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

When he returned to New York City aboard the S.S. Europa, Jones received his second ticker–tape parade down Broadway (the first had occurred four years earlier when he had become the only amateur ever to win the U.S. and British Open championships in the same year). This same parade had honored the likes of General John Pershing and Charles Lindbergh and would, in future years, honor heroes like Dwight Eisenhower and John Glenn. Bobby Jones remains the only golfer and one of only two people – astronaut John Glenn was the other –– to have been so honored twice.

The 1930 U.S. Open was held at Interlachen Country Club in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The tournament was played during one of the most severe heat waves that area of the country had ever seen. Temperatures soared into the 100’s forcing players to contend not only with the golf course and their competitors, but with the almost unbearable heat and humidity. Once again, Jones was involved in a dramatic finish––this time with a couple of bizarre events along the way.

During the second round of the tournament, Jones pushed his tee shot to the right on the ninth hole along the bank of a lake. Attempting to go for the green in two, Jones was in the middle of his backswing when two young girls broke from the crowd and ran toward the fairway. Jones, catching a glimpse of them with his peripheral vision, flinched on the shot and topped the ball toward the lake where it struck the water some twenty yards short of the far bank. Amazingly, the ball skipped like a flat stone on the water and came out on the other side just thirty yards short of the green. Jones would chip to within two feet and finish the hole with an unlikely birdie. Although Jones would later refute the notion, spectators swore the ball had struck a lily pad floating in the lake. Forever dubbed the “lily pad shot,” this strange event merely added to the already larger–than–life legend of Bobby Jones.

The final round of the tournament had its own share of unusual events and drama. The 17th hole at Interlachen was the longest par 3 in Open history at 263 yards. Jones pushed his tee shot to the right and, despite the presence of thousands of spectators, not one person saw the ball bounce. After a five–minute search, the ball was declared lost and Jones was forced to drop another. He made double bogey, reducing his lead to just one shot going into the final hole.

On the 18th, Jones left his approach shot some forty feet short of the cup. Facing the possibility of a three–putt and a playoff, Jones calmly stroked the ball. The long, uphill putt somehow found the hole and Jones finished with an unlikely birdie and a two shot victory. Bobby Jones had become the first man to break par for 72 holes in a U.S. Open and now stood just one major championship away from the Grand Slam.