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Legend has it Old Tom Morris spilled a barrel of sand on the 10th green at Prestwick, couldn't pick it up, and accidentally started a practice greenkeepers still use 150 years later.

Last week we previewed the Old Course at St Andrews. Next week we review it. In between, there's a man whose shadow hangs over the whole place, and I'll be honest: before we played it, I knew the name and not much else. So this week I'm taking you behind the scenes of how we research an episode, and sharing everything I found out about Old Tom Morris.

In this episode:
- Old Tom's life, from his birth in 1821 to his death in 1908
- His apprenticeship under Allan Robertson, and the feud over the gutty ball
- Prestwick, the first Open in 1860 and his four Open wins
- How he reshaped the Old Course: bigger greens, new tees and managed bunkers
- The greenkeeping habits he's credited with that are still used today
- The Old Tom Morris courses we've played, including Cruden Bay, Castletown, Wallasey and Carnoustie
- Why he's still revered, and where he died: a building we ended up eating in after our round

This is part two of our three-part series on the Old Course at St Andrews, part of our journey to play every course in the UK and Ireland's Top 100 in just 10 years.

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