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On September the 27th, 1930, the American golfer, Bobby Jones, made sporting history.
This was the final round of the United States open at Ardmore, Pennsylvania.
Robert Tyre Jones was just 28 years old, but already he was a golfing legend, one of the
first truly international sports heroes. Over the previous eight years, he'd won the
British Open three times, the American Open four times, and countless amateur titles,
including five appearances for America in the Walker Cup - never once losing.
Now he was after the biggest achievement of them all. Never before, or indeed for that
matter ever since, has a golfer won the Grand Slam - all four major world tournaments in
one season. If he won today, that prize was his - and so, of course, it was.
Earlier that year, at the home of golf in St Andrews, Bobby Jones had laid the foundation
for his triumph in the British Open. What made his golfing achievements even more remarkable
was the fact that he was a true amateur, fitting in his golf between business meetings and
his work as a fully qualified engineer. In Scotland, they worshipped him. Huge crowds
turned out whenever he was playing. He was made a Freeman of the city of St Andrews.
Back home in Georgia, in 1934, so that he could have a round of golf without being pursued
by hundreds of admirers, he founded the Atlanta National course, home of the US Masters to
this day. Bobby Jones made the game of golf look easy. He took more pride in playing well
than in winning. The pleasure, he said, came from the strokeplay, not the score - perhaps
the last of the World's great amateur sportsmen.