Competitive Highlights
Morris worked as a greenkeeper, clubmaker, ballmaker, golf instructor, and course designer, as well as playing match and tournament golf. He came second in the first Open Championship in 1860, and won the following year. He followed this up with further victories in 1862, 1864 and 1867. He still holds the record as the oldest winner of The Open Championship at 46. Also, he was part of the only father/son couple being winner and runner-up.
Morris held the record for the largest margin of victory in a major championship (14 strokes in the 1862 Open Championship), which stood until Tiger Woods won the 2000 U.S. Open by 15 strokes. He became the second player to break 80 over the Old Course, scoring 79; Robertson had been the first to do it. Once his son Young Tom Morris became an accomplished player in his own right by his mid-teens, in the mid-1860s, father and son formed a team for challenge matches, usually played by alternate shot (foursomes play), where they proved very successful. Their partnership, although not exclusive, would continue until the death of Young Tom in 1875.
Read more about this topic: Old Tom Morris
Famous quotes containing the word competitive:
“Women of my age in America are at the mercy of two powerful and antagonistic traditions. The first is the ultradomestic fifties with its powerful cult of motherhood; the other is the strident feminism of the seventies with its attempt to clone the male competitive model.... Only in America are these ideologies pushed to extremes.”
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