Antique Golf Clubs from Scotland: Clubmakers

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Tom Whyte
Balnagask

Thomas Fairweather Whyte was born in Inverallochy, an Aberdeenshire fishing village with a strong golfing tradition, in 1897, the son of Alex Whyte, a grocer, and his wife Mary Jane Chalmers.

A newspaper account at the time of his first professional appointment states that he moved to Aberdeen at the age of 15 to learn his golfing trade. That at the time of this appointment, he was ‘first assistant’ to David Houston at Royal Aberdeen is credible but Houston only took up the position at Balgownie in 1921. I believe that before this Whyte had been an apprentice tailor in Fraserburgh and volunteered for the Territorial Reserve in November 1914, desirous of working at a munitions factory in Aberdeen. That did not happen. He was assigned to the RAMC but invalided out in 1917 with ‘valvular disease of the heart’ (VDH).

Balnagask golf course, behind the Torry Battery in Aberdeen, had opened in 1905 but was closed during the First World War. It was formally reopened in 1921 and Tom Whyte became its first professional in 1923. He set a record of 69 for the new course in August of that year.

He did not play a great deal of tournament golf, the Scottish Professional Championship when it was nearby, 1928 in Aberdeen, 1932 in Forfar and 1933 in Lossiemouth and the Northern Open. He did go regularly with Balnagask members for inter-club matches at Banchory, Peterhead and Fraserburgh, usually playing the other club’s professional as part of the match, for example, beating Fred Robertson of Banchory over Balnagask in 1928.

Tom remained as Balnagask professional until John Campbell took over in 1936. What he did immediately after this is not clear but in 1941 he became professional at Hazlehead, the Alister MacKenzie-designed course in the city. After the war he donated the Tom Whyte Cup for an annual Aberdeen area boys’ competition which ran for many years at Hazlehead. Between 1952 and 1958, he teamed up with John Campbell to run an indoor golf school in the winter months in premises on George Street.

He retired from Hazlehead in 1964 and died in Aberdeen Royal Infirmary on 9 June 1967.

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