Customer Reviews

Tommy's Honor: The Story of Old Tom Morris and Young Tom Morris, Golf's Founding Father and Son

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If you're a golf history nut, or just interested in late 1800's-early 1900's, you'll love this book. If you just like to know more about the great game of golf, this is your book. Kevin Cook brings the world of St. Andrews and Scotland to life. You can just about smell the oil lamps burning on the streets or the low tide blowing in from the North Sea. Oh, and the history of Tom Morris and his son, Tommy, is just amazing. I felt like I was reading a novel but is was true! If you love golf or know someone that loves the game you must get this book. It's a classic.

Kevin Cook's poignant biography of the Morrises brings Tom and Tommy alive for his readers. It's much more than a story of their lives. It's about fathers and sons, families, social classes, golf, and the birth of the touring golf professional.

Tom's story gives us a keen insight into golf and a golfer's life in the second half of the 19th century. Many aspects of golf have changed over the years and, surprisingly, many have remained exactly as they were 150 years ago.

The reason for the seemingly strange title is revealed in the final sentence of the book.

This book should be on every golfer's Best-Sellers list.

If I were to recommend a single book to read about the famous Morris family, it would be Kevin Cook's Tommy's Honor: The Story of Old Tom Morris and Young Tom Morris, Golf's Founding Father and Son. Many of us know the familiar history of these men - of Old Tom's falling out with famous ball maker and player Allan Robertson, and of Young Tom dying of a broken heart on Christmas Day. This book goes beyond that and reveals fascinating layers of their lives previously unexamined.

This work is a wonderfully crafted narrative along the lines of Mark Frost's The Greatest Game Ever Played. It draws on facts gleaned from numerous sources, including contemporary newspaper accounts, and creates a compelling story of father and son. We are taken inside their lives in equal measure. We can feel the cold water of St. Andrews Bay as Old Tom goes for his morning swim, we are inside Allan Robertson's kitchen as Tom makes feathery balls for him. We witness his big money matches, we move with Tom, wife Nancy and baby Tommy to Prestwick, we win Opens with him and then return to St. Andrews and follow Young Tom's ascendency to golf immortality.

The enduring impact Old Tom had as Keeper of the Green at St. Andrews and his lasting legacy on the game of golf is developed quite thoroughly. Cook even touches on the class differences between Tom and the men of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews he served. Old Tom is portrayed as a man with great dedication to his family and profession. Beyond that, he also possessed a steady, dignified grace. The following passages are illustrative of both Cook's scholarship and expressive style:

"For greens other than the one at the wet High Hole he used clay pipes as hole liners. The pipes, made in nearby Kincaple, happened to be four and a quarter inches in diameter. Due to a quirk of the Kincaple brickworks, four and a half inches became the standard diameter of the cup on every green. While Tom mended the course, his son hit balls. Tommy's swing would be imitated by a generation of golfers who saw themselves as his apostles."

"Watching his father kneel to tee up another man's ball set Tommy's teeth on edge. Tom, unbothered, said there was an art to making a sand tee just the right height for a golfer's swing, and applying a drop of spit to the back of the ball so that a few grains of sand stuck to it, adding backspin when it landed. There was no shame in kneeling, he said. Had not our Savior told his followers to render unto Caesar? After all, Tom said, it was not his immortal soul that bent, only his knee."

Cook's research is impressive and thorough, as he weaves together such diverse subjects as ball and club making with the development of the Old Course itself and the players who challenged the Morris's for golfing supremacy. This is done seamlessly and leaves the reader wanting to learn more about these wonderful characters.

Of special interest are new insights concerning Tommy's wife Margaret Drinnen, a "woman with a past," as the Victorian standards of the day would have labeled her. She bore an illegitimate child before moving to St. Andrews and marrying Young Tom. Less than a year later she died during childbirth, and Tommy tragically succumbed three months later of a pulmonary embolism. His early death has frozen in time our romanticized image of him.

Old Tom Morris carried on, survivor that he was. As he once said late in life, "I've had my troubles and my trials...and with the help of my God and of golf, I've gotten through somehow or another." His beloved wife Nancy, already an invalid, died just seventeen days after Tommy. Son Jack, who had been born with deformed legs, died in 1893; daughter Elizabeth passed away suddenly in 1898; and his son Jamie in 1906. Tom survived them all.

Cook has done a great service with this book. One can read Tulloch's Life of Tom Morris and come away with a better knowledge of the lives of Old and Young Tom, but it is a dry book written a century ago. Like David Joy's Scrapbook of Old Tom Morris (2001), Tommy's Honor offers a fresh look at a familiar subject.

Bob Furgeson, British Open champion (1880-82) once said that nerve, enthusiasm, and practice were the three essentials to succeed in golf. But to be great requires the gift. Tommy Morris had a gift for golf, and Kevin Cook has helped us understand the nature of that gift and the human and spiritual elements that fostered it.

This work by Kevin Cook is the best historical golf book I have ever read. Cook brings the characters to life by providing personal insights he garnered through research of local newspapers and other articles he was able to find about Old Tom and and Young Tom Morris. It is a remarkable tale that reveals details about mid 19th century life and golf in Scotland in a way that has never been accomplished before.
I highly recommend the book to any and all readers who have an interest in the beginnings of the game of golf and its founding fathers.

The mythology of St. Andrews and "Old" and "Young" Tom Morris is well known amongst most golfers with at least a passing interest in the game's history and historic figures. We know about Old Tom's innovations at St. Andrews (which was his second stop as a head greenskeeper and teacher, lasting 44 years) and Young Tom's British Open success (he won four straight championships), but it takes Kevin Cook's beautifully written account of their lives to help us really get to know them. This is a marvelous book, well-researched and well-told, about two men who had enormous impact on the game - not just at the birthplace of golf, but on its history. Reading it is a magical experience, even if you don't play the game.

In 2001 when my middle daughter was accepted to the University of St Andrews we were elated about the prospect of her studing abroad in a first class institution and she was especially excited about being a classmate of Prince William. Golf was an after thought. I had only begun playing a few years earlier and carried a 14 handicap. I read several books on the history of the town of St Andrews and played the course over a dozen times during the ensuring four years. When a friend metioned that he had read "Tommy's Honor" I was lukewarm but took his advice I ordered the book through Amazon. It was one the best written and compelling books I've ever had the chance to read. The humanity of the characters and the richness of the story line compares well with the best novels. I visited the grave site with mild curosity before but now I am making plans to return to St Andrews to play and to walk in the steps of Old and Young Tom Morris.

Fred Fernatt MA,MS,CPA,CFP

"Tommy's Honor" is a great read for the golfer or non-golfing history buff. The research is extraordinary and gives the reader an indepth look at this one slice of the pie of a very specific period in the history of golf and those who shaped the game. The book's insights into the game will be of great interest to the golfer. The narrative---Tommy's story is a great story and a great story told extremely well by the author!-- will be interesting to anyone who enjoys historical biography. This is a serious book yet easy to read. The story is one of triumph, wit and tragedy. A good history book will always generate in the reader's mind parallels to contemporary events. "Tommy's Honor" certainly does. I found that the book underscores the pretension and enforcement of class superiority that exists at most golfing clubs still today.....how club patrons perceive, disregard or denigrate the roles of "subservient" club employees while it is these same professional employees and NOT the patrons who in reality maintain and add to the history and integrity and development of the game; unsung heroes. "Tommy's Honor" is an awesome read. It's one of those books added to my bookcase and not passed on to someone else. It's a keeper!

Simply put, this has it all, from facts we all thing we know, to the lives of this family both the glorious and the very lowest God can hand to us.

Great human story, about the birthplace of golf and the characters that
shaped golf as we know it. A must read before traveling to Scotland;
great Morris family story and tragedy. Before Palmer, Nicklaus and
Woods; there was Old Tom and Tommy Morris!
Great read!

Having read just about every book on St. Andrews and the Morris family, I can say unequivically that this is the best. It covers the history of the family in wonderful detail (for the first time, Tommy's wife's background is explored) gives much more information on the relationship between Tom Sr. and Alan Robertson and explores unique history of the town itself. If you are a St. Andrews or Morris family enthusiast, this book is a must.