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| sunset at st. andrews |
Is it true, that I transcribe my memories by hand with a quill honed from the bone of a great white whale and ink from the dust of my ancestor’s bones. Does it matter? My life is a tale so fantastic that none believe it, when it is told. And, yet, for posterity’s sake, I transmit the story for the sake of my people, while briefly noting, for vanity’s sake, my family’s rightful place in the golfing records.
My father was Jonah Shipman, he was the second son of the infamous Kyntire lightkeeper and golfer of small note, Seamus Shipman (Old Seamus in his later years). When my grandfather was a younger man, he beat everyone at match play, including and especially Tom Morris. Before my grandfather became the Kyntire light keeper, he was one of the first makers of the gutta percha golf ball, a ball that revolutionized golf in its day.
In those early Prestwick days, my grandfather Seamus was a fierce competitor. He won often and some suspected with outside agency, but always with gamesmanship and brinksmanship. His matches often required a rules decision to settle the matter. After the brawl, of course. My grandfather was also prone to rubbing salt in the wounds of his vanquished a little too strenuously when in his cups in the clubhouse. That too, was often.
Old Tom Morris never beat Old Seamus at matchplay head-to-head, but got everything else he competed against Old Seamus for, namely, the pro's job at Prestwick in 1858. It drove my grandfather out of the golf business and into light keeping on the Irish side of the island. The Old Tom got the job at the Old Course and then won Open Championships, that were followed by Young Tom's championships.then his sons championships.
The feud between the two men went back to the early days of Prestwick, guess it wasn't much of a feud in anyone's head by Old Seamus, but he couldn't let it go.
, there was a feud between Old Tom and Old Seamus, a feud that dates back to the early days of Prestwick that came to tragedy off the coast of Machrihanish.
For a brief time, when challenge matches were the major competitions, he was unbeaten. But was never competitive when competition turned to counting strokes
. who fled Scotland, when the English Courts called him to testify in the wake of a shipwreck caused by the failure of the Kyntire lighthouse in 1871.
My grandfather was Seamus Shipman (Old Seamus in his later years), a noted golfer in his brief time, but forgotten now. When Old Seamus was a younger man, he used to beat everyone, at match play, including and especially Old Tom. He was master club maker and wielder of hickory sticks, the best "stuffer of feathers", and an irrascible and fierce competitor who won often. Unfortunately, my grandfather was also prone to rubbing that fact in a little too strenuously when in his cups, which was often. So there was a feud between Old Tom and Old Seamus, a feud that dates back to the early days of Prestwick that came to tragedy off the coast of Machrihanish.
In 1858, Old Seamus took the job as Kyntire lighthouse keeper and moved his family to the westernmost finger of Scotland. Wouldn’t you know it, not two years later, Old Tom helped set up the first, so-called, British Championship in 1860 and finished second, but Old Seamus really hit the roof when he heard that Old Tom won it in 1861. And things didn’t get much better as the decade progressed. Old Tom won the belt three more times, and then, to make matters worse, the son took up where the father left off and capped it by winning possession of the belt with his third consecutive victory.
Old Seamus just bristled that those Easterners, as he called them, (Old Tom and the younger) were hogging all the gaufing glory simply because he and his eldest couldn’t get time off from lighthouse duties to play in these so-called Open Championships. and everyone knew that "the true game of gauf is match play, not stroke, spell it anyway you like."
So in the Spring of 1871, when the membership of Prestwick declined to offer up a new prize, Old Seamus wrote a withering letter to his old club and challenged his rival to a challenge match, pitting the best of the east (Young Tom) against the best of the west (Young Seamus) for a prize to be determined.
Of course, there was no golf course on this westernmost finger of Scotland, except for the sheep pasture where Old Seamus taught his sons to play the ancient game. But Old Seamus was determined to have the match played on home turf, so he bought the farm and spent all that spring fashioning a rough ten-hole course on which to hold the competition. As they say, there's no rivalry like the rivalry of Old Men; and Old Tom leapt at the chance to put his old nemesis in his place, even if it was just a match played between their sons.
My father, Young Seamus and Young Tom Morris played a thirty-hole (three times around a ten-hole circuit) match which ended all square, never one in front of the other by more than a hole the entire way. But, the weather was turning might nasty at the end and so play was suspended while a great storm was rolling in off the Irish Sea. The stoppage imposed by the rule committee, but objected to by both players who were eager to finish.
Old Seamus ordered my father back to to the lighthouse to the tend the signal, whilst he and Old Tom and the committee retired to the nearest establishment to codify the terms of continuance, planned the next morning, if the storm did not pass.
As neitherYoung Seamus, nor Young Tom wanted to quit.
And so, they lingered on the links as the crowd dispersed,
and then decided to continue, sanction or not.
And so, my father sent his young brother of nine
--the lad had carried the bags for the thirty hole match--
to the lighthouse in his stead.
Something that was not 'officially' allowed, but oft happened.
and Seamus and Tom, continued on...
But young Seamus's younger brother, 'his bother' as he called him for the boy was a "bit light in the head, if not in the shoes", couldn’t bear to miss the finish of the match either, for it had been one for the ages, so far. And so the boy hid in the weeds to bear witness to the conclusion of the match, neglecting his older brother's instructions and the family duty.
For six long holes, in the screaming wind and rain it went, until Young Seamus, hit a knock-down cleek from 108 yards into 54 mile an hour gale and watched it drop into the hole for an eagle to win the match on the 36th hole.
But the glory was short-lived.
The son had disobeyed the father,
and brother neglected brother,
one stayed to play,
the other to watch.
And eighteen souls (sailors)
were set adrift at sea
drowned (or so it was thought)
off the Kyntire coast.
Fearing the vengeance of Her Majesty's Courts, my father fled Scotland, to Ireland and then on to America, by hiring out on a whaling ship. He made his way to Newfoundland, and then on to Massachussetts where he prospered in Turro in the whaling business. In 1885, he set sail on one last whaling season but he never made it back to port…the last entry found in the ship’s log noted that “The Raven" (his whaling ship) hunts a great whale..”
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| 1st tee of Machrihanish |
James Boles Shippen Jr.
