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Bobby jones - golfer extraordinaire
Overview of the life and career of Bobby Jones.By Talk to the Author.
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Bobby jones - golfer extraordinaire
Who was Bobby Jones?
The game of golf has many legends: Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, just to name a few. One of the greatest golf legends was a man by the name of Bobby Jones. He is considered a true sports champion. He played in 52 tournaments in his career. He won 23 out of the 52 tournaments in which he played. He retired from golf when he was 28 years old. He was one half of the design team for the Augusta National Invitational Tournament, or as more commonly known, The Masters. He played in the Masters tournament until 1947, when he began to have health problems. Jones continued to attend the Masters tournament after he became paralyzed in his arms and in his legs in a wheelchair. He accomplished all this while playing with an Amateur status. He also achieved two college degrees, one in Engineering and another in English Literature. He also passed the Georgia Bar examination with only two years of studying at law school. He was the author of many articles for newspaper and magazine, as well as authoring four books and working in motion pictures.
He was born Robert Tyre Jones, Jr. on March 17, 1902 in Atlanta, Georgia. He was named after one of his grandfathers. His parents were well-off financially. Bobby did not start out a healthy child. He was five years old before he could eat any sold foods. Also, when he was five years old, Bobby had contracted measles and then whooping cough. In order to hopefully build up his health, his family moved east six miles of Atlanta next to the East Lake Country Club. The East Lake Golf Club opened the same year. When Bobby was six years old he entered his first golf tournament and won it. When Bobby was 11 he shot a score of 80 on the East Lake course. When he was 12, he improved his score to 70. He also came away with two East Lake Club championships. It was at the East Lake Golf Club that Bobby would observe golfers, especially the club golf pro, Stewart Maiden, and pattern his golf game after his observations. Bobby Jones never took a golf lesson in those years.
When Bobby was fourteen he began to compete nationally. He qualified for the U.S. Amateur in 1916. In 1916 he also won the Georgia Amateur tournament. Even with this promising beginning, Jones did not win a national title in golf until 1923. The main reason for his slow road to victory was his temper. It took him seven years to mature enough to get his game under the control needed to win. In 1923 at the U.S. Open, Bobby Jones finally won a national tournament.
From 1923 through 1930, Bobby Jones won 13 out of 21 national championships. He won five U.S. Amateur Championships. He won four U.S. Opens tournaments in this time period, finishing second in three more. During this time Jones played in three British Opens and came away victorious in all three tournaments. He was the victor in one British Amateur Championship. In 1926 he was the first golfer to win both the U.S. Open and the British Open in the same year. New York City gave him a ticker-tape parade for that accomplishment. Bobby Jones actually was the recipient of two ticker-tape parades in New York City. His second came in 1930 when he won both the U.S. and British Amateur tournaments, as well as both the U.S. and British Open tournaments. Winning those four tournaments was called The Grand Slam. Following his win of the Grand Slam, Jones had to be directed off the course with the protection of a Marine Corps bodyguard to protect Jones from his ecstatic fans.
One of the amazing things about these accomplishments was the fact that Bobby Jones was essentially a non-professional golfer. He only played part-time and only played for a few months out of the year. When he was not playing golf he was a devoted student and then attorney.
After his retirement in 1930, Jones only played golf occasionally. The only exception was his appearance at the Masters Tournament each year while his health allowed him to play. During World War II, Jones was an intelligence officer in the Army Air Corps in Europe. He was honored with the Freedom of St. Andrews award in 1958. The only other American at that time to receive that award was Benjamin Franklin.
As Bobby Jones got older he contracted syringomyelia, the disease that eventually confined him to a wheelchair. A cavity in the spinal cord filled with fluid and paralyzed his arms and his legs and eventually atrophied the muscles there. His weight when he died was between 60 and 90 pounds. One of the greatest golfers of the 20th century died on December 18, 1971 in Atlanta, Georgia.
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