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'It's just a surrounding' If Old Tom Morris could hear his last surviving relative
By Yi-Wyn Yen, Sports Illustrated ST. ANDREWS, Scotland -- Sheila Mould leans her elbows against the window sill and looks out from her second-story flat at 7 The Links. It's early afternoon and below, she watches five-time British Open champion Tom Watson and Miguel Angel Jimenez finish the third round on the 18th green. A crowd of a couple thousand clap and cheer. Mould sighs. She appears annoyed. "Really," she said. "The nicest time is when there is not an Open championship here." Nevermind that her great-great grandfather Old Tom Morris is probably rolling in his grave a mere half-mile away. But for the millions of golf fans on the other side of the pond, Mould's lack of appreciation for having one of the best seats at the British Open seems blasphemous. Mould, the only surviving direct descendant of Old Tom, lives at the home of golf in an 18th-century stone-and-mortar building near the first tee and 18th hole. Old Tom spent most of his life there, helping to develop the rules of golf and making hickory clubs and gutta percha golf balls until he died at the residence in 1908. There isn't any golfer Mould particularly fancies. She doesn't really care if Tiger Woods is leading the British Open at 16 under and is en route to becoming the youngest player and only the fifth to complete the Grand Slam on the oldest course in the world. Mould would much prefer to write in the quiet evenings and look out her window to see the rolling hills of nearby Dundee, St. Andrews Bay and the West Sands beach -- the famous scene from "Chariots of Fire." Instead, the views are blocked by grandstands the size of a "football stadium." "The Open has become slightly over the top and has gotten very, very commercialized," she said. "It's an artificial situation. Without it, you can see all the weather and the beautiful scenes and a few local playing golf. To me, that's what it's all about." Coming from a legendary golfing family, Mould's indifference to the historical relevance of Woods' winning at St. Andrews is peculiar. An art history Masters student, she would much rather talk about the arts and crafts movement than the history of golf.
Old Tom and his son, Young Tom, reeked of St. Andrews. They remain the oldest and youngest winners of the British Open. Both won the title four times in the first 12 years of the tournament. Old Tom finished runner-up to Willie Park in the first championship held in 1860. He won the following year and claimed the third British Open by 13 strokes, the widest margin of victory at a major championship that stood for 138 years. Woods broke the record last month when he won the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach last month by 15 shots. As caretaker of St. Andrews from 1865-1903, Old Tom widened some fairways and built the first and 18th greens as they remain today. More than 100 years before Mould would look out her window with disdain, Old Tom was known to lean out of the second-story window to chat with the locals and to scold boys for practicing their putting on the 18th green. "They're just names to me," she said. "It's very difficult to stand back and analyze what it all means. It's my home. It's just a surrounding." Mould didn't grow up learning about Old Tom Morris. She learned about antiques and plants from her mother, Doreen. When Doreen died in 1996, Mould inherited the house and moved back from Edinburgh, where she had worked as a librarian in medical schools for 31 years. Mould, 55, is studying at the University of St. Andrews and is completing her art history dissertation this August. She lives alone and often relaxes in her backyard garden filled with day lilies. The Tom Morris Golf Shop sells shirts, hats and souvenirs on the floor below at 8 The Links. It is run by the Old Tom Morris Ltd. and once served as Old Tom's club-making shop. Though the Old Course drips with history and is considered the birthplace of golf, for most her life Mould didn't even like golf. She took golf lessons at a young age, but detested it. After moving back to 7 The Links and watching the locals play, she decided to pick up the game a year ago. She practices at the Himalayas putting green across from the first fairway and plays at the nearby beginners courses, Balgove and Strathtyrum. "I'll never play the Old Course. I'd be too embarrassed to tee off on the first hole, but I've come to adore the game," she said. After a short pause, she added, "I guess that is part of my history."
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