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Saturday, October 11, 2008
Once again pay tribute to Bobby Jones
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
So much of history is swallowed up by the passing of time, but some events of significance cut their way through the daily headlines. One such of those took center stage at Atlanta History Center this week, an observance of one of Atlanta’s most celebrated citizens. Mainly in this section of the news Robert Tyre Jones Jr. is revered as an athlete, but I feel safe in suggesting that he was the most unusual athlete I have ever known. At the age of 28, after winning every major title there was to be won in golf, he retired. Then made films, was the motivating energy behind the most famous golf course in this nation at Augusta, practiced law, then suffered the indignity of a cruel disease that eventually took his life, almost a cell at a time.
Fifty years ago this weekend, Bobby Jones was honored in a way only one other American has ever known. He was summoned to St. Andrews in Scotland to receive what that lovely old town calls “Freedom of the City,” a reverential honor reserved for only. … well, this is how the presenting Provost described it: “We welcome an old an dearly beloved friend, not only as a golfer but a man of outstanding character, courage and accomplishment well worthy to adorn the roll of our Honorary Burgesses.”
Only one other American, Benjamin Franklin before him, in 1759, has received the honor, and none other since.
In Jones’ life, this represented a healing, for at St. Andrews, in 1921, as a petulant 20-year-old, he threw a fit, or as he put it, “the most inglorious failure of my golfing life.” Playing in his first British Open, he became so disgusted with his game that he picked up on the 11th hole, tore up his card and stalked off the course.
Now, to be honored in such a way, improbable.
He had redeemed himself in many ways. “Beginning with the puzzled dislike I had felt for the Old Course when I first played it in 1921, I had come to love it,” he said later. And so it was that on the Old Course in 1930 he won the British Amateur, which later he called “the most important tournament of my life,” and was summarily boosted off the course on the shoulders of Scottish celebrants. Thus, his yet unequalled Grand Slam was set in motion, the British Amateur and Open and the U.S. Amateur and Open.
His return in 1958 had a double purpose, as honorary captain of the American team in the first World Amateur Team Championship, and to be honored by the city of St. Andrews. By this time he had been handicapped for ten years and the deadly ailment known as syringomyelia was slowly sapping his life. But he made the trip, with family, and his walking sticks, a strenuous venture. The airliner lost an engine and had to turn back to Newfoundland, thus the Joneses arrived a day late. Younger Hall, at the university, was packed for the presentation. Jones would accept no assistance, but struggled to the podium by himself, whereupon his most emotional expression was this:
“I could take everything out of my life, everything except my experiences at St. Andrews, and I’d still have a rich and full life.”
The breach was officially healed. He was then driven through the throng in the hall, “people reaching out just to touch and say his name,” said his daughter, Mary Ellen, “then broke out singing ‘will ye no’ come back again,’ well knowing he never would.”
So we all sang it again Friday evening in the History Center, and celebrated the Golden Anniversary of Jones’ Freedom of the City, sealing it away in memory, never to be swallowed up by time.
