The Collectors
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Friday 23 November 2007
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Tom Moore from New South Wales became a golfing professional at the age of 19 and the sport has remained his one true passion ever since. Though it wasn’t until 1973 following a pilgrimage to the UK’s home of golf, St Andrews, that this self-confessed bowerbird began his collection in earnest.
Tom collects everything to do with golf, including trophies, cups, ceramics, clothing, photographs and, of course, every type of golfing equipment.
Included in the earliest pieces of his collection is an empire club carrier from 1893. This quality-made wooden device has a particularly intricate mechanism for its time. Other favourites in Tom’s collection are a pair of golf clubs in a broken state someone offered him one day which turned out to be from 1870. Now that they’ve been repaired and restored, one of them is valued at $12,000.
Although he still collects anything and everything to do with golf, in the future he plans to cull some of the less important items, leaving him with a smaller but precious collection.
A selection of Tom’s 1000-piece collection is on show at the Golfers’ Museum, Parramatta Road, Granville, in New South Wales.
