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

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

The definitive account of golf's founding father and son, Old and Young Tom Morris. For the first time, the two will be portrayed as men of flesh and blood - heroic but also ambitious, loving but sometimes confused and angry. Two men from one household, with ambitions that made them devoted partners as well as ardent foes.

Read more

Tommy's Honour is a compelling story of the two Tom Morrises, father and son, both supremely talented golfers but utterly different, constituting a record-breaking golfing dynasty that has never been known before or since.

Father, Old Tom Morris, grew up a stone's throw away from golf's ancestral home at St Andrews, a whisky-fuelled caddie, a wonderful 19th century character who became an Open Champion three times before running the Royal & Ancient, then sole governing body of the game. His son, Young Tom, arguably an even more prodigious talent than his father, was a golfing genius, the Tiger Woods of his era, who at 17 became the youngest player, to this day, to win the Open Championship. He then went on to win it four times in a row, an unprecedented achievement. On one occasion, father and son fought it out at the last hole of the Championship before the son finally triumphed.

But then came the pivotal day that would change their lives forever, the death of Young Tom's wife and unborn child. The cataclysmic events of that day eventually lead to Young Tom's tragic death, aged 24, with his father living on for another 20 years in deep remorse.

So on the one hand, you have the story of one of the most influential figures in the history of golf, a pioneer in the birth of the modern game and of Scottish and Open Championship golf. And on the other hand - and this is the real appeal of this book - you have an extraordinary father-and-son story. It's for every son who ever competed with his father, and every father who has guided his son towards manhood, then found it hard to let go.

Audience
adult

Click a tag to see books like this one that share it. Point at it (on a phone, tap it) for less of it instead.

Read it? Sign in to help tag it.

Liked Tommy's Honor: The Story of Old Tom Morris and Young Tom Morris, Golf's Founding Father and Son? Here’s where I’d start.

These suit anyone who liked Tommy's Honor: The Story of Old Tom Morris and Young Tom Morris, Golf's Founding Father and Son. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.

  1. The Match: The Day the Game of Golf Changed Forever Shares golf, sports, nonfiction
  2. Hogan Shares golf, sports, biography
  3. Teaching the Pig to Dance: A Memoir of Growing Up and Second Chances Shares biography, nonfiction
  4. Jack Nicklaus: My Story Shares golf, sports, biography

“People who read Tommy's Honor: The Story of Old Tom Morris and Young Tom Morris, Golf's Founding Father and Son tend to reach for these next.”

  1. Jeff Corwin: A Wild Life: The Authorized Biography
  2. In the Valley of the Kings: Howard Carter and the Mystery of King Tutankhamun's Tomb
  3. The Gates of November
  4. White Heat: The Friendship of Emily Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson

“If you want more of the same (biography about sports), start with these.”

  1. Alex Ferguson: My Autobiography
  2. Chris Hoy
  3. There's an Awful Lot of Bubbly in Brazil: The Life and Times of a Bon Viveur
  4. This Is Me

“If it was the golf that hooked you, try one of these.”

  1. My Life in and out of the Rough: The Truth Behind All That Bull**** You Think You Know About Me
  2. A Golfer's Life
  3. Ben Hogan: An American Life
  4. One Magical Sunday:

“These start from a similar idea, even if they go somewhere else with it.”

  1. 18 Holes with Bing: Golf, Life, and Lessons from Dad
  2. Walking with Jack: A Father's Journey to Become His Son's Caddie
  3. Harvey Penick's Little Red Book: Lessons and Teachings From a Lifetime of Golf
  4. The Magnificent Masters: Jack Nicklaus, Johnny Miller, Tom Weiskopf, and the 1975 Cliffhanger at Augusta