Morris would walk the links, saying, "Put
a green there, a bunker here," and finish
by lunchtime. All the while he kept his
son's memory alive, sometimes giving
an important visitor a holy relic: "Take
this," he'd say. "It's Tommy's last putter."
Of course Old Tom, the game's best publicist, had a locker full of Tommy's "last" putters.
After he retired in 1903, the R&A commissioned a portrait. When the famed painter Sir George Reid asked him to strike a golfing pose, Old Tom stood with his hand on his hip. Reid asked what he was doing. "Waiting for the other man to begin," he said.
That portrait still hangs in the R&A clubhouse, but the real Old Tom preferred his sunny corner at the comfy New Club.
"I have not lifted a club for a good while now," he wrote in 1901, after turning 80, "though I still take a great interest in the game, which I think is the best that men — aye, and ladies, too — can play."
On that spring Sunday in 1908, he trudged from church to his stiff-backed chair overlooking the Old Course. After tea, he made for the loo. Stepping into a dark hallway, he faced two doors.
One was the toilet door. The other led to a stone staircase to the cellar.
He opened that door, took a step and fell.
They heard the clatter upstairs. They carried him up and laid him out on a table, but Old Tom had fractured his skull. With his passing, the dawn of professional golf was over.
Kevin Cook is the author of Tommy's Honor and the upcoming Driven: Teen Phenoms, Mad Parents, Swing Science and the Future of Golf, both from Gotham Books.
Of course Old Tom, the game's best publicist, had a locker full of Tommy's "last" putters.
After he retired in 1903, the R&A commissioned a portrait. When the famed painter Sir George Reid asked him to strike a golfing pose, Old Tom stood with his hand on his hip. Reid asked what he was doing. "Waiting for the other man to begin," he said.
That portrait still hangs in the R&A clubhouse, but the real Old Tom preferred his sunny corner at the comfy New Club.
"I have not lifted a club for a good while now," he wrote in 1901, after turning 80, "though I still take a great interest in the game, which I think is the best that men — aye, and ladies, too — can play."
On that spring Sunday in 1908, he trudged from church to his stiff-backed chair overlooking the Old Course. After tea, he made for the loo. Stepping into a dark hallway, he faced two doors.
One was the toilet door. The other led to a stone staircase to the cellar.
He opened that door, took a step and fell.
They heard the clatter upstairs. They carried him up and laid him out on a table, but Old Tom had fractured his skull. With his passing, the dawn of professional golf was over.
Kevin Cook is the author of Tommy's Honor and the upcoming Driven: Teen Phenoms, Mad Parents, Swing Science and the Future of Golf, both from Gotham Books.
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