Strath toured Scotland and parts of England in the 1870s—both on his own and with fellow countryman Tom Morris, Jr.—playing exhibition matches on his own account, without official sanction; this was the first time this had been done.

[3] The Strath family of four brothers all died, except George, of consumption as young men.

When in the autumn of 1878 he fell ill, he decided on the advice of doctors in the Scottish town of North Berwick to embark on the 84-day voyage to Melbourne, Australia, to recover.

It was later discovered that Strath suffered acute laryngitis on the voyage and arrived in Melbourne in a weakened state, dying just 20 days later.

He died in a house on Royal Terrace in the Melbourne suburb of Carlton next to the residence of a Professor Halford, who had studied at St Andrews University in Scotland and eventually founded the medical school at Melbourne University.