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THE GREATEST GOLFER EVER???? December 19, 1971
OBITUARY
Bobby Jones, Golf Master, Dies; Only Player to Win Grand Slam
By FRANK LITSKY
In the decade following World War I, America luxuriated in the Golden
Era of Sports and its greatest collection of super-athletes: Babe Ruth
and Ty Cobb in baseball, Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney in boxing, Bill
Tilden in tennis, Red Grange in football and Bobby Jones in golf.
Many of their records have been broken now, and others are destined to
be broken. But one, sports experts agree, may outlast them--Bobby
Jones's grand slam of 1930.
Jones, an intense, unspoiled young man, started early on the road to
success. At the age of 10, he shot a 90 for 18 holes. At 11 he was down
to 80, and at 12 he shot a 70. At 9 he played against men, at 14 he won
a major men's tournament and at 21 he was United States Open champion.
At 28 he achieved the grand slam--victories in one year in the United
States Open, British Open, United States Amateur and British Amateur
championships. At that point, he retired from tournament golf.
A nation that idolized him for his success grew to respect him even more
for his decision to treat golf as a game rather than a way of life. This
respect grew with the years.
"First come my wife and children," he once explained. "Next comes my
profession--the law. Finally, and never as a life in itself, comes
golf."
His record, aside from the grand slam, was magnificent. He won the
United States Open championship four times (1923, 1926, 1929 and 1930),
the British Open three times (1926, 1927 and 1930) and the United States
Amateur five times (1924, 1925, 1927, 1928 and 1930).
"Jones is as truly the supreme artist of golf as Paderewski is the
supreme artist of the piano," George H. Greenfield wrote in The New York
Times in 1930.
Felt the Tension
Success did not come easily. Though Jones was cool and calculating
outwardly, he seethed inside. He could never eat properly during a major
tournament. The best his stomach would hold was dry toast and tea.
The pressure of tournament competition manifested itself in other ways
too. Everyone expected Jones to win every time he played, including
Atlanta friends who often bet heavily on him. He escaped the unending
pressure by retiring from competition.
"Why should I punish myself like this over a golf tournament?" he once
asked. "Sometimes I'd pass my mother and dad on the course, look at them
and not even see them because I was so concentrated on the game.
Afterward, it made a fellow feel a little silly."
The quality of the man projected itself, too. He was worshiped as a
national hero in Scotland, the birthplace of golf. Scots would come for
miles around to watch him play.
In 1936, on a visit, he made an unannounced trip to the Royal and
Ancient Golf Club at St. Andrews for a quiet morning round with friends.
There were 5,000 spectators at the first tee and 7,000 at the 18th.
Businesses closed as word spread that "Our Bobby is back."
In 1927, when he tapped in his final putt to win the British Open there,
an old Scot stood by the green and muttered:
"The man canna be human."
Off the course, Jones was convivial in a quiet way. He was a good friend
and always the gentleman, though he had full command of strong language
when desired. He had a fine sense of humor, and he laughed easily. He
smoked cigarettes and drank bourbon.
He was besieged by people who wanted to play a social round of golf with
him. When they talked with him, it was always golf. He managed to
tolerate their one-sided approach to life. He also learned to put up
with the name of Bobby, which he hated (he preferred Bob).
He was not always so serene. As a youngster, he had a reputation for
throwing clubs when everything was not going right. When Jim Barnes, the
1921 United States Open champion, watched him let off steam, he said:
"Never mind that club-throwing and the beatings he's taking. Defeat will
make him great. He's not satisfied now with a pretty good shot. He has
to be perfect. That's the way a good artist must feel."
The defeats Barnes spoke of were frequent in the early years. For young
Jones, though he had the game of a man, had the emotions of a growing
boy. He never won the big tournaments until he got his temper under
control.
At 18, he learned that his greatest opponent was himself. He was playing
at Toledo one day with Harry Vardon, the great English professional, and
was his usual brash self. They were about even when Jones dribbled a
shot into a bunker. Hoping to ease his embarrassment, he turned to
Vardon and asked:
"Did you ever see a worse shot?"
"No," replied the crusty Vardon. It as the only word he spoke to Jones
all day.
Jones matured, so much so that O. B. Keeler, an Atlanta sports writer
and his long-time Boswell, once wrote:
"He has more character than any champion in our history."
He also had the dream of every golfer--a picture swing. No one taught it
to him, for he never took a golf lesson in his life. He learned the
swing by watching Stewart Maiden, a Scottish professional at the Atlanta
Athletic Club course. He would follow Maiden for a few holes, then run
home and mimic the swing.
His putting was famous. So was his putter, a rusty, goosenecked club
known as Calamity Jane. His strength was driving, putting and an ability
to get out of trouble. He was an imaginative player, and he never
hesitated to take a chance. In fact, he seldom hesitated on any shot,
and he earned an unfair reputation as a mechanical golfer. The game
often baffled him. "There are times," he once said, "when I feel that I
know less about what I'm doing on a golf course than anyone else in the
world."
When he was an infant, doctors were not sure that he would survive, let
alone play golf. He had a serious digestive ailment until he was 5, and
he stayed home while other children played. In his later years, he was
crippled by syringomyelia, a chronic disease of the spinal cord, and he
had circulation and heart trouble.
Robert Tyre Jones Jr. (named for his grandfather) was born on St.
Patrick's Day, 1902, in Atlanta. His father was a star outfielder at the
University of Georgia, and the youngster's first love was baseball. He
also tried tennis. At the age of 9 he settled down to golf.
His parents had taken up the game after moving to a cottage near the
East Lake course of the Atlanta Athletic Club. Young Bobby would walk
around the course, watch the older folk play and learn by example. He
was only 6 years old, a scrubby youngster with skinny arms and legs,
when he won a six-hole tournament. At 9 he was the club's junior
champion.
In Philadelphia Tourney
He was 14 when he journeyed to the Merion Cricket Club near Philadelphia
for his first United States Amateur championship. He was a chunky lad of
5 feet 4 inches and 165 pounds and somewhat knock-kneed. He was wearing
his first pair of long trousers.
After qualifying for match play, he defeated Eben M. Byers, a former
champion, in the first round. He beat Frank Dyer, a noted player at the
time, in the second round, after losing five of the first six holes.
Then he lost to Robert A. Gardner, the defending champion, 5 and 3.
In 1922 he reached the semifinals of the United States Amateur before
losing. That ended what he called his seven lean years. Next came what
Keeler called "the eight fat years" as Jones finally achieved the
heights.
All this time, golf was a sidelight to education. Jones wanted to be an
engineer, and he earned bachelor's and master's degrees in engineering
at Georgia Tech. Then he decided to become a lawyer. He went to Harvard
and earned another bachelor's degree, then to Emory University in
Atlanta for a Bachelor of Laws degree. In 1928, he joined his father's
law firm in Atlanta.
In 1924, Jones decided that he was worrying too much about his opponent
in match-play (man against man) competition. He vowed to play for pars
and forget about his opponent.
This was a turning point in his career. He started to win match-play
competition. That year, at Merion, Pa., he won the United States Amateur
for the first time. In the final, he defeated George Von Elm by the
overwhelming score of 9 and 8.
Also in 1924, he married Mary Malone, his high school sweetheart.
In 1929 Jones had a close call in the United States Open at the Winged
Foot Golf Club, Mamaroneck, N.Y. He sank a 12-foot sloping, sidehill
putt on the last green to tie Al Espinosa. The next day, Jones won their
36-hole title playoff by 23 strokes.
Then came 1930 and the grand slam. Lloyds of London quoted odds of 50 to
1 that Jones wouldn't win the world's four major tournaments that year.
He won them.
First came the British Amateur. He started his opening match by shooting
3, 4, 3 and 2. In the final he beat Roger Wethered, 7 and 6. Next was
the British Open at Hoylake, England, and his 72-hole score of 291 won
that championship.
Back home, Jones got his sternest test of the year in the United States
Open at Interlachen near Minneapolis. There were 15,000 spectators in
the gallery as he played the par-4 18th hole. He got a birdie 3 by
sinking a 40-foot undulating putt, and his 287 won by two strokes.
He had become the first man to win three of the four major titles in one
year. The last of the grand-slam tournaments, the United States Amateur
at Merion, was almost anticlimactic.
No one doubted for the moment that Jones would win. He captured the
qualifying medal. He routed Jess Sweetser, 9 and 8, in the semifinal
round, and in the final he defeated Gene Homans, 8 and 7. The crowd
surged around him so wildly that it took a detachment of United States
Marines to get him out safely.
Soon after, he retired from tournament play and made a series of golf
motion pictures, the only time he ever made money from the game. Later,
he became a vice president of A. G. Spalding & Bros., the sporting goods
manufacturer. He became a wealthy lawyer and soft-drink bottler and a
business and social leader in Atlanta.
He never played serious tournament golf again. He didn't seem to mind.
"Golf is like eating peanuts," he said. "You can play too much or too
little. I've become reconciled to the fact that I'll never play as well
as I used to."
A few years later, Jones and the late architect, Alister Mackensie,
designed the Augusta National Golf Course in Georgia. In 1934 the
Masters tournament was started there, and in Jones's lifetime many golf
people considered it the most important tournament of all.
Jones played in the first Masters and in several thereafter, but he was
never among the leaders. He always wore his green jacket, signifying
club membership, at victory ceremonies, and he served as club president.
He became strong enough to rip a pack of playing cards across the
middle, but his health deteriorated. He underwent spinal surgery in 1948
and 1950. He was forced to use one cane, then two canes and then a
wheelchair, and his weight dropped to less than 100 pounds. He last saw
the Masters in 1967.
He was a close friend of Dwight D. Eisenhower, and the President often
used his cottage adjacent to the Augusta National course for golfing
vacations. During his first term in office, the President painted a
40-by-32-inch oil portrait of Jones at the peak of his game. On the back
was printed by hand:
"Bob--from his friend D.D.E. 1953."
In January of 1953, three months after a heart attack, Jones was honored
at Golf House, the United States Golf Association headquarters in
Manhattan. Augusta National members, including General Eisenhower, had
donated another oil portrait to be hung at Golf House. A highlight of
the ceremony was the reading of a letter from the President.
"Those who have been fortunate enough to know him," the letter said,
"realize that his fame as a golfer is transcended by his inestimable
qualities as a human being. . .His gift to his friends is the warmth
that comes from unselfishness, superb judgement, nobility of character,
unwavering loyalty to principle."
Bobby Jones listened and cried.
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