The Open Championship – Old Tom Morris and "Tommy"

Old Tom Morris was such a close and nearly equal rival to Allan Robertson that once Morris had beaten him a couple of times, Robertson avoided further head-to-head clashes with Morris and instead took him as his quartet partner.

With Robertson’s death, Morris recovered and, like Willie Park, won the Open four times. When he last won in 1867 at the age of 46 years and 99 days he became, and still is, the oldest winner. The following year, his son became, and it seems likely he always will be, the youngest champion at 17 years and 161 days.

Prize money was introduced in 1863, but by 1870 there was no longer any belt left to contend for, as young Tommy had claimed ownership by winning the championship three years in a row – the hat-trick. His winning scores in 1869 and 1870 were 303 over 72 holes, and it was not until 1903, when Harry Vardon shot 300 on the same course, Prestwick, that this score was surpassed. Obviously it is very difficult to compare scores at different times, but it should be noted that Vardon’s score was achieved after the demise of the gut in favor of the rubber cored ball.

Morris’s three in 1870 on Prestwick’s first 500+ yard hole was an amazing feat and surely his score of 145 on the first day of that championship was one of the greatest performances in the history of the game. But young Tom Morris was an incredible player, an aggressive golfer who was said to be such a vigorous club shaker that he could break the clubhead before he had even hit the ball. He also secured another open record when he recorded the first championship hole-in-one in 1868.

Because Young Tommy won the belt in 1870, there was no championship in 1871 and when hostilities resumed the following year it was replaced by the Championship Trophy, a silver tankard which had been donated jointly by Prestwick, the R&A at St. Andrews and the Honorable Company who later played at Musselburgh. From then on, The Open was to be played in turns, a system that essentially still exists, although it now involves more clubs and has a less rigid rotation system.

The clause on anyone winning three years in a row and keeping the trophy was abolished, which was good because both Jamie Anderson (1877-1879) and Bob Ferguson (1880-1882) accomplished this feat. Not before, however, young Tommy emulated his father and won for the fourth time in 1872. He finished third and second respectively the next two years before dying suddenly in 1875. His new wife had died in childbirth shortly before he him and it was said at the time that he had died of a broken heart. Modern medicine, however, has a slightly different view of the cause of his death!

Whether or not there is any dispute as to what he died of, there is no doubt that young Tom Morris was golf’s first superstar and, until the Harry Vardon era, the first golfer known to people who did not play. .

The invention of the rotary lawnmower around 1890 meant that lawn maintenance became a much easier proposition than it had been until now and heralded the massive explosion of the game that took place from 1890 onwards. The first of the Great Triumvirate to win the Open was JHTaylor in 1894 (also the first Open to be held outside of Scotland at Sandwich in Kent) and until play was suspended in 1915 as a result of the Great War, the names of Taylor, Vardon and Braid would appear on the trophy no fewer than 16 times.

I will deal with this era in more depth in my next article.