He regularly played in the Masters Tournament at Augusta and each year there was a warm-up team competition which Jimmy and his partner Californian Olin Dutra won in 1935. He finished sixth in the Masters in 1937 and eighth the following year. Starting 1947 Jimmy Thomson began introducing the players to the gallery on the 9th hole while his good friend and Augusta National's first assistant pro Ralph Hutchison (1932-1935) started announcing on the 18th. Jimmy Thomson, Ralph Hutchison and Bobby Jones were Staff Pro's for A G Spalding Brothers.

In 1936, when the PGA Championship was match play, Jimmy reached the finals at Pinehurst before losing to Denny Shute, 3 and 2. " Shute was in the trap nine times that day and got up and down every time," Thomson recalled years later. In 1935 at Oakmont, Thomson finished second to Sam Parks Jr. in the US. Open. Thomson had a two-shot lead after 14 holes in the final round but bogeyed the last four holes."I hit four good tee shots, too," he moaned later. "But I wound up in two traps and three-putted two greens."

Off the tour, Jimmy worked as a teaching pro at Broadmoor Country Club in Colorado Springs (1930); Los Angeles C.C (1934), Lakewood Country Club (1935) in Los Angeles where he met and married Viola Dana, a popular silent movie star of the'30s; Shawnee-On-The Delaware C.C (1936) and Chicopee Falls (1941).

Thomson broke the course record at Ingleside Golf Club with a 64, during the San Francisco Open in 1937. He led the qualifying and received a medal and $25 prize money. The top sixteen qualified for the 72-hole matchplay, but Thomson was defeated in the quarterfinals.

For many years Jimmy was a member of the Spalding golf advisory staff at their headquarters in Chicople and was well known throughout Western Massachusetts giving public clinics. He also took part in exhibition matches sponsored by Spalding & Co. across the United States with Harry Cooper and Lawson Little. During WW2 Thomson served in the US Coast Guard and in 1940 was among an elite field of invited pro's, playing in a round-robin tournament at Freshmeadow C.C in New York. Including Ben Hogan, Byron Nelson, Gene Sarazen, Jimmy Demaret, Horton Smith and Sam Snead.

Jimmy returned with Lawson Little to Scotland in 1948 to compete in the Open at Muirfield and on Monday 12th July following the Open, played an exhibition match over the North Berwick West Links. This time he was joined by Brazilian Mario Gonzalez and the newly crowned Open champion Henry Cotton. The spectators had come to see the South American, an amateur at that time playing in his first Open, described as having a stick-like physique but was noted for the beauty and power of his strike.

That day Jimmy stole the show, driving the 328 yard first green to the crowd's delight, but more was to follow. At the 14th named ' Perfection', a 376 yard par 4, Jimmy holed his second shot to the blind green and Henry Cotton turned to the crowd and said " Local boy comes good " In 1953, Jimmy Thomson appeared in the movie 'The Caddy' with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. Jimmy also featured in the movie 'Shoot Yourself Some Golf' with actor Ronald Reagan (1942) and with a number of pro's in 'Swing With Bing', featuring Bing Crosby (1940). He also wrote a book called Hit 'Em for Miles, How to Drive a Golf Ball.

In 1960 Thomson was made a life member of the Carolina PGA Section. Although his tournament days were over, Jimmy was still very much involved in the game, being appointed promotional director for Dunlop in the United States.

Wilfred Thomson (1888-1974)

Jimmy Thomson's father James Wilfred Stevenson Thomson was born in North Berwick in 1888. He was a greenkeeper on the West Links at North Berwick before being appointed golf pro at Dunstable Downs (1910-11). He moved to Penn G.C, Wolverhampton (1911-12) and then to Hexham in Northumbria in 1912 where he remained until 1919. He entered the 1911 Open Championship at Sandwich and the 1914 Open at Prestwick. Some fine examples of his club making survive from this period, stamped with "W. Thomson Special Hexham". Not to be over-shadowed by his brother-in-law Ben Sayers who taught the nobility, Wilfred tutored the Duke of Alba a member of King Alfonso's court in Spain.

In 1921 Wilfred Thomson joined Jack Forrester and James Ferguson as they travelled north to Washington to enter the US Open at Columbia Country Club where Fred McLeod's was the professional. That year Thomson wintered in Florida and returned to Richmond in the spring. In June 1925, this article appeared in the Virginia Richmond Times Dispatch entitled Shattering Records '....Wilfred Thomson, golf professional at the Hermitage Country Club, successfully attained an objective on his home course that had defied the best efforts of the great Walter Hagen, Gene Sarazen and other noted stars, when he carded a 71, on the par 73 course. Thomson took fifteen putts on the outward nine, and thirteen coming home for a total of 28 putts in the full round'

Wilfred Thomson returned to the UK in 1936 and took up the post of private professional to Lord Wimborne at Rugby. On the outbreak of the Second World War, he joined the Royal Scots regiment, Thomson had also seen active service during the 1914-18 war. After peace had been declared, he travelled back to America for a short period, and then finally returned to North Berwick, living at 25 East Road.

Wilfy Thomson and Jimmy Black were the last of the traditional golf professionals on the West Links. They continued into the 1950s giving golf lessons on the strip of land between the third and sixteenth fairways. The lesson was reserved at James Watt's club makers shop at the foot of Station Hill. He also attended to the east and west putting greens laid out by the Town Council. Wilfred Thomson died in May 1962, at the age of 74.