Tommy's Honor Part 6

EIGHT.

The Better Ball.

John Blackwood stood on the teeing-ground at eight A.M. A.M., the hangman's hour, dressed in his red jacket and white leather breeches. The new captain of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club was up early for his ceremonial Driving-In on the last day of the club's Autumn Meeting. Surrounded on this cold October morning by a red-coated brigade of fellow members, he waited while Tom Morris teed him up. Tom, still red-cheeked from his morning dip in the sea, dropped to one knee, made a thumb-sized sand tee and placed a ball on top. Blackwood waggled. A few yards away another R&A officer stood beside a little Prussian cannon, watching Blackwood's every move, for timing is everything in cannonry as in golf.

Blackwood swung-a booming drive, thanks to the cannon's boom at the moment of impact. He was now "winner" of the R&A's oldest prize, the Silver Club, which had been competed for in the R&A's first century but now went automatically to the newly elected captain, who claimed it with this one symbolic swing. In later years the Driving-In ceremony would inspire another tradition: The caddie who retrieved the captain's ball got a gold sovereign that was worth a fortnight's pay. When the duffer Prince Albert, the future King George VI, drove-in one year, the caddies were accused of standing "disloyally close to the tee."

Later, on Medal Day, the new captain led R&A golfers to the links, where Tom Morris waited. Tom doffed his cap to each one, then gave a little speech. They were about to play for the Royal Medal, he said, donated by His Late Majesty King William IV. The club's Gold Medal would go to the man with the second-best score. The format was stroke play; he who finishes eighteen holes in the fewest strokes wins. They would play by St. Andrews rules, of course.

Tom started each twosome on its way, saying, "You may go now, gentlemen." Later he stood by the Home green to greet the players as they came in. After the last group holed out he pulled the flag from the Home green and waved it over his head, signaling the cannoneer. Another cannon blast signaled the end of Medal Day.

At a lavish dinner that evening, the captain presented the medals to the winners. The highlight of the week, however, was the following night's Royal and Ancient Ball, sometimes called the Golf Ball. Starting at ten P.M. P.M., carriages delivered many of Fife's leading citizens to St. Andrews' Town Hall, a turreted Scottish-Baronial castle that glowed from within, its keyhole windows lit up like jack-o'-lantern eyes. Few commoners pa.s.sed through the doors; no one would have dreamed of inviting the greenkeeper. Worthies from Edinburgh and London handed their canes and black hats to attendants while their wives and daughters rustled past in long dresses of silk and satin. Under the dresses, corsets ribbed with whalebone pinched the women's waists as near as possible to the ideal of twenty inches around. These pinched women smiled behind fans made of ostrich feathers.

Moving from the doors to the Town Hall's cavernous ballroom, revelers pa.s.sed relics of St. Andrews' long history: a wooden panel showing the town's coat of arms and the date 1115; a rusted set of handcuffs; a headsman's axe that cost the town treasurer six s.h.i.+llings "for shairpine the aix" before a 1622 beheading. In the ballroom, guests danced in groups of four couples, the couples changing partners as they moved in measured paces from the corners to the center of a six-pace square. Quadrille dancing was the latest fad from France. A forerunner of square dancing performed to the music of a small string ensemble plus a trumpet or French horn, the quadrille mixed and matched couples as they traded partners, stirring the social stew.

The ball lasted long into the wee hours. The St. Andrews Citizen St. Andrews Citizen always carried a long account of the event, listing dozens of dignitaries who attended. For weeks no one in town spoke of anything else, or so it seemed to Tommy. The twenty-year-old Champion Golfer could not help noticing that the Royal and Ancient, which had d.i.c.kered over 10 or 15 when the issue was sponsoring the Open, threw banknotes at a caterer and a confectioner and brought a quadrille band from Edinburgh when the R&A Ball came around. always carried a long account of the event, listing dozens of dignitaries who attended. For weeks no one in town spoke of anything else, or so it seemed to Tommy. The twenty-year-old Champion Golfer could not help noticing that the Royal and Ancient, which had d.i.c.kered over 10 or 15 when the issue was sponsoring the Open, threw banknotes at a caterer and a confectioner and brought a quadrille band from Edinburgh when the R&A Ball came around.

November frosts hardened the links. In December the sun set at four in the afternoon. Tommy played an occasional match to keep his muscles loose, but as the year without an Open wound down, there were no matches or tournaments to kindle his interest.

Perhaps there was another way to remind the gentlemen that he was still alive.

"On Friday night the Town Hall was the scene of a gay and brilliant a.s.semblage on the occasion of the first ball given by the St. Andrews Rose Golf Club," the Citizen Citizen reported on January 6, 1872, three months after the latest R&A Ball. "Over the civic chair in the center of the platform hung a large sized group [photograph] of the members of the club, on the right of which was the medal of the club, and on the left the beautiful champion golfer's belt, won by Young Tom Morris three years in succession, which ent.i.tled him to retain it.... At the front of the hall was a large cross, with a garland of evergreens and the words 'Rose Golf Club.' The orchestra, which was occupied by an efficient quadrille band, was hung with scarlet cloth and ornamented with garlands of evergreens...the whole being overhung with a beautiful new flag of the Club. Refreshments were served in the Council Chamber, and purveyed by Mr. G. Leslie of the Golf Inn, and Mrs. Thomson, confectioner. The ball was opened at about half-past nine by the Captain of the Club, Mr. James Conacher, and dancing was kept up with the greatest spirit until about half-past four in the morning." reported on January 6, 1872, three months after the latest R&A Ball. "Over the civic chair in the center of the platform hung a large sized group [photograph] of the members of the club, on the right of which was the medal of the club, and on the left the beautiful champion golfer's belt, won by Young Tom Morris three years in succession, which ent.i.tled him to retain it.... At the front of the hall was a large cross, with a garland of evergreens and the words 'Rose Golf Club.' The orchestra, which was occupied by an efficient quadrille band, was hung with scarlet cloth and ornamented with garlands of evergreens...the whole being overhung with a beautiful new flag of the Club. Refreshments were served in the Council Chamber, and purveyed by Mr. G. Leslie of the Golf Inn, and Mrs. Thomson, confectioner. The ball was opened at about half-past nine by the Captain of the Club, Mr. James Conacher, and dancing was kept up with the greatest spirit until about half-past four in the morning."

Tommy and the enterprising Conacher had chipped in to rent and decorate the same ballroom where the almighty Royal and Ancient cavorted every fall. Now it was dark winter but the place was even brighter than on the night the wheezing ancients gathered here to try to dance. The Rose Club Ball was a livelier affair for a younger crowd, its quadrille dancers moving on nimbler limbs, changing partners in kaleidoscopic patterns while the buckle of the Champions.h.i.+p Belt reflected light from half a dozen chandeliers.

Someone tapped Tommy's shoulder and put a gla.s.s of champagne in his hand. He took a gulp, thinking perhaps of Dom Perignon, the French monk who added yeast to wine in 1668 and exclaimed, "Je bois des etoiles" "Je bois des etoiles"-"I am drinking the stars." Holding his gla.s.s in a white-gloved hand, Tommy felt stars percolate down his gullet. A moderate drinker, he was willing to temper his moderation tonight. Looking around the ballroom he saw his brother Jimmy trying hard to look older than his years, telling anyone who would listen that he'd be sixteen next week; and Jamie Anderson, whose precision game Tommy admired; and Davie Strath, less funereal than usual, lifting a gla.s.s. According to the Citizen Citizen, "The company present numbered over 100." Heads turned as Tommy slipped between celebrants in cigar-scented air, shaking hands and patting friends' backs under an oversized flag festooned with the club's petaled emblem. He wore his finest suit and a pin-striped waistcoat. Dozens of la.s.ses must have wished they could dance with him, and many would get their wish. "The thing about quadrille dancing," one St. Andrean said, "is that you may start with your auntie, but soon you find yourself with the girl you spotted across the room. Imagine gazing at her as everyone changes partners until finally your hand is on her hand and your other hand is on her waist."

The following week, newspapers including The Scotsman The Scotsman informed the nation that the first Rose Club Ball in old St. Andrews had been a sensation, surpa.s.sing even the annual ball of the Royal & Ancient. Only Tom Morris realized what bad news that was. Tom knew that the town's gentleman golfers would not appreciate being upstaged by a pack of foolhardy young men. informed the nation that the first Rose Club Ball in old St. Andrews had been a sensation, surpa.s.sing even the annual ball of the Royal & Ancient. Only Tom Morris realized what bad news that was. Tom knew that the town's gentleman golfers would not appreciate being upstaged by a pack of foolhardy young men.

With a population of 6,000, dwarfed by Edinburgh's 200,000 and Glasgow's half million, St. Andrews was a small town with the surface calm and subterranean strife of other small towns. The busybody pastor A.K.H. Boyd liked to quote a visitor who said, "h.e.l.l was a quiet and friendly place to live in, compared with St. Andrews." Early in 1872 the town hummed with talk of the Rose Club, while Tom's employers sat in their clubhouse muttering over the newspapers. As Tommy would have expected had he had a politic bone in his body, he and his friends had angered the men who ran the town-the R&A men who put up the money golf professionals played for and controlled the businesses Tommy's friends hoped to enter. An apology from the Champion Golfer might have helped, but he was not sorry. It was left to Tom to spend weeks a.s.suring his employers that the lads meant no offense. In the end, the success of the first Rose Club Ball a.s.sured that there would never be a second Rose Club Ball.

In March of 1872 a dozen golf professionals met for a stroke-play event in Musselburgh, the scene of Tom's riotous match with Willie Park. Tommy coasted home six shots clear of Jamie Anderson and seven ahead of local heroes Park and Bob Fergusson. As the Citizen Citizen saw the Musselburgh tourney, "none had hitherto succeeded in anything like the steady play for three rounds now added to Young Tom's credit." The win added 12 to Tommy's bankroll; his father finished eighth and won nothing. A day later Tommy teamed with Davie Strath in foursomes against Park and Fergusson. The Rose Club duo took the first of three rounds by the thinnest margin, 1-up. Tommy and Strath also won the second round by one hole, spurring Park to swing so hard in the last go-round that he saw the Musselburgh tourney, "none had hitherto succeeded in anything like the steady play for three rounds now added to Young Tom's credit." The win added 12 to Tommy's bankroll; his father finished eighth and won nothing. A day later Tommy teamed with Davie Strath in foursomes against Park and Fergusson. The Rose Club duo took the first of three rounds by the thinnest margin, 1-up. Tommy and Strath also won the second round by one hole, spurring Park to swing so hard in the last go-round that he huffed huffed with the effort, which Tommy found funny. Willie may as well have ducked into Mrs. Forman's Public House; the boys from St. Andrews closed out the contest on the seventh green. After that Tommy accepted one more challenge: facing Fergusson in singles. One hole down at the midpoint, out-driven on almost every hole, he rallied to beat the quiet man and went home from Park's dunghill unstained-three wins in three tries in two days. with the effort, which Tommy found funny. Willie may as well have ducked into Mrs. Forman's Public House; the boys from St. Andrews closed out the contest on the seventh green. After that Tommy accepted one more challenge: facing Fergusson in singles. One hole down at the midpoint, out-driven on almost every hole, he rallied to beat the quiet man and went home from Park's dunghill unstained-three wins in three tries in two days.

In April the Royal Liverpool Golf Club spent an eye- Popping 103 to give Scotland a run for its money. The golfers of Royal Liverpool were merchants who'd made fortunes turning their rusty port city into England's "maritime metropolis." Now they wanted to put their club on the map by hosting the grandest professional event ever seen. Their course in Hoylake, England, was no gem, but a record-setting purse would attract what newspapers called "Scotland's golfing celebrities." Even then, the way to a golfer's heart was through his pocket.

The event's purse of 55 would more than quadruple the Open purse of 12, with 48 more paying for railway tickets and lavish dinners for the golfers-astounding luxury to professionals of Tom's generation, who had never been treated as a club's guests. Willie Park, Davie Strath, The Rook, and other players took fast trains south to Liverpool, where horse-drawn coaches took them across the River Mersey to the links. Spectators watched for the coach carrying the golfer one writer called "primus inter pares"-first among equals.

Stepping down from his carriage at the Royal Hotel, a stone box with the Irish Sea at its back, Tommy saw the course-a patchy waste nibbled by rabbits, with a horse-racing track running through it. He had won an informal tournament there a year before. Now he joined the other players for a long, loud dinner hosted by barkeep John Ball, whose son would win the 1890 Open. Ball kept the drinks flowing while the golfers sang and toasted bonny Scotland.

Sixteen players gathered in front of the hotel on Tuesday morning, April 25, 1872. According to a newspaper story, the Grand Professional Tournament would be "a rare treat to those who have never had an opportunity of seeing the 'far and sure' strokes of the leading professionals." It would be the first major professional tournament ever held in England. Tommy teed off first, his drive sailing over a corner of the racetrack. He set off after it, trailed by more than a hundred spectators in a spitting rain.

The first hole was 440 yards of sandy turf and marshes pocked with reeds. The wooden rails of the racetrack were in play. So was the track itself: You might find your ball in a hoofprint. Tommy struck a low second shot to safe ground, knocked an iron to the green and rapped in the putt for a four. He had an edge already-n.o.body would beat four on that hole that day.

The second hole ran along a hedge. The racetrack's railing cut the fairway in half. Tommy's drive was "successful," The Field The Field reported, but his next shot "went into a ditch which caused a bad stroke." His recovery veered out-of-bounds, and he made eight on the hole-the first sign that the champion might struggle today. One newspaper quoted him in dialect as saying it was "no' my day oot for stealing long puts." reported, but his next shot "went into a ditch which caused a bad stroke." His recovery veered out-of-bounds, and he made eight on the hole-the first sign that the champion might struggle today. One newspaper quoted him in dialect as saying it was "no' my day oot for stealing long puts."

Tom and Willie Park fell far behind. Bob Kirk also stumbled. In a turn of fate The Field The Field called "rather unfortunate," Kirk hit three b.a.l.l.s out-of-bounds and made a 17 on the first hole. His 97 in the first of two rounds left him 15 strokes behind Davie Strath, whose 82 gave nervous Davie a three-shot edge on Tommy and the Rook. called "rather unfortunate," Kirk hit three b.a.l.l.s out-of-bounds and made a 17 on the first hole. His 97 in the first of two rounds left him 15 strokes behind Davie Strath, whose 82 gave nervous Davie a three-shot edge on Tommy and the Rook.

By now, rain was pelting the links. The golfers waited out the downpour inside the hotel. Perhaps Tommy had a small beer with his cousin Jack, Royal Liverpool's resident professional. This walking Jack Morris with the same name as Tommy's crippled brother lived in a converted horse stall in the hotel's stables. His father, George-Tommy's uncle-had spent years living down his long-ago thras.h.i.+ng at Willie Park's hands ("For the love o' G.o.d, man, give us a half!"). In 1869 George Morris went to Hoylake with Robert Chambers, the wealthy amateur who had umpired the riotous, nullified match between Tom and Willie Park. At Hoylake, Chambers and George Morris laid out the Royal Liverpool links. It was not a task modern golfers would recognize as course design. They walked the links, picking out spots that looked like putting greens. When they found one, George cut a hole with his penknife. They left a stick or a seagull feather in the hole to show golfers where to aim.

Now, three years later, the players filed out of the Royal Hotel to finish the tournament in mist and drizzle. Tommy didn't mind the rain; he rubbed up his grip with the lump of pine tar in his jacket pocket.

Strath was tired of losing to Tommy. "He swung high, and came through well with a sweeping stroke, driving a higher ball with more carry than Tommy's," one contemporary wrote, "but his putting was not so dangerous as his rival's. Nor had he so even a disposition. He was excitable, talked quickly, was readily elated or depressed." Strath nursed his three-shot lead while the course meandered to the beach and turned back toward the hotel. Tommy gained a stroke, then another.

The last hole was only 218 yards from the tee to a green beside the hotel. Tommy, aggressive as ever, knocked in a final putt, and Strath-working the tobacco in his cheek, chewing, spitting-failed to match him. Tommy had come from behind to win by a stroke.

"Tom Morris, jun., increased his already very long list of achievements by carrying off the first prize, consisting of a medal and 15," one reporter wrote. "The members of the club regard this, the first golf tournament held in England, as a complete success."

The next day brought a foursomes match between England and Scotland, with national pride and 5 at stake. Two professionals from English clubs challenged Tommy and Musselburgh's Bob Fergusson. The Scots won in a rout, 8 and 7. Then the Champion Golfer headed home to St. Andrews, his triumph in England complete.

A letter to The Field The Field congratulated Royal Liverpool for staging the golf show of the season: "Here the young champion added another leaf to his laurels; here England's professionals fought and lost against Scotland's, here they stayed together as brother golfers, and parted in the best fellows.h.i.+p, without jealousy or discontent, satisfied with their own performances, the prizes and the links, anxious only again to meet, and in friendly fray swing the hickory wand." congratulated Royal Liverpool for staging the golf show of the season: "Here the young champion added another leaf to his laurels; here England's professionals fought and lost against Scotland's, here they stayed together as brother golfers, and parted in the best fellows.h.i.+p, without jealousy or discontent, satisfied with their own performances, the prizes and the links, anxious only again to meet, and in friendly fray swing the hickory wand."

The money and the medal Tommy won at Hoylake meant less to him than another piece of silver he received that spring. On April 20, 1872, Tommy's twenty-first birthday, his sentimental Da handed him a pocket watch. The watch had a heavy silver case, a silver fob, and a palpable heartbeat. Tick-tock, like his father's swing. From that day Tommy carried the watch in his vest pocket, near his heart.

At a meeting of the Royal and Ancient the following month, "the Secretary read a letter which he had received from the Honorary Secretary of the Prestwick Club as to the desirability of reviving the 'Champion Belt' compet.i.tion." This is the first reference to the Open in the minutes of R&A meetings. A committee was directed to explore cosponsors.h.i.+p of the Open, "and they were authorized to contribute a sum not exceeding 15 from the funds of the Club."

That spring two of the club's best gentleman golfers. .h.i.t upon a clever bet. Robert Clark and Gilbert Mitch.e.l.l Innes-the same Innes who had pushed Prestwick to share the Open, and who happened to belong to the R&A, as well-challenged any professional to beat their best ball. The amateurs won every time. Still they were two-to-one underdogs in spirited betting the day Tommy Morris took their dare. Innes and Clark held a 1-up lead through sixteen holes as the golfers and a bevy of bettors and spectators reached the Road Hole. The amateurs' backers were mentally doubling their money until Tommy won the Road Hole, then ran in a putt on the boneyard Home Hole to pick their pockets.

By then, Queen Victoria had sped from England through Dundee in a royal-blue railway car that ate the rails at fifty miles per hour, heading for Balmoral Castle, west of Aberdeen. She and her adored husband, Prince Albert, had bought the castle and its vast grounds after its previous owner died from choking on a fishbone. The Queen suffered from the heat and traveled with a bucket of ice rattling under her seat; a footman replenished the ice faster than it could melt. Victoria had fled London for Balmoral twice a year ever since Prince Albert died of typhoid fever in 1861. She wore widow's weeds for the rest of her life. "A cold, dark country," she called Scotland, a place to match her mood. The second-youngest of her nine children was gray-eyed Prince Leopold, England's first royal hemophiliac. After doctors told the prince that golf might aid his fragile health, a short course was laid out on the grounds of Windsor Castle. Nineteen-year-old Leopold looked forward to playing golf on real courses in Scotland, though he would need to watch out for whin thorns.

Tommy rode a slow train coughing eastward from Leuchars. Golfers crowded the links ahead. Dogs romped though dunes, yapping at a sky specked with herring gulls; courting couples strolled the path to the beach; bathers waded in the shallows. This was the busy town Provost Playfair had imagined when he opened the rail link twenty years before. "A golf-mad town," one writer called it. Tommy stepped off the train at St. Andrews Station. Coming home from an out-of-town match, another victory, in the summer of 1872, he had a copy of The Scotsman The Scotsman under his arm. The national newspaper carried a story from France, where a new guillotine had "performed with unquestioned success." In Egypt, clipper s.h.i.+ps moved like three-masted camels on the Suez Ca.n.a.l, which cut 6,000 miles off the route from London to Bombay. From farther south-the slave-trading port of Zanzibar-newsman Henry Stanley wired that he'd had no luck in his search for the Scottish explorer David Livingstone, who was presumed dead. under his arm. The national newspaper carried a story from France, where a new guillotine had "performed with unquestioned success." In Egypt, clipper s.h.i.+ps moved like three-masted camels on the Suez Ca.n.a.l, which cut 6,000 miles off the route from London to Bombay. From farther south-the slave-trading port of Zanzibar-newsman Henry Stanley wired that he'd had no luck in his search for the Scottish explorer David Livingstone, who was presumed dead.

The world beckoned, but when Tommy looked up he saw the familiar spires and chimney pots of St. Andrews. Stopping to drop his luggage at his father's house, he blinked while his eyes adjusted to the dimness. Few Scots were wasteful enough to light lamps in the daytime; on sunny days a traveler going inside would be blind for a moment. He found his sister, said h.e.l.lo, and went to look in on their mother. Nancy was confined to her bed. Her back and stomach ached. If she asked about Tommy's plans for the summer, frowning when he spoke not about working as a gentleman's clerk but about playing golf, he would cheer her with family talk and questions about her day. Tommy was a good listener, solicitous of his mother. When she tired of talking, he would kiss her forehead and leave her to her sewing.

Out again in first-of-summer light, he walked under white clouds stacked up to the sun. Just east of his father's shop was a wood-walled stall where old Kirky, the creaky-jointed father of golfer Bob Kirk, sat boiling chunks of gutta-percha in a stew pan. When the chunks were putty-soft he plucked them out with tongs and rolled them round in his hands. Kirky's hands were spotted red from frequent scaldings. A longtime caddie who had lugged Tom Morris's clubs for years, Kirky supplemented his caddie pay by fas.h.i.+oning new gutties from bits of old ones, the way Dr. Frankenstein made a man in the popular novel. Kirky rolled his chunks of rubber until they were round, dropped them in cold water and spun them to make sure they cooled evenly. He dried and painted them and sold them as "Kirky's Remakes."

Caddies loafed around Kirky's stall, trading stories. One would grouse about the three-hour rounds he endured while carrying for Sir John Low, a notorious "slow-coach" who played at such a glacial pace despite his pony that the caddies called him Sir John Slow. Another caddie might be telling the tale of two dour old-timers who never spoke. After two silent hours they were dead-even on the Home Hole, where one sank a putt to win the match. The other said, "Well in," the only words either man had uttered. To which the first replied, "Chatterbox!"

Tourists spilled down the steps of the Golf Inn beyond Kirky's stall. These holiday-makers, traveling in loud groups of three and four bachelors, came from all over to spend a few days or a week at golf's mecca. They scuffed up the links by day and played whist all night, eating and drinking like nabobs, sleeping like stones until noon. "The golfer, having finished a large and late breakfast, lights a cigar and turns his steps toward the links," reads one account of a pilgrimage to St. Andrews, where players arranged matches according to a time-honored calculus that balanced greed and ego. "If a man underrates his play, he may perhaps get a good partner and win his match, but he wounds his self-conceit; if he overrates it he loses his match, and makes an enemy of his partner." The loser could resort to another tradition: the artful alibi. As Robert Chambers noted in the popular Chambers' Edinburgh Journal Chambers' Edinburgh Journal, the typical golfer was never short of excuses: "It is often amusing to see...how eager he is to find palliations for his failure. 'That blade of gra.s.s turned me aside!' 'I was disturbed by your moving.' 'Your shadow on the green put me out.'"

As golf grew, the R&A's stone clubhouse grew with it. Built as a squat rectangle when Tommy was a year old, the gray hulk had always been an eyesore as well as a landmark. As one critic wrote, "the architect is, happily for himself, unknown." In 1866 the club replaced the front window with a grand oriel window that gave members a panoramic view of the links. Now the clubhouse was getting a new north wing. Canvas and scaffolding shrouded its seaward side. The building's hindquarters, long plagued by what club records call "the evils as regards smell," had gotten a new block of toilets and a billiards room. Architect David Henry's bill for that work came to 1,430, enough to fund the Open for half a century had the R&A chosen to do so. Instead the club negotiated with the Prestwick Club and the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers in hopes of saving 20 on the Open. Each pa.s.sing month increased the chance that there would be no Open Champions.h.i.+p in 1872.

Tom Morris stood at the first teeing-ground, his hands stuffed into his jacket pockets. He was pairing golfers with caddies, helping the golfers decide who had priority on the tee, and telling tourist golfers where to aim. Had he told them how to spit or scratch themselves, they probably would have obeyed. Tommy had long been amazed at how sheepish most golfers were. From the lowliest mechanic to the proudest n.o.bleman, they all wanted a professional to tell them what to do. Tom Morris's gift was that he could tell any man what to do without giving offense.

After the men teed off and started after their bouncing drives, Tom climbed the steps at the southwest corner of the clubhouse. He walked to the club secretary's window and gave it a tap. He waited, tapped again. After a minute the window went up. The secretary leaned out and spoke into Tom's sunburned ear. It was the same every day: the club officer telling the greenkeeper which important gentlemen would be playing in the foursomes to come. Tom would nod and then go back around the clubhouse to the teeing-ground. In eight years as greenkeeper for the Royal and Ancient Golf Club he had now and then been inside the clubhouse but had never once sat down there. A greenkeeper in that clubhouse would not sit without being invited to sit, an invitation that had not come and never would.

While Tom knew his place, he saw the course as his domain and bent it to his will with little interference from the Green Committee. For centuries the first teeing-ground had been the only one that was not on or near a putting-green. To play the second through eighteenth holes, players teed off within a few club-lengths of the hole in the previous green. The distance had tripled since Tom's youth, from four club-lengths to twelve, as golfers realized that stamping around near the hole was no favor to the putting-green. Now Tom was building a separate teeing-ground for each hole. He was following the lead of Tommy and his Rose Club friends, who deemed the twelve-club-length rule ridiculous and teed off from flat spots nearby. Some R&A men objected: Who were these lads to make up their own rules? But Tom saw the wisdom of the new approach. The pace of play quickened and the greens suffered less. By 1876 every hole at St. Andrews would have its own teeing-ground. In time every course in the world would make the same change.

Tom's own troubles on the greens were harder to correct. "A man may miss a short putt," Bernard Darwin wrote, "and yet be a good husband, a good father and an honest Christian gentleman." Not that such virtues made the misser feel much better. Tom tried putting with his right forefinger wrapped tight around his putter's grip, to no avail. He tried putting with the forefinger extended down the shaft, and when that didn't help he joked about having that finger amputated. Everard recalled a day when Tom tried putting with a cleek, made several long ones and went home delighted, "happy in possession of the magic secret." But the magic didn't last. Five years after winning the 1867 Open, Tom was missing most of his four-foot putts.

In July he and Tommy played as a team in what the Citizen Citizen called "the first great professional match of the season." Their opponents were Davie Strath and another young St. Andrean, a jut-jawed powerhouse named Tom Kidd. Four years older than Tommy, Kidd wore his side-whiskers so bushy that the wind ruffled them. Unlike his black-coated partner, Kidd was a dandy. On Sundays he dressed "like a peac.o.c.k," one St. Andrean wrote, "with tall hat, blue socks, lavender trousers, yellow kid gloves and a cane." He sported a silk top hat he called his "Whar-ye-goin'?" hat, so splendid it made people ask what destination could be worthy of such a hat. called "the first great professional match of the season." Their opponents were Davie Strath and another young St. Andrean, a jut-jawed powerhouse named Tom Kidd. Four years older than Tommy, Kidd wore his side-whiskers so bushy that the wind ruffled them. Unlike his black-coated partner, Kidd was a dandy. On Sundays he dressed "like a peac.o.c.k," one St. Andrean wrote, "with tall hat, blue socks, lavender trousers, yellow kid gloves and a cane." He sported a silk top hat he called his "Whar-ye-goin'?" hat, so splendid it made people ask what destination could be worthy of such a hat.

Tommy may have shaken his head at Kidd's plumage, but he admired the way the man whacked drives well past 200 yards. Kidd and the painstaking Strath were such a well-matched foursomes pair that bettors made them even money against Tommy and his faltering father. According to The Field The Field, which recounted the event for readers all over the Empire, "Old Tom led off at half-past eleven with a fine tee shot, in the presence of a large company of spectators." Twenty holes later, with Strath and Kidd 2-up, Tom left a putt two paces short. With Tommy facing a dodgy putt to save four for their side, Kidd tried a defensive ploy: He left his team's third shot on the edge of the hole, blocking Tommy's putt. In those days a ball on the green could not be marked unless two b.a.l.l.s were touching, so Kidd and Strath's ball served as an obstacle. Kidd and Strath were sure of making four on the hole while Kidd's ploy, called a stymie (sometimes spelled stimy stimy) blocked the Morrises' chance to make four.

There were two ways to foil a stymie. You could go around the other ball or chip over it. You had to take care not to knock the other ball into the hole, for if you did it counted-your foes went from lying three on the lip to writing three on their scorecard. There wasn't room to putt around the other ball, so Tommy tried flipping his gutty into the hole, a shot he had practiced countless times in his father's workshop. This time he chipped the ball too low. In the Citizen Citizen's account Kidd "played a dead 'stimy' which Young Tom could not pa.s.s, but knocked Kidd's ball in."

The stymie was already controversial-some said it was "no' golf" and called for a ban-but it would last for almost a century. Bobby Jones would stymie an opponent while winning his Grand Slam in 1930. The tactic was finally banned in 1952, eighty years after Kidd's perfectly legal stymie at St. Andrews put his side another hole ahead. Tom botched another putt at the Road Hole and the Morrises lost, 3 and 1.

Summer days stretched toward midnight. In July you could read your pocket watch at 10:30 P.M. P.M., while shadows lengthened and the broad expanse of the first and last fairways looked as rippled and gray as water. Tom had a particularly long day on August 10, 1872, when the caddies went on strike. R&A members called it communism, a word popularized by Marx and Engels's The Communist Manifesto The Communist Manifesto in 1848. Some also blamed William Gladstone, the liberal prime minister who tolerated trade unions. Organized labor was seen by the gentry as a first step toward revolution. Right here in Fife, coal miners had threatened to strike unless their workweeks were cut to sixty hours. The in 1848. Some also blamed William Gladstone, the liberal prime minister who tolerated trade unions. Organized labor was seen by the gentry as a first step toward revolution. Right here in Fife, coal miners had threatened to strike unless their workweeks were cut to sixty hours. The Citizen Citizen told of colliers' wives who were offering to replace their men in the mines, "stating that they neither cared for the union nor their husbands." told of colliers' wives who were offering to replace their men in the mines, "stating that they neither cared for the union nor their husbands."

The caddies' strike put Tom in a delicate spot. It was his job to ride herd over the caddies, but some R&A members doubted his loyalty. Tom Morris was a former caddie, after all, and a famously soft touch for any sod with a sob story. And perhaps they were right to doubt him. Tom may have believed that society's ladder was part of G.o.d's design, but he knew how poorly treated the caddies were. He quietly supported them, letting them know they could count on a coin from Old Tom if they needed one. The strike ended when club members agreed to pay all caddies at least a s.h.i.+lling per round, the price of a gutta-percha ball.

Livingstone was found. After being mauled by a lion and beating malaria by stirring quinine into his sherry, he looked up to see Henry Stanley, the only other white person within hundreds of miles of Tanganyikan jungle. "Dr. Livingstone, I presume," the newsman said.

There was news from Prestwick as well. On September 11, 1872, the Prestwick Club agreed to share the Open with the R&A and the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers, with the clubs taking turns hosting the event at Prestwick, St. Andrews, and Musselburgh, respectively, starting with Prestwick that fall. The purse would be 20, the most ever, with 8 for the winner and four other cash prizes. Perhaps there would be a new Champions.h.i.+p Belt as well, but that matter was tabled because time was short; the tournament would take place the day after tomorrow.

The Open Champions.h.i.+p was reborn on Friday the 13th. Only eight players entered. Willie Park, Bob Fergusson, and The Rook opted to stay home rather than chase Tommy Morris around the links he grew up playing.

It rained hard all week, flooding grain fields the Citizen Citizen described that September as "terribly lain and twisted." The wind rolled off the Firth of Clyde as golfers slogged through puddles to Prestwick's first teeing-ground. The defending champion had the right to tee off first, an honor Tommy had held with growing impatience for two years. He uncorked a drive that drew shouts from the crowd. For much of the day, however, he putted more like his father than himself, missing three-and four-footers on rain-sodden greens. An ugly shot in the second round came to rest no more than three inches from the chin-high stone wall behind the fourth green. This was the Wall Hole, where he'd made a seven two years before. The wall, flecked with yellow moss, was no more than a stride from the back of the putting-green. With no room to make a normal swing, he turned his back to the green and tried a carom shot, hoping to bounce the ball off the wall toward the hole. To his horror the ball sprang straight up and went over the wall, into a muddy field full of tall gra.s.s and black-faced sheep. The sheep, chewing cud like Davie Strath with a chaw of tobacco, watched Tommy climb the wall and jump down on their side. From here he faced a pitch back over the wall to a green he couldn't see. An error now could cost him any chance to win. Instead, what described that September as "terribly lain and twisted." The wind rolled off the Firth of Clyde as golfers slogged through puddles to Prestwick's first teeing-ground. The defending champion had the right to tee off first, an honor Tommy had held with growing impatience for two years. He uncorked a drive that drew shouts from the crowd. For much of the day, however, he putted more like his father than himself, missing three-and four-footers on rain-sodden greens. An ugly shot in the second round came to rest no more than three inches from the chin-high stone wall behind the fourth green. This was the Wall Hole, where he'd made a seven two years before. The wall, flecked with yellow moss, was no more than a stride from the back of the putting-green. With no room to make a normal swing, he turned his back to the green and tried a carom shot, hoping to bounce the ball off the wall toward the hole. To his horror the ball sprang straight up and went over the wall, into a muddy field full of tall gra.s.s and black-faced sheep. The sheep, chewing cud like Davie Strath with a chaw of tobacco, watched Tommy climb the wall and jump down on their side. From here he faced a pitch back over the wall to a green he couldn't see. An error now could cost him any chance to win. Instead, what The Field The Field called "a well-directed stroke with his niblick" lofted his ball to a soft landing on the green. He had dodged disaster, giving Davie a chance to lose. called "a well-directed stroke with his niblick" lofted his ball to a soft landing on the green. He had dodged disaster, giving Davie a chance to lose.

After two rounds the markers turned their scorecards over and kept the last round's numbers on the cards' blank backs. Strath led by five strokes as the last twelve-hole round began. Bettors rejiggered the odds, making him a five-to-four favorite over Tommy, who had not been an underdog in an important event since winning his first Open.

Tommy was out of miracles. Still, he kept the ball out of the Sahara Bunker on the Alps Hole and well short of the wall at the fourth. Playing three pairings ahead of Strath, he kept the pressure on his friend, who lost two shots with what the newspapers called "an unfortunate iron" at the Alps Hole. With three holes left, his lead pared to a single stroke, Strath's swing and his nerves were fraying. The bulge of tobacco in his cheek bobbed as he chewed and spat, chewed and spat. On the 417-yard final hole he watched his drive splash in Goosedubs swamp. His shoulders sagged. After a graceful 52 in the second round, a horrid third-round 61 left Strath three strokes behind Tommy, the winner and still Champion Golfer.

The first player to win three consecutive Open Champions.h.i.+ps was now the first to win four. Even today, no other golfer has won four Opens in a row. In addition to the 8 first prize, Tommy was handed a gold-plated medal inscribed GOLF CHAMPION TROPHY GOLF CHAMPION TROPHY. There was no trophy, but the gentlemen running the event promised that his name would be engraved on the Open trophy when they got around to buying one.

Leaving Prestwick, Tommy was smiling about one of the tournament's surprises: Tom had made enough putts to tie for fourth, good for two pounds ten s.h.i.+llings.

At the R&A's Autumn Meeting a fortnight later, Major Boothby announced that per its recent agreement with Prestwick and the Honourable Company, the club would allot 10 toward the purchase of a 30 prize for the Open champion. The prize would not be a belt but a proper trophy, engraved with young Morris's name as the first winner but not subject to his owners.h.i.+p. As The Field The Field reported, "this trophy can never become the absolute property of any winner." The Champion Golfer would keep the trophy for a year, then return it to the site of the next Open, and so on for as long as the tournament lasted. reported, "this trophy can never become the absolute property of any winner." The Champion Golfer would keep the trophy for a year, then return it to the site of the next Open, and so on for as long as the tournament lasted.

Alexander Kinloch, newly elected captain of the Royal and Ancient, drove himself in during the same Autumn Meeting. Sir Robert Hay won the Royal Medal with a 94 that day, while Dr. Douglas Argyll Robertson claimed the Gold Medal with a 97. Captain Kinloch, wearing the Queen Adelaide medal that signified his captaincy, presented their medals at the club's annual dinner that evening. Applause followed Hay and Robertson to the head table, where the 118-year-old Silver Club, ensconced with silver golf b.a.l.l.s donated by past captains, was draped in blue and white, the colors of the Scottish flag and of the R&A. Since 1839, when the first Silver Club was fully covered by silver-plated b.a.l.l.s, there had been two Silver Clubs. Now the R&A members stepped forward one by one to kiss them. Wine slid from bottles into goblets and quickly down gentlemen's throats. Some men preferred gin, brandy, or whisky, though whisky was thought to be a commoner's drink. Whatever their drink, most of the gentlemen stopped well short of falling-down drunk, for the R&A dinner was a warm-up for the next evening's annual R&A Ball. Captain Kinloch had promised the grandest ball in memory, a night to make everyone forget the previous winter's cheeky effort by the Rose Club. He had even hired the man who'd decorated the hall for the Rose Club Ball.

In the Town Hall ballroom the following night, gaslight flickered over table settings so lavish that guests filed by to spectate. A quadrille band from Edinburgh played under crossed swords, wreaths, banners, and floral arrangements. The flowers were made of paper and cloth, Scottish flowers having lost their petals to October frosts. "The walls of the large hall were entirely covered from floor to about 9 feet high with white calico," read the Citizen Citizen, "the spandles of the roof being supported by Corinthian pilasters, while the s.p.a.ces between were filled with fluted panels of various coloured cloths, the whole being surmounted with a grand festoon of evergreens and artificial flowers. At the south end of the hall were placed the silver clubs and golf medals of the club on a stand with a background of scarlet, fringed with ivy leaves."

Captain Kinloch, resplendent in a red golfing jacket with a blue collar and gilt b.u.t.tons stamped with the cross of St. Andrew, liked what he saw. The wealthy Kinloch had paid for it all, the decorations as well as a feast for a crowd of more than 200: sheep's head broth, oatcakes, heaps of salt herring, onions, radishes and peas, grouse, ox feet, lobster and scallops, winkles, whelks, haddock and skink, flounder roasted alive over a fire, slabs of good Fife beef, sweet flummery, brandy, and snuff. Club members toasted the Queen's health and Captain Kinloch's as drinks before supper led to drinks with supper, the meal starting at one in the morning, followed by dancing and drinks.

Around three A.M. A.M., R&A members began leaving the Town Hall, some staggering, for their carriages, homes, and hotels. At four, music and voices still drifted from the Town Hall.

A week after the great R&A Ball, more than forty golfers vied for a 50 purse in Aberdeen. Davie Strath led at the midpoint but folded in the face of a late charge by Tommy. They were essentially touring professionals now, earning enough to make their expenses and a comfortable living besides. Tommy and Strath were planning a series of singles matches for the following year, duels that would draw golf fanatics by the thousands. Tommy thought they could get town councils to put up purses for both players, an idea that was sure to scandalize old-timers who believed the only pure match was winner-take-all.

Back home in St. Andrews, he was on his way to the links when he pa.s.sed Alexander Kinloch. According to a story still told in St. Andrews, Tommy paid the R&A captain no attention.

"Stop," the captain said. "You'll tip your cap to a gentleman."

Tommy stopped. He examined the captain, a man with mottled skin and gray whiskers, wearing a red golfing jacket and white leather breeches. "I would if I saw one," he said.

Dapper Tom Kidd cut grooves in his irons before challenging Tommy at the 1873 Open.

Surprises.

Late in November the skies put on a rare show. First the Merry Dancers appeared, and within an hour those eerie red and yellow-green lights were pierced by buckshot-cl.u.s.ters of meteors that made white scratches in the northern lights.

Townspeople hurried to watch. They pointed at the sky. They stood on the beach and on The Scores, the seaside road that runs along the bluffs east of the links-families with small children riding on their fathers' shoulders, young couples with maiden aunts in tow as chaperones, schoolboys running and laughing. The Morrises came out, all but Nancy, stuck in her sickbed. Thirteen-year-old Jack rode his wheeled trolley, his head at waist level in the crowd, Tommy and Jimmy making sure no one b.u.mped him or blocked his view of the falling stars, which appeared in cl.u.s.ters, each one making what the Citizen Citizen called "a trail of mellow light in the sky." Tom Morris, looking up, may have recalled other meteor showers in other years when looking up didn't make his neck ache. called "a trail of mellow light in the sky." Tom Morris, looking up, may have recalled other meteor showers in other years when looking up didn't make his neck ache.

Townspeople talked about the Merry Meteors for weeks. Many said they were surely an omen for the coming year of 1873. The trouble was that no one could decide what they portended.

Tom had reason to regard the new year with suspicion. He would have been aghast at his son's insulting the Captain of the Royal and Ancient. I would if I saw one! I would if I saw one! The line would be repeated on the links, in the streets, and in the pine corridors of the R&A clubhouse. Such an insult called for an apology, but Tommy would sooner bite through his tongue. If Captain Kinloch received an apology, Tom made it. As St. Andrews' best diplomat, he would have spent months deflecting and de-emphasizing the insult, saying again and again how proud Tommy would be to defend his Open t.i.tle here at home in the coming fall of 1873, for the greater glory of St. Andrews and the R&A. The line would be repeated on the links, in the streets, and in the pine corridors of the R&A clubhouse. Such an insult called for an apology, but Tommy would sooner bite through his tongue. If Captain Kinloch received an apology, Tom made it. As St. Andrews' best diplomat, he would have spent months deflecting and de-emphasizing the insult, saying again and again how proud Tommy would be to defend his Open t.i.tle here at home in the coming fall of 1873, for the greater glory of St. Andrews and the R&A.

Tommy escaped the resentments of his hometown by taking a job fifty miles away. He had turned down offers to be a resident professional at Blackheath, Westward Ho and North Berwick, but when the officers of a fledgling club in Stirling, a two-hour train ride from St. Andrews, offered him such a post a few weeks before Easter, he surprised them by accepting. According to the club's records, "his terms were 30 a week and traveling expenses. His duties were to teach and play with the members." Thirty s.h.i.+llings was a relative pittance, less than a fifth of the 8 he'd earned in a day at the last Open. He often won 20 in a match, more than three times what Stirling would pay for a month's work. But there were few money matches in early spring, and he'd be free to leave at the end of April. While dreaming of life as a touring professional, he could try being a club professional, teaching lessons to gouty gentlemen, setting their handicaps, selling them clubs and b.a.l.l.s. It would be easy. It would please his parents. And if the Champion Golfer tired of his duties he could always look up at the castle.

Stirling's seven-hole course, ringed by wooded hills, looped through sun and shade under the stone walls of Stirling Castle, which rose from a 250-foot shelf of mottled black rock overlooking the course. Tommy remembered his father's telling him that Mary Queen of Scots was crowned up there when she was an infant, too young to sit up on her throne. The gentlemen of Stirling Golf Club told him another bit of local lore: In 1507 the Queen of Scots' grandfather, King James IV, employed a royal alchemist, John Damian, at Stirling Castle. The great Damian weaved himself a pair of enormous wings made of chicken feathers, and one day he mounted the castle wall and flew off. Straight down the wall to a crash landing in a dunghill.

Tommy may have seen his time at Stirling as a reiteration of Damian's trajectory. The club members were not bad fellows but they were dreadful golfers. As their professional he needed endless patience, and his month at Stirling may have increased Tommy's regard for his father, who spent long hours with men whose idea of a golf swing included clenched eyes and dancing feet. When a gentleman golfer swung twice before popping the ball fifty yards, Tom Morris would smile and call the shot "a clout, well played!" But when the Stirling golfers held their first tournament, it took all the tact Tommy could summon to tell a newspaperman that he was pleased with the zigzag spectacle. The subsequent item in The Field The Field told of the new club's "compet.i.tion for the silver Challenge Cup...won by Mr. Robert Shand (Stirling) with 99 strokes.... Tom Morris, jun., from St. Andrews, acted as umpire, and expressed himself satisfied with the play." told of the new club's "compet.i.tion for the silver Challenge Cup...won by Mr. Robert Shand (Stirling) with 99 strokes.... Tom Morris, jun., from St. Andrews, acted as umpire, and expressed himself satisfied with the play."

On May Day, the traditional start of summer in Scotland, Tommy took an eastbound train from Stirling Station, leaving the life of a hireling behind.

In summer, dandelions and half-inch daisies spring from a links already dotted with golf b.a.l.l.s. Fast-moving clouds cast shadows that pa.s.s over golfers like premonitions. Tommy was glad to be home, winning matches on the St. Andrews links where he would soon defend his four Open t.i.tles. His insult to the Captain forgiven if not forgotten, he was golf's leading citizen, a hero with a leonine mustache and Balmoral bonnet, swinging all-out in the style every local boy copied: right knee knuckling inward as his backswing began, trunk twisting to its limit as his left shoulder turned under his chin. "Every muscle of his well-knit frame was summoned into service," one writer recalled. "He stood well back from the ball, and with das.h.i.+ng, pressing, forceful style of driving, which seldom failed, sent it whizzing on its far and sure flight."

R&A golfers crowded the links until grouse season opened in August and they went shooting on the moors. In July and early August they played high-stakes golf matches. Tommy often joined them. He could only shake his head at their occasional club-throwing, foot-stamping fits, wondering how a man could hit two awful shots in a row and then curse fate when, wrapping his elbows around his ears on the backswing, he hit a third. "The Links," wrote Pastor Boyd, "are sometimes a place of awful language: such are the temptations of Golf." Boyd recalled a "peppery" match during which the Reverend John Tulloch, head of the divinity college at St. Andrews University and one of the queen's chaplains, offered his partner a swing tip. The man shook his club in Rev. Tulloch's face and cried, "No directions! I'll take no directions!" Another golfer was so profane that his R&A brethren, who called him Mr. Dammit, joked that rather than driving himself into the club, he swore himself in.

Unlike other professionals who were paid at the gentlemen's whim, Tommy insisted on getting his couple of crowns before he hit a ball. He knew his worth, as they said. Other professionals would send a friend through the crowd with hat in hand, begging, "Silver, if you please, sir?" Tommy was too proud for that-entirely too proud for a greenkeeper's son, some said. Did he not personify the greed, gall, and common ambition that were the ugliest aspects of modern life? As the preacher James Baldwin Brown said of Tommy's generation, "nothing is more detestable...than the air of self-a.s.sertion and independence in the young." Tommy, who was better educated than many R&A members, was known to correct them when they misspoke-as if being right could undo the social defect of his birth. The gentlemen preferred his father, who never spoke out of turn or looked them too hard in the eye. Old Tom had a genius for tact. He had a way of lowering his head to the perfect degree when speaking to a gentleman, showing deference without being slavish about it.

Tom's diplomacy was tested again when Tommy and Davie Strath capitalized on a kind of golf that gentlemen scorned. The young professionals began staging their own events, singles matches that drew large, raucous crowds. Their matches were good theater because they were perfect opposites: Tommy's brio vs. Strath's cool technique, fire vs. ice. And to the dismay of the men who had controlled the sport, young Morris and Strath were not content to perform for their betters' amus.e.m.e.nt, giving gentlemen something to bet on and then pa.s.sing the hat for themselves. Instead Morris and Strath launched a road show, a series of matches like the great boxing bouts of the next century. Such matches had always been winner-take-all, but Tommy and Davie demanded-and got-what would come to be called appearance fees. North Berwick paid them 25 each to play a match there. The North Berwick town council tried to keep the payment secret, but news leaked out and gentleman golfers huffed as if the boys had robbed a bank. One red-coated curmudgeon called such events "a deadness" that deprived the players of "their honour." Tommy seemed to enjoy tumult, which left his father stuck in the middle again, humoring the R&A men who held his future in their soft pink hands. And while Tom did not admit it, he was on Tommy's side in this matter. Tom Morris might have been old, but he was modern enough to believe that even a greenkeeper's son had a right to bargain for his work.

For a week that summer, St. Andrews was packed with golf-fanatics who spoke of little but the latest skirmish between Morris and Strath. Even R&A officers came out in the rain to watch Tommy and Davie play for an eye-catching 200. Side bets added hundreds more. Tommy was a five-to-four favorite in what The Field The Field called "the most important golf match played since 1870." On the morning of the first day's play Tommy pointed to a boy caddie named David Ayton. "Here, lad," he said, handing over his clubs. "Put these under your oxter." Young Ayton did as he was told, stowing the clubs under his armpit, and followed the Champion Golfer to the teeing-ground. called "the most important golf match played since 1870." On the morning of the first day's play Tommy pointed to a boy caddie named David Ayton. "Here, lad," he said, handing over his clubs. "Put these under your oxter." Young Ayton did as he was told, stowing the clubs under his armpit, and followed the Champion Golfer to the teeing-ground.

Strath was coming off a victory over Tommy in a celebrated match that spring. As Everard would write, Strath's "style was the very poetry of swing, the most perfectly graceful." Davie had been swinging a bit harder since his last-round collapse in the 1872 Open, his driver making a louder clack on the ball. He impressed spectators and reporters by out-driving the champion on the early holes. Still, Tommy had Strath's backers fearing a rout ten minutes into their three-day, 108-hole contest. He won the first two holes, one with a stymie. But at the simple sixth Tommy lashed a long drive that found wet sand in one of the Coffin bunkers. He flailed twice without escaping and surrendered the hole. Strath gained another hole coming in and the first of the day's two rounds ended even. After a rainy luncheon break and another eighteen holes-Tommy sinking a pair of long putts, Strath answering with two of his own-they were deadlocked with two days and seventy-two holes to go. "Considering the wet state of the gra.s.s, better play has seldom if ever been seen on any course," the Citizen Citizen declared. declared.

The next day Tommy led by a hole with one to play in the morning round, but stumbled at the short Home Hole, where he always expected to make three. With his gutty in an iffy lie, he chose valor over discretion. He swung hard, the ball squirted to a worse lie, he made six and they were tied again.

In the afternoon round, beginning the second half of the 108-hole contest, the black-clad Strath out-drove and outputted the champion to take command of the match. His supporters sent him off the Home green with a round of hoorahs. With seventy-two holes played and thirty-six to play tomorrow, Davie Strath slept that night-tried to sleep-with a four-hole lead.