I saved this as an MS Word file from a website. I have lost the link to the web site but here is the great man's speech which ran about 20 minutes.
"The Provost has given me permission to tell you that, lacking a middle initial of his own, he will, in future, be known as Robert T. Leonard. I consider that the greatest triumph I have ever won in Scotland.
"People of St Andrews, I know that you are doing me a very high honour and I want you to know that I am very grateful for it. I Appreciate the fact that my good friend, the Provost, has glossed over my first encounter with the Old Course, but I would like you to know that I did not say a lot of things that were put out that I said. But I could not play the course, and I did not think anyone else could. I ask you to remember, of course, that at the time I had attained the ripe old age of 19 years, and I did not know much about golf.
"Actually, that first time, we got along pretty good, the Old Course and me, for two rounds. I scored 151 - of course there was no wind. My boys here this week will admit that ain't bad. But I started off in the third round and the wind was blowing right in my face. That day it was really blowing! I reached the turn in 43, and when I was playing the 7th, 8th and 9th, I thought, "well, that's fine, I'll be blowing home with the wind.' Well, as I stood on the tenth tee it turned right round and it blew home all the way against me. I got a six at the tenth, and then, at the 11th, I put my shot into Hill Bunker, not Strath, as they said. They also say that when I got out of that bunker I hit my ball into the Eden. That's not so, for I never did get the ball out of Hill Bunker.
"I came back to the Old Course in 1926 to practice for the Walker Cup, but before that I had a lot of thinking and talking to a lot of transplanted Scots who knew St Andrews. I set about studying it and I pretty soon found out that local knowledge is a real important thing if you want to play that golf course. You have to study it, and the more you study the more you learn; the more you learn the more you study it. I have this to say of the Old Course, that after my chastisement she seemed to be satisfied for she never let me lose another contest. When I say that, I mean what she did to the other fellow.
"But you people of St Andrews have a sensitivity and an ability to extend cordiality in an ingenious way. When I won the 'Amateur' in 1930 and got back home, I received, through the post, a perfect miniature of the Amateur Championship Trophy. It was an exquisite thing, perfect in every detail, down to the names inscribed on it. There was an inscription on it which, at this moment, I could not trust myself to repeat. That miniature came to me with the simple message that it was from fellow-members of the R & A. It has remained my prized possession.
"Then I have another great memory. In 1936 I set out with my wife to go to the Olympic Games in Berlin. Of course, I took my clubs along with me because in those days they were very necessary impedimenta. We met some friends and planned to spend two days at Gleneagles. Well, we played two rounds there. Then I told my friends I could not be this close to St Andrews without making a pilgrimage to it. We got there before noon and had lunch. I had been playing perfectly dreadful golf, too, I can tell you. Anyhow, we finished lunch and walked to the first tee - and there were waiting about 2,000 people!
"I said to myself, "This is an awful thing to do to my friends if they have come to see me golf with the dreadful stuff I am playing." Anyway, Willie Auchterlonie and Gordon Lockhart started off with me, but Gordon stopped after two holes. By that time the crowd was about 4,000. Such a spontaneous show of warmth and affection I have never known in my life. It was such a splendid welcome you people gave me that I played the best golf I had played for four years, and certainly never since. I had a three at the second - I'm not bragging. Then I got to the sixth - in those days we were playing the old tee and I still think it's the better tee. I say so for this reason, that the second shot you have to play then is the old St Andrews run-up shot. I said to myself - "Look, Jones, these people are all expecting you to play that run-up, so don't you funk it.'
"I can tell you it was with considerable misgivings that I played the shot, but that ball ran up and on the green and it finished six feel from the flag. I holed it for a three. That, and my score, were just nothing about the inspiration of playing St Andrews. I went out in 32 and had a two at the 8th. I was so happy and in a transport almost when I reached the 11th I went over Strath going for the green and landed in a bunker that no longer exists. It was 15 feet from the hole and I went out looking for that bunker the other day and the greenkeeper told me it had never been there. I said to him you can't tell me that, because I played two shots in it in 1936.'
"That was a great day for me - and now I have this. I could take out of my life everything except my experiences at St Andrews and I would still have had a rich and full life.
"There are two very important words in the English language that are very much mis-used and abused. They are 'friend' and 'friendship'. When I say to a person, 'I am your friend,' I have said about the ultimate. When I say, "You are my friend,' I am assuming too much, for it is a possibility that you do not want to accept my friendship. When I have said as much about you and you have done so much for me, I think that when I say, 'You are my friend,' under these circumstances, I am, at the same time, affirming my affection and regard for you and expressing my complete faith in you and my trust in the sincerity of your friendship.
"Therefore, when I say now to you - 'Greetings, my friends at St Andrews, ' I know I am not presuming because of what has passed between us.
"I hope I have not been too sentimental on this theme of friendship, but it is one that is so important at this time. It is another element of the sensitivity that you people have - a wonderful, warm relationship. Friendship should be the great note of this world golf meeting, because not only people, but nations need friends. Let us hope that this meeting will sow seeds which will geminate and grow into important friendships among nations later on.
"I just want to say to you that this is the finest thing that has ever happened to me. Whereas that little cup was first in my heart, now this occasion at St Andrews will take first place always. I like to think about it this way that, now I officially have the right to feel at home in St Andrews as much as I, in fact, always have done."