There is no sadder Christmas day in the history of golf than December 25, 1875. At 10 in the morning, after his parents, Tom and Nancy, wondered that he had not joined them for breakfast like he used to to do, was found dead in his room Young Tom Morris, perhaps the best golfer of the 19th century, winner of four Open Championships, the last in 1872, of which the sesquicentennial was commemorated last September.
A ruptured aneurysm in a pulmonary artery caused his death. He was 24 years old. And although it was a sudden death, hastened by heavy drinking of late, Tommy had lost the will to live.
Young Tom Morris, statements
He had lost them three months before, in September, when he experienced the most terrible episode imaginable.
On September 4, together with his father, the golfer known as Old Tom Morris, also a native of St. Andrews, also a four-time British winner, played a game at North Berwick against the Park brothers, Willie and Mungo. The first had won the first Open Championship, held in 1860.
The rivalry between the two families was fabulous. Between them they had won 12 of the 15 British Open held. Immediately after the match, which they won by one hole, the Morriss received a telegram indicating that Margaret, the young man’s wife, was seriously ill and had to return to St.
Andrews urgently. A yachtsman offered to bring them to FIfe County in a straight line across the bay, thus avoiding having to return by train to Edinburgh and from the city to take another to the sanctuary of golf. A few minutes after setting sail, when signals could have been given from the pier for them to return, a second telegram arrived: the woman had died giving birth to a stillborn baby.
No one made a gesture to warn them. [Other writings say that his father knew the outcome, but did not reveal it to him until they reached the port] They preferred to let Tommy discover the misfortune. Already in his house he collapsed.
Young Morris loved his wife whom he had married four years before. He had met her in St. Andrews, when she had gone to serve in a family’s home. She was 10 years older than him, the daughter of a humble family of 10 siblings, a mining father, and she had given birth to an illegitimate son who had died at eight weeks.
Her death was the beginning of Tommy’s agony. He lost the desire to play golf. If he returned he was driven by the need for money. At first without desire, losing matches that had been won. Then to play a match against Captain Molesworth, who had toured the area with his sons and they had won every match.
Young Morris reluctantly accepted the challenge. On November 30, the three-day, six rounds of golf meet began. Morris gave him a 36-shot lead and won by 51. Molesworth called for a rematch and another three-day match was orchestrated.
This time the weather was very harsh, snowy days in which it was necessary to clean the greens to play. The referees suggested that it be postponed, but the captain refused. Young Morris won by 45 strokes, nine without handicap.
Kevin Cook, author of the book Tommy’s Honor, recounted it this way: “His game lacked all his old hallmarks of spirit and determination. His heart was not in the game. But it was not far away: in the snow-covered grave in the old churchyard from the cathedral, where his wife and baby had recently been buried.
Young Tom Morris, with clear symptoms of depression, left town for a few days and returned for Christmas. He had dinner on Christmas Eve with some friends and by 11 he was home. He talked with his mother, an invalid in a wheelchair, for a while.
He said goodbye to his father. Neither of them knew at the time that it was forever. The next day the news spread throughout the region. He was the first great child prodigy in the sport, the only minor in history to have won a Grand Slam tournament (the 1868 Open Championship).
Through his father’s career, he was the first golfer who did not have to caddy to reach the top of the sport. Before he was 13, he gained his first five pounds in a match held on one of his father’s tours of the country.
He faced William Greig, another promising youngster, whom he beat to a crowd amazed at their talents. The exhibition was such that, if they had let him play the professional tournament, he would have won it. The chronicles only talked about them, not about the professionals.
Tommy was also an innovator, inventing impossible shots. The rut iron, a disused stick with a very small, raised head that most players used to get the ball out of rabbit ruts or scratches, he used to great effect; he carried two putters in his bag that he used depending on the conditions of the green.
If it was bad surfaces, he used a kind of driver with a little bit of loft and a very short shaft. He died young, but his mark was great on the history of a sport that every Christmas wakes up thinking about the young man in the cheese cutter cap who never woke up at number 6 Pilmour Links, behind whose back the views of the hole 18 of the Old Course at St. Andrews remind the visitor that there is a paradise on earth.
