Frost, Mark. The Grand Slam: Bobby Jones, America, and the Story of Golf New York: Hachette 2004. Print.
First Sentences:
On September 20, 1913, America welcomed a new hero into its sporting pantheon and for the first time the broad middle of the country embraced with curiosity and enthusiasm the exotic game he'd mastered.
Description:
Bobby Jones was not only one of the best golfers ever (and that include Palmer, Nicklaus, Woods, and anyone else you can name), he competed his entire career as an amateur. That right, he turned down all prize money for every tourney, contenting himself with trophies and the self-satisfaction of playing the game for the love.
In Mark Frost's engulfing The Grand Slam: Bobby Jones, America, and the Story of Golf, Jones' career is documented in well-researched details and interesting anecdotes. Jones played during the early 1900s (when golf relatively unknown in America) through the 1930s. In his childhood he was a club-throwing, swearing, self-taught golfer who displayed enough brilliance to regularly beat adults on his home course, East Lake, in Atlanta, Georgia.
Those were the days of clubs with hickory shafts and nicknames like "Calamity Jane" (Jones putter). Courses were such a new phenomenon that A.J. Spaulding hired a consultant to freely advise local cities on course design simply to provide places where the public could purchase and play with his golf equipment. Interest in this new game grew with exhibitions rounds between immortals like Walter Hagen, Harry Varden and Ted Ray. It was such a match played on East Lake course that ten-year-old Jones watched that inspired him to pursue the perfection of golf.
Author Frost carefully details each step along the road to greatness, introducing the major golf tournaments, players, and courses, along with Jones' disappointments and record-breaking low rounds, and information about world figures during the World War I, Prohibition, and the Depression. A sports-mad world made him headline news worldwide and the subject of the biggest ticker tape parades New York City had ever hosted.
Even if you are not a golf fan, Grand Slam is a great read, a fascinating look at the intensity of an athlete to could work and will himself to success under a plethora of conditions, and then step away from the game at the height of his fame. He had a successful career designing golf clubs including the fabled Augusta National Course in Atlanta. He even had a motion picture presence, creating 18 short instructional golf films where he worked with celebrities on a specific shot. HIs films played to movie houses between feature pictures and were wildly popular.
Grand Slam depicts an era and public just discovering a new sport and its heroes. It was the age of sports coverage by radio and newspaper giants like Grantland Rice, Paul Gallico, and Pop Keeler, Jones' best friend throughout his playing days.
I just couldn't get enough of the details of that age as well as the stroke-by-stroke play of Jones throughout his tournament days. For example, when given the honorary citizenship by the the city of St. Andrews (the only other recipient was Benjamin Franklin), he learned that he now had the ancient rights to "catch rabbits," "dry his washing on the Old Course," and "take divot whenever he pleased." Who can't love details like this that Frost dug up?
Happy reading.
Fred
Hogan, Ben. Ben Hogan's Five Lessons: The Mdern Fundamentals of Golf
Yogi, Count. Five Simple Steps to Perfect Golf
First Sentences:
On September 20, 1913, America welcomed a new hero into its sporting pantheon and for the first time the broad middle of the country embraced with curiosity and enthusiasm the exotic game he'd mastered.
Description:
Bobby Jones was not only one of the best golfers ever (and that include Palmer, Nicklaus, Woods, and anyone else you can name), he competed his entire career as an amateur. That right, he turned down all prize money for every tourney, contenting himself with trophies and the self-satisfaction of playing the game for the love.
In Mark Frost's engulfing The Grand Slam: Bobby Jones, America, and the Story of Golf, Jones' career is documented in well-researched details and interesting anecdotes. Jones played during the early 1900s (when golf relatively unknown in America) through the 1930s. In his childhood he was a club-throwing, swearing, self-taught golfer who displayed enough brilliance to regularly beat adults on his home course, East Lake, in Atlanta, Georgia.
Those were the days of clubs with hickory shafts and nicknames like "Calamity Jane" (Jones putter). Courses were such a new phenomenon that A.J. Spaulding hired a consultant to freely advise local cities on course design simply to provide places where the public could purchase and play with his golf equipment. Interest in this new game grew with exhibitions rounds between immortals like Walter Hagen, Harry Varden and Ted Ray. It was such a match played on East Lake course that ten-year-old Jones watched that inspired him to pursue the perfection of golf.
Talent, nerve, a relentless mentality. Not many players had all these weapons in their arsenal.From his first tournament in 1911 at age nine to his teen years when he flirted with winning international championships, Jones steadily improved to achieve his ultimate triumph in 1930: winning the four greatest tournaments in the same year. Holding the trophies for the British Open, the British Amateur, the U.S. Open, and the U.S. Amateur in the same year was nicknamed "The Grand Slam" and Jones was the first and still the only person to reach that pinnacle
Author Frost carefully details each step along the road to greatness, introducing the major golf tournaments, players, and courses, along with Jones' disappointments and record-breaking low rounds, and information about world figures during the World War I, Prohibition, and the Depression. A sports-mad world made him headline news worldwide and the subject of the biggest ticker tape parades New York City had ever hosted.
Even if you are not a golf fan, Grand Slam is a great read, a fascinating look at the intensity of an athlete to could work and will himself to success under a plethora of conditions, and then step away from the game at the height of his fame. He had a successful career designing golf clubs including the fabled Augusta National Course in Atlanta. He even had a motion picture presence, creating 18 short instructional golf films where he worked with celebrities on a specific shot. HIs films played to movie houses between feature pictures and were wildly popular.
Grand Slam depicts an era and public just discovering a new sport and its heroes. It was the age of sports coverage by radio and newspaper giants like Grantland Rice, Paul Gallico, and Pop Keeler, Jones' best friend throughout his playing days.
I just couldn't get enough of the details of that age as well as the stroke-by-stroke play of Jones throughout his tournament days. For example, when given the honorary citizenship by the the city of St. Andrews (the only other recipient was Benjamin Franklin), he learned that he now had the ancient rights to "catch rabbits," "dry his washing on the Old Course," and "take divot whenever he pleased." Who can't love details like this that Frost dug up?
During the 1920s [Jones] played an average of only four tournaments a year against full-time professionals, generally practices for only a few weeks to prepare himself, and was still, without argument, the greatest player who ever wore cleats....Bob had played in twenty-one majors championships and won thirteen of them.Readers are immersed in the era and personality of Bobby Jones and the daily effort required to become a champion ... as well as what that road to greatness takes away from anyone seeking to pursue excellence.
Some may discount his legacy by saying he only played a game, but what he achieved remains in its own right as powerful and permanent an expression of the human longing for perfection as any poem or song or painting. Greatness is rare and a solemn responsibility, and because he offered himself in service to his talent with a strong mind, a committed heart, and every ounce of strength in his being, he deserves a lasting place in our memory.Amen to that.
Happy reading.
Fred
____________________
If this book interests you, be sure to check out:
If this book interests you, be sure to check out:
Hogan, Ben. Ben Hogan's Five Lessons: The Mdern Fundamentals of Golf
Simply the best, briefest, and most clear golf instruction book. Period
Yogi, Count. Five Simple Steps to Perfect Golf
Offbeat, clever, but solid, proven tips from golf's self-proclaimed greatest player, Count Yogi. Never heard of him? Well, take a look at this book for the most down-to-earth instruction and biography you ever will read. (previously reviewed here)
Wodehouse, P.G.. The Golf Omnibus: 31 Tales by the Green from the Maser of Comic Fiction:
The funniest, drollest, and odd-ball golf stories with completely unexpected plots and outcomes, (such as the two men playing a 16-mile long hole in order to win the favor of a girl). Unmatched reading.
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