew he’d be remembered as long as golf is still played.

Scott Murray is a journalist who co-wrote The Phantom of the Open: Maurice Flitcroft, the World’s Worst Golfer (2010)