would not wait. Tommy gulped his tea, pulled his boots and jacket on, stuck the oatcake in a pocket and clattered out the door with his father’s clubs under his arm.
His footfalls echoed down Golf Place, a double row of dark stone houses. No one else was awake. Any caddie or gentleman golfer who was up at this hour would be hung over, cradling his headache in his hands and wishing he had died at birth. The links were empty except for gulls, crows, rabbits, a mule tethered to a post by the stationmaster’s garden, and Tom Morris, now joined by his panting son.
Tom examined his six clubs – driver, spoon, two niblicks, a rut iron and a wooden putter – and selected the driver. He took a pinch of damp sand from a wooden box by the teeing-ground and built a small sand-hill – a tee – for his ball to sit on. He took his stance and waggled his club at the ball as if to threaten it. ‘Far and sure,’ he said.
Tommy had heard the old motto a thousand times. He was supposed to repeat it, to say ‘Far and sure’ before the first swing, just as golfers had done on this spot for centuries. He was tempted to try something new, to blurt ‘Long and strong’, or ‘High and mighty!’ But he held back. His father might take offence, might turn into one of those stern Old Testament fathers he was starting to resemble. So Tommy mumbled ‘far’n’sher’ and watched the old man draw back the driver to start the slow, clockwork swing that all St Andrews golfers knew, laying the hickory shaft almost flat across his shoulders at the top, starting down slow as honey and then whipping the head of the club through the ball, which took off towards the white flag in the distance.
Tom squinted as he followed its flight. Nodding, he reached into his jacket for his pipe and pouch. He tapped a few tobacco leaves into the pipe’s bowl, lit a match and breathed blue smoke. Mum detested that smoke but Tommy loved it, the sweet reek of his father. Tom stood five foot seven, a bit above average for a Scotsman of his time, but in Tommy’s eyes he loomed larger. Tom Morris was the Champion Golfer of Scotland. He was the hero of St Andrews, the only man who could beat the golfing brutes of Musselburgh. He was the official keeper of these famous four miles of turf, the links of St Andrews. Beloved by all men – excepting jealous golf professionals, several red-coated gentlemen of the Royal & Ancient Golf Club, and the Musselburgh brutes – he was a pious churchman who was not above joking and drinking with foul-smelling caddies. Tom Morris was all these great things and one more: he was the one golfer Tommy was dying to beat.
Not to humble him, never that, but to be more like him. Not as a rival, but more like an equal. More like a man. Tommy was nearly as tall as his father, and suspected he would soon be stronger. And the more he grew, the more he believed that a boy needed to make his own name in the world. He needed to be more than his father’s caddie.
With such thoughts in his head and the scent of tobacco in his nose, Tommy took the driver from his father’s hand. He took a pinch of sand from the box, knelt to make a sand tee for his ball and then stood tall, waving the driver back and forth. His swing was short and fast: bang! Tommy’s drives didn’t always go straight, but a few went further than his father’s. This one sailed past the other ball before it bounced near Swilcan Burn, the brook that curled past the putting-green.
Tommy was thrilled. How many lads could hit a ball so far? How many grown men could?
His father was less impressed. Long or short didn’t matter so much to Tom Morris. Position mattered. Tommy’s drive was long, but too far to the left. Tom checked his pocket-watch as he set off towards the green. A minute later he was hitting again. Without a word he took the wooden niblick from Tommy and slapped a low approach the wind could not catch. His ball cleared the burn by a safe five yards and rolled to the back of the green.
Tommy faced a harder shot. There was no easy play from the left side. The only way to stop the ball near the hole would be a high, soft pitch, the opposite of the usual approach. But no one attempted such shots with the shallow-faced clubs of the day. Tommy had tried hitting shots from flat ground with the rut iron, a lofted club made for lifting a ball out of cart or wheelbarrow ruts. He found that he could make the ball drop and stop. Not every time – you had to strike it just right or you’d foozle the shot. But when it worked, the ball came down like a snowflake.
He waggled the rut iron. His father looked surprised – Tommy liked seeing that. He drew the club back, keeping his hands high, then yanked them straight down, chopping the rut iron’s heavy head into the turf. He grunted; dirt flew.
The ball squirted along the ground, bouncing two or three times before it splished into the burn. He dropped the rut iron. Damned useless stick. He lost the hole.
His father moved to the second teeing-ground a few yards away. There was no sandbox here; you fished a bit of sand from the bottom of the hole on the first green. Tom Morris fashioned his sand tee, then pulled his driver back over his shoulder – tick – and whipped it smoothly to the ball – tock. But this ball flew low. It was a ‘scalded cat’, a near-miss that skipped along the ground. On dry days a scalded cat would run out of sight, but this one kicked up dew and stopped only 120 yards out.
Tommy took his pinch of sand from the bottom of the first hole and made a perch for his ball. His father watched him take his stance. Was he aiming for Cheape’s Bunker? No sane golfer tried to clear that crater, not without a gale at his back, and the wind was blowing across the fairway. Tom shook his head – the boy was his own worst enemy.
But Tommy had a plan, and a picture in his mind. He remembered all the rounds he had played with his father, not the friendly foursomes but the singles, one against one. They were all losses. At home the old man was kind, even tender. He tucked Tommy into bed every night and they prayed together. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. But there was no kindness on the links, where Tommy was beaten again and again, leaving him to dream of the day he would win at last. A day when he told the ball to duck into the hole and down it went. A day when he willed the ball to curve in flight and it curved. Now he used the dream to picture his next shot. Pulling the driver back with his right elbow high, he brought it down and sent his drive on a beeline for Cheape’s Bunker. In mid-flight the ball curved to the right as if it knew where to go.
Sheer willpower may have helped, but so did something more tangible: the spin Tommy had applied with a swing that went from high and away from his body to low and closer, towards his left foot. That sidespin gave the ball a gentle arc from left to right, and his drive landed safely to the right of the bunker, leaving him a clear shot to the green.
‘Well played,’ his father said.
Praise from Tom Morris! That alone made this a good day. And it might get better yet, for Tommy had a secret: he was learning to make the ball curve at will.
They played fast, as always, with Tom checking his pocket-watch. He hated spending more than two hours to play eighteen holes. As he marched down the fairway he would reach over and take a club from Tommy, who carried the clubs under his armpit. Within seconds of reaching his ball, Tom began his clockwork swing and dispatched the ball on a low, straight line. He knew every cranny of the links and always took the safe route, trusting opponents to make more mistakes than he did.
Tommy played a bolder game. He was strong – the only boy his age in town who could topple a full-grown cow, not that his father would allow mischief like cow-tipping if he knew of it. On the links, Tommy swung hard and took chances. If a high-risk shot failed, he would try again. And again. He was more than fearless. He was a joyful golfer, a boy who could laugh at a terrible shot and swing harder at the next.
His ball had found a level lie near Cheape’s Bunker. The ball was a dull white gutty, made of gutta percha, the sap of a gum tree in Malaysia, a far corner of Queen Victoria’s vast empire. Hard as rock, it made a loud click at impact, like a billiard ball hitting another. This one clicked and climbed like a rocket as he slammed
