Back of the Card
Author: Stephen Proctor
Written: 2019
Length: 169 pages (217 including various appendices)
Who Should Read This Book: Everyone with any interest in the following: Scotland, golf history, professional golf, and those capable of appreciating greatness in general. Without Tommy Morris, the life of your favorite professional golfer would look a lot different. Want to know why? Then do yourself a favor and find out why Tommy was more than just Old Tom’s son who “died of a broken heart”.
Golf fans had never experienced a season as scintillating as the one that awaited them in 1870, a year that deserves to be remembered as long as the game is played.
Imagine you’re an NBA player whose accolades at the age of 24 read as follows:
- Son of an all time great NBA player
- #1 NBA draft pick
- 4 championships
- 6 All-NBA First Team selections
- 2 MVPs
- Broke multiple scoring records
- Changed the way the game is played and officiated due to your unique abilities
- Paved the way for generations of future stars and superstars to change their family’s fortunes
You’re basically Kobe mixed with Steph Curry and at 24 you still have the prime of your career ahead of you. Sounds pretty great, right? Except, now imagine you die at 24 by sneezing too hard and falling off the top of a Ferris Wheel. Your funeral is filled with people who knew the real you and mourn the tragedy of tremendous potential snuffed out far too soon.
Unfortunately, as time marches on, all people really remember about you is that you came from a prominent family, you died by falling off a Ferris Wheel, and oh yea, you were maybe kind of good at basketball in a bygone era. How infuriated would your ghost be?
Every time Tommy made a putt – at least it seemed as if it was every time – he would look over to his caddie and say, ‘Pick it out of the hole, laddie.’ With that he would stride confidently off the green, leaving the putt to drop in just as he predicted.
Over the years that has been the fate of Tommy Morris aka Young Tom Morris. At his untimely death at 24 years old, Tommy’s resume’ read as follows:
- Four-time Open Championship winner
- Youngest Open Championship winner ever (17 years old)
- Winner of the Challenge Belt (I bet you didn’t even know there was a Challenge Belt, right? That’s because it was only given to the first person to win the Open Championship three times in a row)
- First hole-in-one in Open Championship history
- Revolutionized golf through his wild swings, creative shot shapes, and generation of record purses
- Essentially created professional golf as we know it today
This isn’t a LeBron and Bronny situation, this is a far better Ken Griffey and Ken Griffey Jr. situation. Yet, if you ask the average person what they know about Young Tom Morris you almost invariably get one of four answers:
- He was the son of Old Tom Morris
- He died of a broken heart
- Never heard of him
- 1 and 2
Is that not insane? I think it is and so does Stephen Proctor. Proctor, an author, golf historian, and a host of The Duffer’s Literary Companion (a personal favorite podcast), uses Monarch of the Green as a platform to remind everyone that when they talk about the greatest golfers of all time they better mention Young Tom Morris.
Tommy was so good for business that the prizes put up to lure him and other top players nearly doubled…
Proctor’s writing hearkens back to a time when men were allowed to be larger than life. When they were allowed to be heroes. In an era where we often build up athletes into Supermen just so we can feed them kryptonite, Proctor’s brand of hero worship is a breath of fresh air. The best part? Monarch of the Green deals purely in fact. There’s no artistic license, no hyperbole, no “filling in the blanks”. Tommy Morris doesn’t need that. Tommy’s accomplishments weather any storm of critique or criticism and when you read Proctor’s writing you can tell he knows that even the slightest embellishment would not only dishonor Young Tom Morris’s legacy, but would run counter to the very goal that Proctor set out to achieve.
Tommy was a champion golfer in the truest sense, but as with many historical greats he served many roles. Son, father, husband, brother, friend, visionary, and icon. The life of a champion is hardly ever lived in isolation and Proctor takes great pains to illustrate how Young Tom’s relationships shaped Tommy as a man at least as much as they shaped him as a golfer. Doubtless, Tommy’s heart must have been broken by the loss of his wife and child. Indeed, he intimated as much to his friend J.G. Denham during one of the last rounds before his passing. However, to distill him down to “Old Tom’s son. The golfer that died of a broken heart.” is far too reductive for the spirit to bear.
If Tommy was the Wilt Chamberlain of his era,- he wasn’t, he was far too successful in championship settings to be fairly compared to Wilt – Proctor would want you to know it was because he averaged 50 points per game one season, not because of anecdotes that he bench pressed 500lbs. As I’m sure Mr. Proctor would tell you, Monarch of the Green is for facts. There is room for the legends and tall tales as well, but they are best shared around a roaring fireplace with a wee dram in hand and good friends around.
Every generation would see the rise of a new King of Clubs whose heroics raised the level of play, drew new acolytes to golf and propelled the game into the future.
The Awards
The Don’t Do This Award: The cover is fine. Nothing wrong with it, but it’s lacking something that grabs me. If you’re looking for an absolute 10/10 cover then look no further than Proctor’s sequel, The Long Golden Afternoon.
The Darwin Award: (line most fit to survive) Ironically, my original plan for the Darwin Award was to use the best written line in a book as an homage to Bernard Darwin. However, Mr. Proctor beat me to it on his must-listen podcast, The Duffer’s Literary Companion. The Darwin Award is now named for Charles Darwin and goes to the line that is most fit to survive.
Mr. Proctor did not make this easy on me. However, if I had to pick one enduring piece of writing from this book it would be:
Young Tom tried to tear the golf course apart – and did it with a swaggering bravado that could have rubbed people up the wrong way. But Tommy had that rarest of gifts, a personality so winning that all sins are forgiven. Contemporaries remember his amiable qualities and his cheerful disposition in foursomes, even with gentlemen who played horribly.
When you read that, it should be easily understandable how someone with such qualities could revolutionize the game.
The Throwing Darts Award: 122 Book Darts on a 169 page book is a testament to the depth of Proctor’s research, knowledge, and the skill with which he shared them.
The Planet Ice Award: Nope! Monarch of the Green perfectly encapsulates Tommy Morris’s impact on the game and the rank he held among the greats of his era. The title is classy and on the nose without being heavy handed. It is simply one more excellent tribute to Tommy Morris, Scotland’s King of Clubs.
There is a tired cliche that is trotted out when convenient: “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Always one to run counter to convention, Young Tom once again proves to be the exception to the rule. In the minds of the average golfer, Young Tom is at best an afterthought and at worst an unknown. People do not remember, but we have not since been granted the blessing of condemnation to repeat what it was like to have Young Tom Morris grace the linksland since his passing.
If you have any love for this game in your heart, you must read this book. Read it, reread it, and then maybe read it again. Once you’ve truly finished Monarch of the Green, I urge you to pick up Proctor’s sequel The Long Golden Afternoon in which you will learn about many more of golf’s greats. In the meantime, you should check out his podcast The Duffer’s Literary Companion with fellow author, Jim Hartsell. (6.0)
