Personal Life and Death
In a team match on 11 September 1875 at North Berwick, with the Morrises facing brothers Willie and Mungo Park, Young Tom received a telegram from home requesting his immediate return; his pregnant wife, Margaret Drinnen, had gone into a difficult labour. Only two holes remained in the match; Old Tom and Young Tom finished the match, winning, and hurried home by ship across the Firth of Forth and up the coast, but when Young Tom got there both his wife and newborn baby were dead. Young Tom was broken-hearted and died almost four months later on Christmas Day. He was still only 24. A heart attack was the official cause of death; Young Tom had also played and won a marathon challenge match in terrible weather a few weeks earlier, and this may have weakened him.
Read more about this topic: Young Tom Morris
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