St. Andrews simply unveiled the right spot to go to earlier than your spherical

You’ve obtained an early afternoon tee time on the Previous Course in St. Andrews and also you couldn’t be happier. You’re making your means by means of city, trudging onto North Road after which turning at the Dunvegan — maybe the world’s most well-known golf pub — onto a street referred to as Golf Place. It’s a becoming identify.

There’s golf retailers on the left and a rental referred to as Golf Home on the suitable. In entrance of you is the R&A Clubhouse, probably the most well-known in the complete sport, and sprawling out earlier than it’s the course itself. The 18th inexperienced is simply steps from the first tee. However there are 4 and a half hours of your future between them, which you’ve been excited about for … days? Weeks? Months? Perpetually? 

However now there’s a brand new step in your pre-round journey. Earlier than nervously leaping out onto the first tee, golfers ought to make a brand new cease on that stroll, simply throughout the street and behind the R&A clubhouse. They need to go to the latest statue on the town, unveiled this week — a tribute to Previous Tom Morris, the person who established golf as we all know it. 

The Previous Tom statue is the brainchild of some Fife locals who seemed round and didn’t see sufficient of an apparent ode to the preeminent father of the sport. A bunch of 9, led by Ronald Sandford (a good friend and golf lifer), has been working for years to place the person on show within the city that now could be greatest recognized for the game he helped foster. Sandford got here throughout an Previous Tom statue at a course in Eire and made it his private quest to ship a bronzed duplicate of Previous Tom to the doorstep of his biggest piece of labor. 

The statue was unveiled Wednesday morning in St. Andrews in a public ceremony that was attended by dozens, together with Invoice Murray, a competitor on this week’s Dunhill Hyperlinks Championship. Funded by non-public donations and native charities, the statue appears backward up the 18th gap, the place Previous Tom as soon as carried sand from the close by seaside to create the mounds that befuddle golfers and deflect their tee photographs right this moment. He stands with one knee barely bent, one hand in his pocket and the opposite holding a golf membership. At his toes is an inscription marking the years of his 4 Open Championship victories. His great-great granddaughter, Sheila Walker, who nonetheless lives above The Previous Course Store and watches golfers end their rounds, was additionally on-hand on the ceremony. 

Add it to the record of issues that make golf completely different from different sports activities. The statue of James Naismith, the inventor of basketball? It sits exterior the Nationwide Basketball Corridor of Fame, which is an efficient place for it. However nobody is touring 1000’s of miles to play pickup hoops in Springfield, Mass. There are busts of tennis greats on the Aussie Open courts in Melbourne and comparable sculptures on the grounds at Wimbledon. However did any of them principally invent the game in its most trendy kind? No. Plus, you and I can’t go play three units at Wimbledon. However you may get a tee time on the Previous Course. And you’ll pay tribute to Previous Tom earlier than you do.