St. Andrews recently revealed the perfect place to visit before your cycle

You have an afternoon tee time on the Old Course at St. Andrews and you couldn’t be happier. You pass through the town, turn up North Street and turn towards Dunvegan – perhaps the most famous golf course in the world – on a road called Golf Place. An appropriate name.

There is a golf shop on the left and a rental place called Golf House on the right. In front of you is the R&A Clubhouse, which is one of the most famous of the whole game, and it goes out before the course itself. The 18th green is just steps from the 1st tee. But there are four and a half hours of your future in between, which you’ve been thinking about for … days? Weeks? Months? Forever?

But now there’s a new step in your pre-rotation journey. Before hitting the first tee, golfers must make a fresh stop on the fairway, across the road and behind the R&A clubhouse. They should visit the newest statue in town, unveiled this week – a memorial to Old Tom Morris, the man who invented golf as we know it.

Old Tom’s image is the brainchild of a few Fife locals who looked around and couldn’t see enough of the great father of the game. The group of nine, led by Ronald Sandford (a friend and golfer), has been working for years to put the man on display in the city now best known for the sport that helped raise children. Sandford came across a statue of Old Tom on a course in Ireland and made it his personal ambition to bring a bronze statue of Old Tom to the door of his greatest work.

The statue was unveiled on Wednesday morning at St Andrews in a public ceremony attended by many, including Bill Murray, who is competing in this week’s Dunhill Links Championship. Funded by private donations and charities, the statue looks back over the 18th hole, where Old Tom once carried sand from the nearby beach to create the dunes that confuse golfers and deflect their shots today. He stands with one knee slightly bent, one hand in his pocket and the other holding a golf club. At his feet is an inscription marking the years of his four Open Championship victories. His great-granddaughter, Sheila Walker, who still lives above The Old Course Shop and watches the golfers finish their rounds, was also in attendance.

Add to the list of things that make golf different from other sports. A picture of James Naismith, the founder of basketball? It sits outside the National Football Hall of Fame, which is a great place for it. But no one travels thousands of miles to play pickup hoops in Springfield, Mass. There are tennis legends on the Aussie Open grounds in Melbourne and similar statues on the grounds of Wimbledon. But you basically do any of them create the game in its modern form? No. Also, you and I can’t go play three sets at Wimbledon. But you can get a tee time at the Old Course. And you can pay tribute to Old Tom before you do.