Tom,
After I answered the same question twice you have now responded with, "Phil It sounds like this is a hunch on your part, I wouldn't even call it a theory, since it has no basis in anything concrete Tilly said regarding Old Tom (the architect) or any influnece Old Tom may have had upon his design aspirations/practices."
You are so very wrong in your assumptions and conclusions of my answer(s).
First of all, EVERYTHING written on this topic is eaither a hunch or a theory as the people we are speaking of are long gone. we can ONLY go on what we believe in how we interpret the events and writings from that time period.
As regards your assertion that my "hunch" (your word, not mine) "has no basis in anything concrete Tilly said regarding Old Tom (the architect) or any influnece Old Tom may have had upon his design aspirations/practices," you are quite mistaken.
Among a number of things that Tilly wrote about Old Tom that goes directly to refuting your allegation (not meant in a negative way) is this gem:
“When golf first made its appearance in America in the early [18]90s, we pioneers in this country spoke almost in muted tones of reverence when the name of Old Tom Morris of St. Andrews, Scotland, was mentioned. To us he was nothing less than the patron saint of golf. As a matter of fact Old Tom was also regarded thus in the old country. Consequently, when I soon after came in contact with him, face to face in his wee shop, just off the home green in the City, Auld and Gray, I really felt that I was standing in the presence of the High Priest in the Holy of Holies. This was about 1896 and I had not been so long in the game. Here was a man, in his eighty’s, who for a generation had been held in veneration throughout golfdom.”
Tilly also wrote on another occasion how, "There hangs in the Golfers’ Club in New York City, a photograph of Old Tom Morris… It had been my great privilege to know the man quite well. He then was about seventy-seven years of age or thereabouts… I met him in 1896, and although I never saw him again after 1901, he did write me several brief notes..."
Another way to show that the two were far more than just mere acquaintances is the way he wrote about an evening he spent with Old Tom where he was able to get him to speak about his son.
He wrote how Young Tom "had won the British Open title
in his own right, years before, he regarded his chief claim to
distinction to the fact that he was the father of Young Tommy who had won the title easily, four times, before he died in his twenty-fifth year on Christmas day, 1875. He
grieved to death over the untimely passing of his young wife. ‘She was a bonnie lassie,’ Old Tom told me. I got to know the old man very well indeed in succeeding years, and I spent many happy hours with him in his little sitting room over
his shop. It was there that I handled the Champion’s Belt won by his son, as Old Tom got it out reverently and his eyes filled with tears as he told me many things about the boy…”
Tilly related how, “In my hands I held the silver embellished, red morocco champion’s belt that had been won outright by his son, Tommy, twenty-five years before that day. There were honest tears in the old man’s eyes as he related incidents of the last days of his boy, who had died in this old grey town of St. Andrews, as he slept before the dawn of Christmas Day in 1875. He was only twenty-four years of age… His girl wife died as their baby boy was born… Tommy was hard hit, desperately hurt, for he literally grieved himself into the grave in the old churchyard of St. Rule Cathedral, which so many have viewed at St. Andrews. Old Tom told me of their absence from home at the time, he and the boy playing a match at North Berwick, when the news came to the father, who concealed it from his son as they hurried back in a sailboat across the Firth of Forth. ‘It isna true; it canna be!’ was the cry of Tommy, and in his heart that cry of anguish echoed until he joined his lass on a Christmas morning.”
Now don't be stubborn on this one Tom... Even you can't maintain after my sharing these quotes (they are but a few from my Tilly bio) that what I answered you with is a "hunch." I think that at the very least it deserves to be upgraded to a theory!
That Tilly & Old Tom were close and that he had a profound influence on his thinking and life is true. We may disagree on the amount of this influence, but it wouldn't be GCA if we agreed!
