History - Jonesheirs

Prodigy

Named for his grandfather, Robert Tyre Jones, Jr., was born on March 17, 1902, in Atlanta, Georgia, to Robert and Clara Jones, and grew up across the street from East Lake Country Club.

At age 6, Bobby won his first tournament at East Lake Country Club.

At age 12, he shot 70 for the first time.

By age 14, he was driving the ball 250 yards with rubber golf balls and hickory shafted golf clubs.

He played in his first U.S. Amateur at age 14 in 1916 at Merion Cricket Club.

At 21, he was the United States Open champion. But before he could go on to conquer the golf world, he had to achieve a more personal victory – over his stress, perfectionism, and explosive temper.

“Taming the Timber Wolf”
- Taming the Timber Wolf
  
  Legendary sports writer Grantland Rice once said that the young Jones had “the face of an angel and the temper of a timber wolf.” For the first eight years of his competitive life, Jones would frequently have tantrums and throw clubs on the golf course. “To the finish of my golfing days,” Jones wrote, “I encountered golfing emotions which could not be endured with the club still in my hands.”
  
  In 1921, at the age of 19, Jones competed in the British Open in St Andrews, Scotland. Frustrated by his performance after a string of bad shots, he picked up his ball on the 11th hole and tore up his scorecard, disqualifying himself from the tournament. It was a display of poor sportsmanship which he forever viewed as his “most inglorious failure” in golf.
  
  This incident would prove to be a significant turning point on Jones’ way to becoming not only a great champion, but also a gracious and gentlemanly competitor.

The Winning Years

Bobby Jones played in 31 championships and placed first or second more than 50% of the time.

Incredibly, in nine of his 13 years of major competition, Jones was a high school or college student. He played in 52 tournaments in that span, an average of four a year, and won 23. He traveled 150,000 miles in his competitive career, accompanied by Atlanta newspaperman and friend Oscar Bane (O.B.) Keeler.

Calamity Jane and Jeanie Deans
- Bobby named his putter Calamity Jane, made in Scotland before 1900. It became the most famous putter in the world. Jones also named his driver Jeannie Deans, after a fictional character in a novel by Scottish author Sir Walter Scott.

“The most triumphant journey that any man ever traveled in sport.”

The New York Times describing Bobby Jones’ completion of the Grand Slam

The Grand Slam

In 1930, after winning the British Amateur and British Open, Jones received his second ticker-tape parade in New York City; the first was in 1926 after his victory in the British Open. He then returned home to Atlanta, where 125,000 Georgians honored him with another parade.

After winning the U.S. Open at Interlachen, Jones headed to Merion Cricket Club for the U.S. Amateur. He sought to conquer the last bastion of what George Trevor of the New York Sun called “the impregnable quadrilateral of golf.”

On September 27, 1930, in the final match against Eugene Homans, Jones won 8 holes up with 7 holes left to play. The largest gallery in U.S.G.A. history – some 18,000 fans -- witnessed his historic victory on the 11th hole at Merion. An escort of 50 U.S. Marines was required to keep Jones safe from the exultant crowd.

Then he did the unimaginable: Just over a month after winning the Grand Slam; Bobby Jones retired from tournament golf at age 28.

He remains the only golfer to have won the four major tournaments – the British Amateur, the British Open, the U.S. Open, and the U.S. Amateur -- in a single year.

“The most triumphant journey that any man ever traveled in sport.” - The New York Times describing Bobby Jones’ completion of the Grand Slam.

A Brilliant Mind

Bobby Jones graduated high school at age 16 and then attended Georgia Tech, majoring in mechanical engineering and serving as captain of the Golden Tornadoes' golf team.

In 1925, having decided that he had no interest in being an engineer, he entered Harvard to study English Literature. He completed a degree in just three semesters and became an eloquent and polished writer. His love of literature, particularly the works of Shakespeare, would prove to be a source of comfort and stimulation in the challenging last years of his life.

In 1928, he attended Emory University law school, passing the Bar after only a year and a half. He joined his father's law firm, practicing civil and contract law until his death.

During his miles of travel, Jones learned German and French and often studied Latin or calculus on the way to a tournament to have something to occupy his mind.

“There was more than enough substance in his character to make him a role model for today: his educational achievements, his innate modesty, his sense of fair play, his competitive zeal, and the manner in which he balanced the various facets of his life.”

Martin Davis, The Greatest of Them All

Extraordinary Achievements Off The Course

After the Grand Slam and his retirement from competitive golf, Bobby Jones’ remarkable achievements continued.

In 1931 he made a series of golf instructional films for Warner Bros. in which stars like W.C. Fields, James Cagney, and Loretta Young appeared.
Jones assisted A.G. Spalding & Co. in designing the first set of matched golf clubs, which appeared in 1932 bearing Jones' name and sold steadily for over 40 years.
In 1933 he founded the Augusta National Golf Club.
In 1934 he co-founded The Masters Tournament.
He served as an officer in the U.S. Army Air Corps, landing at Normandy on D-Day plus 1, June 7, 1944.
He authored several bestselling books on golf and hundreds of syndicated newspaper columns.
He was a leading partner in one of Atlanta’s premier law firms.
He started and owned Coca-Cola bottling companies in New England, Michigan, Scotland, Uruguay, Argentina, and Chile.
In 1958 he was awarded The Freedom of the City of St Andrews, Scotland, the first American since Benjamin Franklin to be so honored.
Throughout it all, Jones was a devoted family man. Later in life, he would reflect on his priorities, saying, “My wife and my children came first; then my profession; finally, and never in a life by itself, came golf.”

A Special History With St Andrews

After his show of temper at age 19 on the Old Course in 1921, Jones later endeared himself to the people of St Andrews with his modest demeanor and masterful playing that propelled him to victory in the 1927 British Open.

A Gracious Gesture
- After winning the 1927 British Open, Jones was presented with the trophy, the Claret Jug. In his acceptance speech, he said he wanted it to stay at the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews instead of taking the trophy home to Atlanta. With this gracious gesture, he utterly won the hearts of those who had criticized him six years earlier as “just a boy, and an ordinary boy at that.”

When Jones returned to St Andrews in May 1930 to compete in the British Amateur – the first tournament of the Grand Slam – he was given an exuberant welcome. After he sank his winning putt, “Hats filled the air,” wrote Mark Frost in The Grand Slam. “The crowd swallowed him, a full mile from the clubhouse….For a brief moment they lifted their hero up on their shoulders. …Pop [O.B. Keeler] said they ‘apparently wanted to take the new champion apart to see what made him tick.’” Fortunately a cadre of burly constables intervened and escorted Jones back to the clubhouse.

“Bobby’s Back!”
- In 1936, six years after his triumph at the British Amateur, Jones paid an informal visit to St Andrews with a group of friends, intending to play a round on the Old Course unobserved and unheralded. But when he arrived at the first tee he was surprised to see an enormous crowd gathered there. Word had spread throughout the town; hand-lettered signs proclaiming “Bobby’s back!” were posted on closed shop doors. His gallery swelled throughout the day. After finishing with a score of 72, he shook hands, signed autographs and basked in the affection of the citizens of St Andrews.

In 1958, Bobby Jones was invited back to St Andrews to be honored as the first American since Benjamin Franklin to be made a Freeman of that city. By that time, Jones’ illness had progressed to such a point that he walked with great difficulty, supported by leg braces and canes. At the packed ceremony at the town’s Younger Hall, he spoke not from notes but from the heart. “I could take out of my life everything except my experiences in St Andrews, and I would still have a rich, full life,” he said, adding, “Now you have given me the right to feel as much at home here officially as I have presumed to feel unofficially for years.”

A Moving Farewell
- Thunderous applause followed Jones’ remarks; then, as he was being driven out of the hall in a golf cart, the entire assembly joined in a spontaneous rendition of the beautiful old Scottish air: “Will Ye No’ Come Back Again?”
  
  British golf writer Pat Ward-Thomas said, “It was a deeply moving moment with a deadly finality to it. Everyone knew that St Andrews would never see him, or anyone like him, again.”

When the news of Jones’ death on December 18, 1971, reached St Andrews, golfers on the Old Course stopped their play, and the clubhouse flag was lowered to half-mast. In 1972, at a memorial service, the tenth hole at the Old Course at St Andrews was named in honor of Bobby Jones.

“He lives on…in legend, especially in St Andrews, as the man who conquered himself and, by so doing, conquered golf and, by so doing, conquered a nation.” ”

Peter Dobereiner, golf writer

The Best of Times. The Worst of Times.

In the late 1940s, Bobby Jones faced the most formidable opponent of his life.

It began when he started having severe neck pains. Eventually, his neck pain was diagnosed as syringomyelia, a rare and degenerative disease of the central nervous system that was painful and incurable.

In 1948, he played his last round of golf at East Lake Golf Club - where he played his first round of golf as a boy.

By the 1960s, the once-powerful athlete was paralyzed from the neck down, though his intellect remained uncompromised.

An Urgent Decision
- Granddaughter Mimi Jones Hedwig recalls: “My sister Adele and I were in the Jones cabin in Augusta with Bub (as we grandchildren called him), watching the end of the 1968 Masters on TV in the back room. By that time his disease had advanced to the point where he could not go out to the course.
  
  “All of a sudden the door opened and a horde of green-coated officials rushed in, looking very serious. Adele and I left the room hastily, sensing that the men had something urgent to consult Bub about. The matter, I later learned, had to do with winner Roberto De Vicenzo’s having erroneously signed his scorecard for one shot more than his official total. Did that mean the victory had to go to Bob Goalby.
  
  “Bub said yes, unequivocally; USGA rules stated that the higher written score signed by a golfer on his card must stand. Golf, for my grandfather, was a game of strict honor and fidelity to the rules. He once lost a tournament by the one stroke he called on himself for having moved his ball, even though no one else saw it.
  
  “Roberto De Vicenzo accepted this decision graciously and Bob Goalby became the winner.
  
  “I remember being impressed by this evidence that, no matter how physically frail my grandfather might have become, he was still sought out for the strength of his understanding and the wisdom of his experience. Those qualities remained in force until the end of his life.”

When people asked Jones if he was ever bitter about his fate, he replied, “In life, as in golf, you have to play the ball where it lies.”

Golf journalist Herbert Warren Wind summed up Bobby Jones’ courage in the face of his illness: “As a young man, he was able to stand up to just about the best that life can offer, which is not easy, and later he stood up with equal grace to just about the worst.”