The grand slam

When Bobby Jones won all four majors in 1930, the sports world searched for ways to capture the magnitude of his accomplishment. The Atlanta Journal’s O.B. Keeler dubbed it the “Grand Slam,” borrowing a bridge term. George Trevor of the New York Sun wrote that Jones had “stormed the impregnable quadrilateral of golf.” Keeler would later write: This victory, the fourth major title in the same season and in the space of four months, had now and for all time entrenched Bobby Jones safely within the “Impregnable Quadrilateral of Golf”, that granite fortress that he alone could take by escalade, and that others may attack in vain, forever.

Keeler was prescient: No golfer has since equaled this achievement.

“In my mind today the accomplishment of the Grand Slam assumes more importance as an example of the value of perseverance in the abstract than as a monument to skill in the playing of a game. I am certain that in those moments when the success of the project was most in doubt, the decisive factor in each case had been my ability, summoned from somewhere, to keep control of myself and to keep trying as hard as I could, even when there was no clear indication of the direction in which hope of victory might lie.”

– Bobby Jones, Golf is My Game

After his win in the British Amateur at St. Andrews, Jones spent a week relaxing with his wife Mary in Paris before arriving at Hoylake for the British Open. In his two qualifying rounds before the tournament, Jones shot a 73 and 77. Clearly not playing his best golf, Jones nonetheless set his sights on finding a way to win the second leg of the Grand Slam.

Jones struggled throughout the tournament with erratic play by his standards. Although among the leaders all the way, he began to appear mortal on the golf course, missing short putts and allowing his competitors to remain within striking distance. Perhaps a turning point in the championship occurred at the par 5 16th hole during the final round. Desperately needing a birdie, Jones hit a perfect drive and went for the green with a brassie. He pulled the shot and the ball landed in the bunker left of the green with a difficult lie. Jones realized he couldn’t make a full backswing but he still needed to get the ball up in the air quickly to clear the lip of the bunker. He decided to play the shot with a concave sandwedge given to him by Horton Smith at the Savannah Open earlier in the year. Having never hit a shot of any consequence with the club before, Jones took an awkward stance with his right foot on top of the bank and delivered a sharp, descending blow to the ball. The ball popped softly out of the bunker, cleared the lip and came to rest inches from the hole. Jones tapped in for birdie and made par on the last two holes for a final round 75.

Despite playing some of his sloppiest golf, Jones won the British Open by two shots over Macdonald Smith and Leo Diegel, breaking the course record set by Walter Hagen in 1924 by ten strokes. Bobby Jones became the first man to win both the British Amateur and Open championships in the same year since John Ball accomplished the feat some forty years earlier. Having finished his business overseas, he now set his sights on completing the last two legs of the Grand Slam.