Hugh Philp Putter
Attributed to Young Tom Morris
(Ex-Bernard Darwin Collection)
Young Tom Morris was the finest golfer of his generation. In fact, even though he died at the tender age of 24, he very well may be the greatest golfer that ever lived. Unfortunately, Tommy Morris has been the subject of much frustration for golf collectors, as very few pieces of Young Tom Morris memorabilia exist.
In fact, only a couple golf clubs can even loosely be attributed Young Tom himself. The last such example to reach the auction block, also a Hugh Philp club, sold for $113,250 in 2005.
The offered Hugh Philp putter was the prized possession of famed golf writer Bernard Darwin for decades. And after Darwin’s death in 1961, it remained on display attributed to Young Tom Morris at the Dormy House at Rye Golf Club for the next 30 years. Then, in order to raise money for the Dormy House, it was sold in the January 1991 Phillips Auction to its current owner where it has been a key piece in one of the finest golf collections in the world.
Darwin wrote about this very golf club in his 1946 book Golfing Bypaths on page 191:
“I possess one ancient wooden putter myself, bearing the name Philp, and I enjoyed an unspeakable thrill when I once showed it to Simpson, the professional at Rye, who is a St. Andrews man. He saw a little mark cut in the shaft just below the leather, and said he would bet that the club once belonged to Young Tommy, since that was the mark he always made on his clubs. The pedigree of the club, as I have it, is that it passed from Bob Kirk, the father, to Bob Kirk the son, and whether or not it went through Tommy’s hands I shall never know now, but the possibility that it did and the grounds for such a belief are at least extremely romantic.”
Darwin’s 1946 assessment of this golf club is both detailed and honest. He readily admits that he will never know whether the club was used by Young Tom Morris. But he also provides a fantastic detail about a St. Andrean with apparent personal knowledge as to the way Tommy Morris would mark his golf clubs. But what we do not know is whether Darwin was showing the club to Simpson because he himself had been told the club was used to Tommy Morris or if Simpson was the first to being up this fact. Darwin unfortunately leaves out this hugely important fact, which completely changes the narrative depending on the answer. Had Darwin himself been told of the possible Young Tom Morris connection? We're encouraged by the fact that Darwin rather casually mentions the club's provenance -that it originated from Old Tom Morris caddie Bob Kirk, Sr., a lifelong friend of the Morris family. Bob Kirk, Sr. also finished 2nd to Young Tom at both the 1869 and 1870 Open Championships.
This thorn head Hugh Philp putter measures 36”. It has its original shaft and grip, and the shaft has an identifying “nick” just below the grip. Quite interestingly, the famous golf club book The Clubmaker's Art (Second Edition) identifies an iron that is believed to have been owned by both Tom Morris (one of them) and by Alan Robertson. But though the shaft is stamped with the name "Morris" (as an owner, not clubmaker), the author attributes the intentional shaft nicking on the club to Robertson.