David Joy as Old Tom at Younger Hall, March 31, 2012
I have written about my time spent in St. Andrews, but feel the need to give a public thank you to Mr. David Joy, author, artist and the man who since 1990 has been doing his one-man show on the life of Old Tom Morris, who was kind enough to meet with me and give me a tour of his studio. Some of you may David from the commercials he made with John Cleese for Titleist golf balls a few years ago, or from his books The Scrapbook of Old Tom Morris and St. Andrews & the Open Championship. Anyway, I contacted Mr. Joy before leaving, telling him I was a big fan and asked if we might be able to meet. He thanked me for the kind words and told him to ring him when I got into town.
I did and we met for a pint and a chat at the Dunvegan, a wonderful bar/hotel two blocks from the Old Course that has a room devoted to David’s illustrations of Open Champions. The place has a warm, friendly atmosphere and before I left he invited me to come out to his studio the next week. He lives a couple of miles outside of the city in the bucolic countryside, and it’s a lovely walk to his house. He was gracious enough to allow me to spend most of the day in his company, chatting about Old Tom and golf history while he worked on an illustration for a job he was doing. He has a large collections of books in his collection and let me peruse them, and even allowed me to go out into his front yard and swing the replica clubs he has that are like those Old Tom and Allan Robertson used. Very neat stuff.
During the course of that afternoon we talked about all sorts of stuff – his dealings with Jack Nicklaus, Ben Crenshaw, and Peter Alliss, of the fun he had working with John Cleese on the commercials, of Jim Caviezal doing push-ups during the filming of Stroke of Genius, the movie about Bobby Jones, and how a scene with David was sacrificed to the cutting-room floor. Oh, I had a hell of a time. He also informed me that the first annual St. Andrews Golf Festival was to take place the following week, five days of speakers and exhibits on all things golf. How lucky could I be, I thought?
I saw him at events during the Golf Festival, including his opening night talk on Old Tom and the awards show at Younger Hall, where Bobby Jones had received the Freedom of the City award in 1958, joining Benjamin Franklin as the only Americans to be bestowed this honor. David did a Q and A session with the evening’s hostess Pat Norton for about 40 minutes, and they showed videos of Bobby Jones and Mike Reeder, a Vietnam vet who shot a 79 on the Old Course from a wheelchair in 2010. It was a wonderful evening full of emotion and the director of the festival, Richard Wax, did a heck of a job in pulling it all together.
The last night I was in St. Andrews I was able to catch up with David one last time at the Dunvegan, and bought him a couple pints as he offered his impressions of the Festival and how they can make it better. I volunteered my services for the next one, since I consider myself a good manager of projects. Before I left he showed me again the seat Tip Anderson used to occupy as a regualr of the place. Tip caddied for Arnold Palmer and helped Tony Lema win the 1964 Open. People come and people go, I thought to myself, but the memories remain and nobody can take those from us.
David told me before we parted that night that we’d keep in touch, and I hope we do. He is a character in the nicest sense of the word, an artist, an actor, a scholar, a wonderful raconteur (have him tell you the story of Gladys Cheape and the wedding), and a very gracious gentleman to put up with my million questions. Thank you David and I can’t wait to see your new book (with illustrations of all the Open champions). I hope to see you again soon.