And, like most visitors to Pinehurst, Armour played loads of golf, generally with excellent players like French, Halbert Blue and poet Donald Parson, all reported in the Outlook. As the Armours prepared to depart Pinehurst in mid-January 1933, the paper recapped Tommy’s sensational scoring: “For a stretch of two weeks there was not one day in which Armour failed to equal or better the par of 71 for the No. 2 course. He had as low as 65 one day, this figure failing by one stroke to equal a round of his last month which tied the course mark.” And Armour revered No. 2, saying, “it is the kind of course that gets in the blood of an old trooper.”

In the spring of 1933, the Armours arrived early for the North and South and stayed two weeks after. Ben and John visited again, and Tommy played rounds with Pinehurst’s young phenom, George Dunlap Jr. Later that year, Dunlop won the U.S. Amateur, attributing significant credit for his victory to Armour. “Watching him play, of course, was a lesson in itself,” said Dunlop.

In December 1933, the Armour family once again celebrated the Christmas holidays in Pinehurst, and Armour was elected an associate member (later designated as an honorary member) of Pinehurst’s venerable golf society, the Tin Whistles. Returning in the fall of ’34, he paired with his boyhood friend Cruickshank to win the Mid-South Scotch Foursomes. After the victory Tommy and Estelle remained in Pinehurst, enjoying an array of social functions and attending the theatre, until the second week of January.

After 1935, Armour was competing only sparingly on tour. He was hired by MacGregor Golf in 1936 and, unwilling to simply sit back and endorse the company’s clubs, actively involved himself in their design. As a result, MacGregor became the industry-leading club manufacturer. “Tommy Armour” brand clubs are still made and marketed today.

Armour achieved fame as an instructor, despite delivering frequent tongue lashings to his pupils. An article by H.K. Wayne described his unique teaching methods: “His preferred style involved sitting in the shade in Boca Raton each winter or in Winged Foot each summer, with his trademark tray of gin, Bromo-Seltzers and shots of Scotch and passing judgment on his wealthy pupils, all of whom feared him.” Armour would subsequently author, with the assistance of golf writer Al Barkow, How to Play Your Best Golf All the Time, a bestseller, still in print. 

Armour continued making pilgrimages to Pinehurst. The more time he spent in the Sandhills, the more he rhapsodized about how wonderful it was to be there. His fawning quotes were undoubtedly appreciated by the resort’s public relations department. “I’ve seen strangers, jaded and dull, come to Pinehurst, and after a few days be changed into entirely delightful fellows,” said Armour. Pinehurst’s practice ground elicited quotable praise. “Maniac Hill is to golf,” he asserted, “what Kitty Hawk is to flying.”

In yet another homage, he declared, “I can’t help it. Pinehurst gets me. From morning firing practice at Maniac Hill, to vespers at the movies, Pinehurst is the way I’d have things if it were left to me to remold this sorry scheme of things entirely. . . . It’s the last in the vanishing act of fine living.”

In a sense, Armour promotes Pinehurst even today. Exhibited in the resort clubhouse’s hallway of golf history is a rotating display that provides another Pinehurst tribute from the Silver Scot. It neatly combines in one statement his sentimentality and occasional brusqueness, reading, “The man who doesn’t feel continually stirred when he golfs at Pinehurst beneath those clear blue skies and with the pine fragrance in his nostrils is one who should be ruled out of golf for life.”

When Armour came to Pinehurst in November 1938 to play the resort’s two professional events — the Mid-South Professional Best Ball and the Mid-South Open — he was semi-retired from competition. His last individual tournament victory had taken place three years prior at the Miami Open. Inspired by his surroundings, the 42-year-old rekindled his old form. Not only did he and sidekick Cruickshank tie for the best score in the best ball, Armour won the individual title, too. It would be his 25th and last PGA Tour victory.

One of the few titles to elude Armour’s grasp was the North and South. This gnawed at him both because of his love of the venue and because of the tournament’s prestige. Runner-up twice, Armour dwelled on his near misses, ruminating that “there are five traps on this course (No. 2) that have cost me the North and South five times.” He continued competing in it long past his competitive heyday. He even had a shot at victory after the tournament’s first two rounds in 1948 when his 143 total left him just three strokes out of the lead, but an 81 in round three ruined the aging veteran’s bid.

In 1951, Armour attended Pinehurst’s lone Ryder Cup. It turned into a delightful reunion for the 54-year-old. Longtime friends Hagen, Sarazen and Cruickshank were also on hand, and Armour delightedly joked and hobnobbed with the old stalwarts. When Hagen held a driver for a photo op with his fellow legends, Armour, ever the scolding instructor, pointed out, “You never gripped a club that way in your life!”

The North and South immediately followed the Ryder Cup, and Armour gave it one final try, missing the cut by two shots. The ’51 event also marked the end of the line for the North and South itself — the result of a brouhaha between the PGA tour and Pinehurst resort owner Richard Tufts. He had resisted efforts by the tour to have the amount of prize money bumped from $7,500 to $10,000 — the tour minimum. In response, several American Ryder Cuppers left Pinehurst following the matches, effectively boycotting Tufts’ event. Only one team member, Henry Ransom, completed all 72 holes. Reciprocating the hard feelings, the miffed Tufts terminated the North and South after a 50-year run.

In Armour’s later years, he kept on playing, teaching, storytelling, gin playing, gambling and cocktailing. In a 1978 Sports Illustrated article, Scottish writer and an excellent golfer in his own right John Gonella recounted an experience 30 years before when Armour hosted him at the Boca Raton Hotel. The writer was amazed at how the hotel’s management cheerily indulged Tommy’s every whim, happily picking up a multitude of expensive tabs for him and his parade of guests. After the young Gonella, short on funds at the time, and Armour teamed up to win a golf bet, Armour generously shared the winnings with his broke writer friend.

At lunch in the grillroom afterward, Armour asked Gonella if he would like to meet Walter Hagen. When the reply was affirmative, Armour called to the bartender and commanded, “Get me Hagen on the phone: Detroit Athletic Club, last stool at the left end of the bar. And bring us a phone!” According to Gonella, Tommy had Walter on the line two minutes later, and greeted The Haig with, “Hello, you old has-been. There’s a friend of mine here from Scotland I want you to meet.”

Armour, a 1976 inductee into the World Golf Hall of Fame, passed away in 1968 at the age of 71. Shortly before his death, he shared a visit with his 8-year-old grandson, Thomas Dickson Armour III. The fruit would not fall far from the tree (though perhaps skipping a generation). Tommy III became a fine player himself, winning twice on the PGA Tour and setting a 72-hole scoring record. Now semi-retired from competitive play, Tommy III resides in Las Vegas, where his reputation for living the high life tends to overshadow his golf achievements. He even has his own nickname, “Mr. Fabulous.”

Given his tender years at the time of the childhood visit, it’s understandable Tommy III doesn’t remember much about his grandfather. But it did stick in his memory that the elder Armour was very handsome and, even in the late stage of life, exceptionally strong. Those hands never weakened.