Allan Robertson was one of the first professional golf players. He was recognised as the best golfer of his time. He was born in St Andrews in 1815 and was a professional ball and club maker who exported his products all over the world.
Old Tom Morris worked for Allan Morris from the time when he was 14 years old, and often played in partnership together, and the two men designed Carnoustie golf course together. They fell out, however, when Robertson caught Old Tom playing with the new "guttie" ball which he saw as a threat to the traditional "featherie" balls which he made.
Old Tom moved to Prestwick in 1851, to design and build a new golf course where he would become professional and greenkeeper. Allan Robertson died in 1859 and the British Open Championship came about as a result of his death when, in 1860, golfers at Prestwick held a competition to see who would succeed him as "Champion Golfer". Old tTom Morris struck the first shot in the competition but Willie Park from Musselburgh was the winner.
The Open, as this annual competition came to be known, is the oldest of the four major championships
The other two golfing legends cradled within the cathedral grounds are Old Tom Morris and his son Tommy. Old Tom Morris was born in a house in North Street, St Andrews and was apprenticed to Allan Robertson for four years and spent another five years as his journeyman. After being fired by Robertson and moving to Prestwick in 1851, he returned to St Andrews in 1865 as greenkeeper and professional on the Old Course which had fallen into poor condition after Allan Robertson's death.
Old Tom stayed in the post of greenkeeper and professional until 1903. He died just before his 87th birthday in 1908 when he fell down a flight of stairs at the New Golf Club.
The story of Young Tom Morris is a tale of blazing talent mixed in with tragedy. Son of Old Tom, Young Tom was born in St Andrews in 1851 and was raised in Prestwick where, since his father was designer, professional and greenkeeper of the course, he had plenty of opportunity to play golf.
He showed great talent at the game and won his first Open in 1868 at the age of seventeen. He then won again in 1869, 1870 and 1872. His was the first name to be engraved on the famous Claret Jug when it was purchased in 1873.
Tom and his father often played in exhibition matches, and it was during one such match in North Berwick in 1875 that word came to Young Tom that his wife, Margaret, had gone into labour. There were only two holes left to play, so father and son finished and won the match and hurried home by ship.
By the time they reached St Andrews both mother and baby had died. Heartbroken, Young Tom died on Christmas morning 1875. The official cause of death was given as a heart attack.
Golfers from all over the world visit these graves to pay their respects and leave tributes to the Great Old Man of Golf and to the rising star whose life was so tragically cut short
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