Bobby Jones (golfer) : Ask Biography

Home | Golf | Bobby Jones (golfer)

Robert Tyre "Bobby" Jones Jr. (March 17, 1902 � December 18, 1971) was an American amateur golfer, and a lawyer by profession. Jones was the most successful amateur golfer ever to compete on a national and international level. During his peak as a golfer from 1923 to 1930, he dominated top-level amateur competition, and competed very successfully against the world's best professional golfers. Jones often beat stars such as Walter Hagen and Gene Sarazen, the era's top pros. Jones earned his living mainly as a lawyer, and competed in golf only as an amateur, primarily on a part-time basis, and chose to retire from competition at age 28, though he earned significant money from golf after that, as an instructor and equipment designer.

Explaining his decision to retire, Jones said, "It (championship golf) is something like a cage. First you are expected to get into it and then you are expected to stay there. But of course, nobody can stay there." Jones is most famous for his unique "Grand Slam," consisting of his victory in all four major golf tournaments of his era (the open and amateur championships in both the U.S. & the U.K.) in a single calendar year (1930).

After retiring from competitive golf in 1930, Jones started and helped to design the Augusta National Golf Club soon afterwards in 1933, and also co-founded the Masters Tournament, which has been annually staged by the club since 1934 (except for 1943 � 45, when it was cancelled due to World War II). The Masters evolved into one of golf's four major championships. Jones did come out of retirement in 1934, to play in the Masters, on an exhibition basis until 1948, when he quit golf permanently, due to ill health.