Links At St Andrews Still An Old Friend

Old Tom Morris in 1880 Photo: Hulton Archive, Getty Images

If Old Tom Morris, a four-times Open champion in the 1860s, were to reappear, how would he feel about the Old Course as it celebrates the 150th Open this coming summer? He might give a few disapproving grunts about the way new technology has forced the lengthening of certain holes. But, overall, you suspect he would view the links as an old friend. Indeed, this former “Keeper of Greens” and “Manager of Hazards” would probably greet many of the bunkers by name and, were he to fall into a chat with a party of today’s locals, the chances are that there would be an exchange of bunker stories.

In Morris’s day, there would have been the one involving the Bishop of London and his caddie, Andra Kirkaldy, a runner-up to Jamie Anderson in the Open of 1878. It went like this – when the bishop played a surprisingly good recovery from the 14th hole’s Hell Bunker and turned to Kirkaldy for a bit of praise, Kirkaldy advised that when he died he would do well to take his niblick with hi...