Mike Clayton

Finding Davie
January 31, 2006

GolfObserver File Photo David Strath

David Strath is probably not a familiar name to modern day golfers but in his time he was one of the finest players in the world.

Strath was a Scottish professional who lived in the tiny golfing village of North Berwick where he helped design one of the most famous links in the world. He was the rival and friend of the greatest player of the time, Tom Morris Jnr. who won The Open Championship four years in a row from 1868 to 1872—there was no Championship in 1871.

The pair toured Scotland and as far south as Liverpool in England playing exhibition golf matches, sometimes in front of ten thousand people. They were the superstars of their time and are credited with popularizing the game.

The Rev. W. Proudfoot of St. Andrews who watched many of the golf matches of that era said of Strath:

“Young Tom and Davie Strath were undoubtedly the best golfers of their too brief day. We can not well separate them—at least we cannot speak of Davie without constant reference to Tommy, for it was in frequent single combat with the young champion of his time that Davie proved himself a player of the finest calibre. What lover of the game, who had the good fortune to witness these grand matches in the early seventies, can ever forget the genuine pleasure they afforded?”

Strath was the runner-up to Morris in the Open Championships of 1870 and 1872 and in 1876 he tied for the Championship at St Andrews but refused to playoff because of a rules dispute.

GolfObserver File Photo Andrew Strath

By all accounts that Open was a shambles as someone had forgotten to book the golf course and players were competing amongst the regular public players. Strath's long approach to the 17th green at St Andrews had hit a spectator on the green and there were protests that he had gained an advantage.

The dispute could not be settled and he was asked to playoff against Bob Martin of St. Andrews who also finished with a score of 176 for 36 holes. The question would be settled when an official was available to adjudicate, assumingly on Monday morning.

Strath refused to play for the Open reasoning there was little point if he was going to have the crown taken away in the following days.

"Settle it now or I won't be here in the morning" was his not unreasonable request. Martin won the Open Championship the next day by walking the course and the dispute was never resolved, with Strath forever second place in the 1876 Open.

The Strath family was a family of five golfing brothers, with Andrew Strath, the second son, winning the Open Championship at Prestwick in 1865. All five brothers succumbed to consumption as young men.

David though was the star golfer in the family.

In the northern autumn of 1878 he was a very sick man and decided on the advice of doctors in North Berwick to take the eighty-four day boat trip to Melbourne, a city recognized in Britain and the ideal place to recover the specter of the disease that would take so many lives.

Photo: © GolfObserver File Photo Some claim what went wrong at the 1876 Open Championship was John Whyte Melville of St. Andrews (seated on steps), who was captain of the Championship Committee, was unavaliable to rule on the dispute because he had spent the days previous to the competition entertaining Prince Leopold (standing on top step, center) who was made R&A captain.

Until late last year the fate of David Strath has been a complete mystery. No one in Scotland has ever been able to determine what happened to the 29-year-old champion and many had assumed he had perished on the boat.

Certainly he never returned to Scotland despite buying a first class return ticket on the Eurynome, the fastest vessel of its time.

Enter Noel Terry, a fine Melbourne golfer who also happens to be the acknowledged expert in this country on ancient golf clubs.

A member at Royal Melbourne, he was investigating a club made by one of the great early clubmakers: David Conacher. Conacher had arrived in Melbourne in 1854 but golf was not played at that time and he became a cabinetmaker. Later he was assigned the task of working with T.J. Finlay in laying out the Melbourne Golf Club (later Royal Melbourne) in Caulfield.

The course opened in July of 1891 but Conacher died only four months later, not before becoming one of the very first people to play golf in this country.

Photo: © GolfObserver File Photo When David Strath—as greenskeeper at North Berwick—enlarged the course, from a course where you were "always approaching" to a three and a half mile course (6,095 yards) he left the Redan as a 266-yard hole

The connection with Strath is that his nephew James was a great friend of Strath. They had gone to school together and James was the best man at his friends wedding before James too emigrated to Australia.

Terry was fascinated by the history of the golf club he had found and the thought that Conacher might have been the first professional golfer to come to Australia.

He contacted the eminent Scottish golf historian Dr David Malcolm who lives in St Andrews. Malcolm told Terry of Strath and his Australian connection.

Essentially all Malcolm knew was that Strath had taken a boat to Melbourne and was never heard of in his homeland again.

Terry started digging and what he uncovered is truly astounding.

Strath was a sick man and he suffered acute laryngitis on the voyage. He arrived in Melbourne is a weakened state and twenty days later he died in this city.

Terry found a record of his death but not even that was simple. He was recorded as David Struth, the result of a simple clerical error.

He died in a house on Royal Terrace in Carlton that was right next to the residence of a Professor Halford, the founder of the medical school at Melbourne University.

Halford had studied at the University at St Andrews in Scotland. Another Australian doctor, Samuel Doogan Bird, had also studied at St Andrews and was respected for his book On Australian Climates, on their influence and prevention and arrest of Pulmonary Consumption.

It was Bird who described Melbourne's climate as perfect for the treatment of the disease.

There was also a Dr. Makin, who was a member at North Berwick and an expert on consumption. It seems almost certain that Dr. Makin had organized for Strath to visit Melbourne.

Photo courtesy of Noel Terry The unmarked grave of Davie Strath in the Presbyterian section of the Melbourne General Cemetery.

Dr Malcolm went to the London National Library to research every Scot who had come to Melbourne that year and for several weeks trawled though the newspapers of the time looking for a reference to Strath.

Finally he found what he was looking for and it was a comfort that the report had indicated he had died amongst friends as opposed to Terry's conclusion that he died alone, far from home and his young family.

What seems extraordinary is that the London press report never reached his family and friends in Scotland.

When the ship landed at Port Melbourne, Strath was taken to Royal Terrace and Terry was able to determine that he had died in a house opposite what is now the Exhibition Building.

He was buried in an unmarked grave in the Presbyterian section of the Melbourne General Cemetery and the wonderful quality of the local records meant Terry was able to accurately locate the grave of one of golf's early champions.

"It was a strange and very humbling feeling to be standing there," Terry said of his extraordinary discovery.

Photo courtesy of Noel Terry Dr. David Malcolm (left) and Noel Terry (right) at the unveiling of the headstone on David Strath's grave.

On Tuesday was an unveiling of a headstone to mark the position of the grave.

The golf clubs of St Andrews and the The Golf Society of Australia have contributed to the funding of the stone and Dr Malcolm is in Australia to speak at Royal Melbourne on the significance of Strath the golfer and the belated discovery of his fate.

"For the Scots this is very big news," said Terry. "Finally they have an answer to a mystery that has been left unanswered for well over a century."

Sadly David's wife died only four years after her husband and his only son was to become one of the first men killed in the First World War.

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