Old Tom was good enough to give me his friendship from the very first moment I came to St. Andrews, prompted thereto, as I think, largely by a comment that one or two of the old stagers made to him that my style was not unlike young Tommy's. I am sure that even at that time this must have been a comparison not quite just to that great young player of old, for although it is more than likely that I have cherished very many illusions in regard to my golf, I am quite sure that I have never been so deluded as to deem my style either good or graceful. But the criticism was endorsed by Tom and gave me a place in his heart. There was another point in which he gave me praise (he could give no higher) for a likeness to his talented lost son:--"Ye're like Tammie--ye'll tak' a' as much pains over a short putt as a long yin." Anything that had to do with a short putt touched the dear old man in a very sensitive place, for he was the worst short putter, for a great golfer, that ever was. It is known that Mr. Wolfe-Murray once addressed a letter to him, when on a visit to Prestwick, "The Misser of Short Putts, Prestwick," and the postman carried it straight to Tom. His own way was, in his sheer terror of missing the putt, to get done with it as quickly as possible, and often he would just go up to the ball and hit it in a nervous hurry, without looking at the line at all, so that he hardly gave himself a ghost of a chance of holing. He had a way, too, of dragging back the ball, with a quick movement of his putter, the moment it had missed the hole, to try the putt over again, and this habit had such possession of him, that I am quite certain I have often seen him snatch the ball back long before it came to the hole at all, and even, sometimes, when it would have gone in had he not done so. Once, but once only, I saw him beat his putter on the ground so hard after a missed putt that the shaft broke. I think it must have been sprung before, for he did not really give it such a very severe strain, but of course that was quite overlooked, and the joke served for many a day to tease the old man with--as "Tom, what is this I hear? Getting in such a rage that you're breaking all your clubs! Awful!" The poor old man would smile despairingly and generally solace himself with some quotation from his dearly loved poet Burns. "Scotland wi' a' thy faults I lo'e thee still" was his most favourite text for consolation. [Illustration: "Old Tom."] [Illustration: Douglas Rolland and Archie Simpson (driving.) (Archie was younger brother of the Jack Simpson mentioned in this chapter.)] CHAPTER XI FIRST DAYS AT ST. ANDREWS