THE IMMORTAL BOBBY
From GOLF BETWEEN TWO WARS by Bernard Darwin
Publihers Chatto & Windus, London 1944
STILL sticking to the amateurs I come now with faltering pen to the greatest of them all. As far as the United States are concerned the Bobby Jones era began, I suppose, in 1916 when at the age of iq.2 he reached the third round of the American National Championship at Merion and went down after a hard match before an ex-champion, Robert Gardner. From this time onward till he retired full of honours if not of years, he was a great figure in American golf. For us, however, his era began somewhat later, since he came here first in 1922 and did not show us his full powers till 1926 when he had reached the immense age of 24. He then won our Open Championship for the first time and perhaps this is the best place to set out his record in the barest and briefest outline. In his own country he won the Open Championship four times (he also tied for it twice and lost the play-off) and the Amateur Championship five times. Here he won one Amateur and three Open Championships. In 193o he established what has been picturesquely called "the impregnable quadrilateral" by winning the Open and Amateur Championships of both countries in a single summer. He played against Britain in six International matches, five of them for the Walker Cup; he won his single every time, sometimes by immense margins, and he won his foursome five times and lost once by a single hole.
Bobby's first appearance here was in the International Match preceding the Amateur Championship at Hoylake in 1921. He won both his single and his foursome handsomely and impressed everybody, as he could not fail to do. Then came anticlimax. His career in the Amateur Championship was short and rather chequered. He began well enough against a good Scottish player, Mr. Manford, and there followed that rather farcical encounter with Mr. Hamlet of Wrexham. Whatever he might be at Wrexham it is pardonable to say that Mr. Hamlet was not of the stature to face Hoylake, even though it was made less formidably long than usual by the hard ground. Yet with the match all square going to the Royal, which is the seventeenth, it really seemed as if he were going to beat Bobby, which, as Euclid might remark, would have been absurd. This was not due to any great golf of his but to a sort of general futility and paralysis on the greens on Bobby's part. However, the crisis passed, Bobby scrambled through with a score nearer ninety than eighty and proceeded to-play devastatingly well in his next match against Mr. Robert Harris. He had got his bad round over, he was going to win-and then he relapsed again and was beaten by many holes by Mr. Allan Graham. There was a chance of redeeming himself in the Open at St. Andrews but all went ill; he felt a puzzled hatred for the links which he came afterwards to love and at the eleventh hole in the third round he picked up his ball. Legend declares that he relieved his feelings by teeing it up and driving it far out into the Eden. If he did it was a gesture deserving of sympathy, and if he did not I am very sure he wanted to.
In 1921, at the age of 19, Bobby was already a magnificent golfer, as great a hitter of the ball though not as great a player of matches or medal rounds as he ever was. Several years before Mr. Walter Travis had said he could never improve his strokes, and that was true enough; there was, humanly speaking, no room for improvement; it was simply a matter of stringing them together more successfully. There could be no more fascinating player to watch not only for the free and rhythmic character of his swing but for the swiftness with which he played. He had as brief a preliminary address as Duncan himself, but there was nothing hurried or slapdash about it and the swing itself, if not positively slow, had a certain drowsy beauty which gave the feeling of slowness. There was nothing that could conceivably be called a weak spot. The utmost that could be said-and this may be a purely personal impression-was that he did not seem quite so supremely happy with a mashie-niblick as when playing approaches with longer irons.
People liked Bobby at once, and that not only for his natural pleasantness of manner; they discerned in him a very human quality; he was no cold machine but took his game very much to heart as did humbler people. In his almost infantile days he had been inclined to throw his clubs about. This we were told since the American press had once emphasised it rather unkindly; otherwise we should never have guessed it, for he had already tamed his naturally fiery temperament into betraying no outward signs. Those indeed who knew him well professed to know the symptoms which showed the flames leaping up within. I remember once watching him at an Open Championship, it may have been at St. Anne's, in company with that fine American golfer, the late Mr. J. G. Anderson; Bobby missed a shortish putt and "Now, he's. mad," said my companion. I could detect nothing, but doubtless Mr. Anderson knew his man and Bobby did hate missing a shot. Perhaps that was why he missed so few, for in the end that highly-strung nervous temperament, if it had never been his master, became his invaluable servant. In his most youthful and tempestuous days he had never been angry with his opponent and not often, I think, with Fate, but he had been furiously angry with himself. He set himself an almost impossibly high standard; he thought it an act of incredible folly if not a positive crime to make a stroke that was not exactly as it ought to be made and as he knew he could make it. If he ever derogated from that standard he may even in his most mature days have been "mad" in the recesses of his heart, but he became outwardly a man of ice, with the very best of golfing manners.
How much other people have suffered over their golf we do not always know; the light of fame has not beaten on them so fiercely and they have not possessed such a friend and vates sacer combined as Bobby had in Mr. O. B. Keeler. Of Bobby we do know that he suffered greatly. How he could scarcely eat anything till the day's play was over; how on occasion he felt that he could not even button his shirt collar for fear of the direst consequences; how he could lose a stone in weight during a championship; how he was capable of breaking down to the point of tears not from any distress but from pure emotional over-strain-these things are now well known and may be found in Mr. Reeler's admirable and Boswellian pages. No doubt his capacity for an emotional outlet was at that time a relief and a help to him, but there must be a limit. I was in his company soon after he had finished his fourth round when he won the last of his three Open Championships here in 1930, and seeing him nearly past speech I thought that the time had come for him to call a halt and that this game could not much longer be worth such an agonising candle. He had great courage and great ambition, and these not only pulled him through but probably made him a more successful player than he would have been had he been gifted with a more placid temperament. There is much to be said for the stolid, phlegmatic player, but the great golfers have never had what I once heard Jack White call a dead nerve. It is worth remembering that James Braid, most rock-like and apparently impassive of men, has said that he "liked to be a wee bit nervous" before a big game. The steady-going and unimaginative will often beat the more eager champion and they will get very near the top, but there, I think, they will stop. The prose labourer must yield to the poet and Bobby as a golfer had a strain of poetry in him. He stands for ever as the greatest encourager of the highly-strung player who is bent on conquering himself.
In 1926 we saw Bobby on his second visit. Four years had passed since he had been here before and he had now, as the Americans called it, "broken through"; the lean years were over. In 1923 he had won the American Open after a tie with Cruikshank, thus emulating Mr. Hilton here in winning the Open before the Amateur. In the following year he had put this to rights by winning the Amateur with triumphant ease and had been runner-up in the Open. In 1925 he had won the Amateur again and had tied in the Open, to lose father surprisingly after a protracted play-off with Willie Macfarlane. He was in the plenitude of his powers and who should stand before him? And yet there was a moment when it seemed as if his second visit, like his first, would end in disappointment. All went swimmingly in the Amateur Championship at Muirfield till he reached the fifth round and then out he went and that with a resounding crash, for he was well and truly beaten by Mr. Andrew Jamieson who was then hardly known outside Scotland. I believe that Bobby woke with a stiff neck that morning though he was most anxious to conceal it. Certainly he seemed to lack something of his usual ease, but Jamieson, a very neat; unobtrusive, efficient golfer, did play uncommonly well, well enough to beat anybody if anybody gave him, as Bobby did, the very slightest opening. What was more, having got away with a lead he never grew frightened of it but played with victorious confidence. I saw only odd holes of the match but I remember one vividly. This was the short thirteenth called "The Postage Stamp", though whether it or the hole at Troon has the prior right to the title I do not know. The hole as it then was, had a long narrow green with a drop to perdition on the right, and on the left a high rough bank. Jamieson, with victory firmly in his grasp, if he could keep steady, had the honour and he made a slip; he hooked his tee shot and the ball lighted on the top of the left-hand bank. Would it stay there? It hovered for a moment and then, audibly encouraged by the crowd, began to topple downward by stages, almost coming to rest and then moving on again till at last it ended its rather nefarious career on the green. That was the final blow and Jamieson, having had his little bit of luck, went on to win calmly and easily by 4 and 3.
Mrs. Gamp has remarked how little we know "what lays before us". If Bobby had won that championship he has said that he would have sailed straight for home after the Walker Cup match. As it was he decided to give himself another chance in the Open at St. Anne's. So, after duly doing his deadly stuff at St. Andrews in the Walker Cup-he beat Cyril Tolley by 12 and 11 - he went to Sunningdale for the qualifying rounds of the Open and proceeded to play there what was by common consent as nearly flawless a round as ever had been played. He went round in 66 and he may be said to have holed only one putt worthy of mention, one of eight yards or so for a three on the fifth. Otherwise if he missed nothing short-and there were one or two putts missed to be called shortish-he holed nothing that could conceivably be called long. He simply went on and on with exact perfection. There was indeed one slip, an iron shot pushed out into a bunker at the short thirteenth, but it cost the player nothing since he chipped the ball out dead. It probably brought relief to him as it did to the spectators, who had been feeling that they must scream if perfection endured much longer. It was Mr. Keeler, I think, who once wrote, "They wound up the mechanical man of golf yesterday and set him clicking round the East Lake course". All great golfers at their best are more or less mechanical, for they do the same thing over and over again, but I doubt if any of them save perhaps one has given quite such an impression of well-oiled, impeccable machinery as Bobby did from tee to green. The notions of beauty and machinery do not go well together; the word `clicking' may suggest something done `by numbers' and so far it is inappropriate; but Mr. Keeler's was nevertheless an apt and memorable phrase. Harry Vardon and Bobby Jones combined exquisiteness of art with utterly relentless precision in a way not quite given to any other golfers.
Few joys in this world are unalloyed, and though Bobby was naturally and humanly pleased with that 66 he was a trifle worried because he had "reached the peak" rather too soon before going to St. Anne's. His second round of 68, with, if I remember, one innocuous misunderstanding with a tree, did nothing to reassure him on this point and he was so far right that, though he won at St. Anne's, his play there was not quite of the same unrippled smoothness as at Sunningdale. The game was by contrast "aye fechtin' " against him and he had to work hard for his scores. That was as exciting a championship as any between wars, save only for this, that from the very start it seemed that no Briton was likely to win it. Mitchell ended fifth but he only accomplished so much by two very fine rounds on the last day; as far as winning was concerned he had put himself out of court by beginning with two 78's. So to the narrowly patriotic this championship was merely a brilliant, alien exhibition contest.
The invaders went off with a bang: Hagen had a 68 and the powerful, broad-backed, rough-hewn Mehlhorn, said to have graduated as hod-carrier to the champion bricklayer of America, had a 70. Then came M'Leod, an expatriated Scot, and Al Watrous with 71 and then Bobby in the position he liked, lying well up but not prematurely leading, with a 72. It was a good round but he had to fight for it, since at each one of the last four holes he made some sort of a slip and had, in Mr. Laidlay's phrase, to "trust to a pitch and a putt" to get his four. In the second round Hagen had a compensating and disastrous 77 and at the end of it Mehlhorn with 7o and 744 and Bobby with two 72's led the field. Watrous, 71 and 75, was two shots behind them.
On the last day Bobby and Watrous were drawn together, and as it turned out this chance involved just such a strain on them and just such a terrific duel for first place as Vardon and Taylor had endured at Prestwick ten years earlier. Watrous was a very good player who has left no very distinct image on R. A. Whitcombe my mind; he had no tremendous power, but he had all the American virtue of smoothness and rhythm and he was a very fine putter, bang on his putting. Bobby was two strokes ahead when they set out and he had a 73 in a good fresh wind, but Watrous playing perfectly had a 6g and so-again this brought back memories of Vardon and Taylor-turned the deficit of two into a lead of two. Hagen took 74 and Mehlhorn began to fade. So the battle was to be fought out between these two and they were fully conscious of it as they went back to their hotel together, lunched together and even lay down to rest in the same room-a pleasant picture of friendly rivalry.
When it was all over and Mr. Topping, who had been in charge of this couple, gave away the prizes he declared that Bobby had made but one remark to him in the course of the last round, "My golf is terrible." In fact it was terribly good except in one important respect; he was taking too many putts. By his own account he took 39 of them and what he gained on Watrous in length he certainly threw away on the greens. The short ninth which had consistently bothered him beat him again and he was still two down with five to play; in what was in effect a match the language of match play may be used. Then at last the strokes came back one at a time and the pair were all square with three to play. At the seventeenth came Bobby's historic second, which I must presently describe yet again, but before that on the sixteenth came an incident of which a friend has lately reminded me; it gives force to the ruthless doctrine that someone ought to murder a photographer pour encourager les autres. Watrous had played his second to the green and Bobby had got half-way up with some pitching club when a fiend with a camera stepped out and tried to snap him. Bobby stopped and began again, and again the photographer tried. This time he was metaphorically lynched; he was shooed out of the way, and Bobby, by a considerable display of control, pitched safely to the green and the hole was halved in four.
Now for the seventeenth, a hole a little over 400 yards in length. The course of the hole bends to the left and the line is well out to the right, in order to get a clear view of the hole and avoid the sandhills guarding the left-hand side of the green. Nor is that the only reason for keeping to the right, for on the left of the fairway is a wilderness of sandy, scrubby country dotted here and there with bunkers. Bobby with the honour, drew his tee shot, not badly but badly enough to be obviously in some form of trouble; Watrous went straight and playing the odd reached the green; he was some way from the hole but he was on the green and that looked good enough. Bobby's ball lay in a shallow bunker and it lay clean, but he was i 7o yards or more from the flag and between him and it were the sandhills. He took what I think he called his mashie-iron (it now reposes a sacred relic in the St. Anne's Club) and hit the ball perfectly clean, playing it somewhat out into the wind so that it came in to finish on the green and nearer the hole than his opponent. Admittedly the ball lay as clean as clean could be and this was the kind of shot that he might very well have played in a practice game, but in the circumstances, when a teaspoonful too much sand might have meant irretrievable ruin, it was a staggering shot, and it staggered poor A1 Watrous. He took three putts, Bobby got down in two and everybody felt that that shot had settled it. Watrous was bunkered at the home hole, Bobby nearly bunkered but not quite; he got a four against a five and finished in 74. against 78, 291 against 293.
There still remained Hagen and George Von Elm, both of whom were rumoured to be doing well. Hagen arrived on the last tee wanting a four for 74 and a two to tie. He could doubtless have tied for second place with Watrous but Hagen was never interested in second prizes. After a fine drive, he walked some way forward and then with a characteristic gesture had the flag taken out. His ball very nearly pitched into the hole and ran on into the bunker behind the green. Aut Caesar, etc. His effort had failed and he took four more to get down, so that Von Elm coming with a wet sheet and a 7z tied with him for third place. Let me add as a postscript that the Council of the Royal Lytham and St. Anne's Club have now decided to mark, as far as it can exactly be done, the spot at the seventeenth from which Bobby played his shot. This is a precedent that could not often be followed, but here the geographical conditions are favourable and if now and then someone has to lift a drop from behind the monument he will do so in a reverent rather than an exasperated spirit.
I have written at perhaps excessive length about the St. Anne's Championship both because it was Bobby's first and because it was so dramatic. When he came back next year to defend his title at St. Andrews, having in the meanwhile won the American Open at Scioto, he played unquestionably better; he enjoyed the greatest single triumph he ever had here, but there seems much less to say about it, for the reason that it was `his' championship, he was winning all the while. By this time St. Andrews had taken a thorough hold on him. He was amused by its problems; he knew whereabouts were its hidden bunkers and was not annoyed by them, as some people never cease to be, because they are hidden; he had devised some three difFerent ways of playing the Long Hole In according to the wind; he had realized that for a player of his parts the Road Hole need hold no excessive terrors, unless he is over-ambitious. In short he had proved the truth of Mrs. Malaprop's saying that "'Tis safest in matrimony to begin with a little aversion", for he was now thoroughly in love with the Old Course and played it as if he loved it.
Bobby's four rounds were 68, 72, 73 and 72 and he led from the start. I do not know that he played any better for his 68 than in any of the other three rounds; it was simply that everything came off for him, as for example a putt holed for three at the Hole o' Cross going out. It is by far the biggest green in the world and if this was not the longest putt ever holed it must have been very nearly so. Mr. Keeler's brow was a little knitted, for he was not sure how his man would like to be "in the lead" straight away instead of lying a stroke or two behind, but the general impression was that there would be no holding Bobby. After two rounds he only led Hodson by two strokes, but good player as Hodson was he could scarcely hope to give the leader two strokes; in fact the third round destroyed him as far as winning was concerned and those who were more likely to hold on were several shots further behind. At the end of the third round Bobby led Fred Robson, who had just done a splendid 69, by four shots and Aubrey Boomer by six, and it was for him to set the pace.
Only at the beginning of the last round was there a moment's doubt, for Bobby frittered away a couple of shots in the first four holes, and so with an orthodox five at the fifth his score was three over fours-a definitely vulnerable star. At that point I left him to look at other people, meaning to pick him up again at the thirteenth on the way home. Some bursts of clapping from the neighbourhood of the `loop' suggested that he was doing well, but how well no one of us waiting on the big double green knew. The advanced guard of his crowd came towards us, in the van one who trotted briskly, as if big with news to impart. I have a well-grounded distrust of spectators' tales but this one looked a man of good counsel, sober and unimaginative; so I buttonholed him and asked his tidings. When he said that Bobby was now two under fours I thought he was only the usual liar, but what he said was true, for Bobby had done the holes from the sixth to the twelfth in 24 shots. After that the round was a triumphal procession. His second to the last hole was a little cautious and ended in the Valley of Sin. Thence he ran it up dead and as he scaled the bank the crowd stormed up after him and lined the edge of the green, barely restraining themselves. He holed his short one and the next instant there was no green visible, only a dark seething mass, in the midst of which was Bobby hoisted on fervent shoulders and holding his putter, "Calamity Jane", at arm's length over his head lest she be crushed to death. Calamity Jane had two pieces of whipping bound round her shaft where she had been broken, not we may trust in anger but by some mischance. When some years later the market was flooded with exact models of her, each of them duly bore two superfluous black bands. Did ever imitation pay sincerer flattery than that?
Only once more, in i93o, were we destined to see Bobby here in battle array, though he has returned once since his retirement and in playing a friendly round of the Old. Course took the major part of St. Andrews round with him. It was at St. Andrews in 1930, the year of the "impregnable quadrilateral", that he realized almost his last unachieved ambition and won our Amateur Championship. He did not win it without his bad moments, for he had never concealed his dislike of eighteen-hole matches. In the American Championship the first two rounds, which were of eighteen holes only, had at least once brought him to grief and he had had, in the words of old Beldham the cricketer, "many an all but". Once safely through them and in the haven of thirty-six holes, where he felt that he had space to manoeuvre, he had crushed his men one after the other by murderous margins. Thus in our championship he could never feel really at ease until in the final and he had never yet reached the final. He set out on the enterprise strung up to a high pitch and no one who saw the beginning of his match against a good Nottinghamshire golfer, Mr. Roper, will forget it. On the first green he holed a long putt for a three, the ball going in with an almost suspicious rattle against the back of the tin. Bobby looked a little apologetic and made several little practice movements of his club. I remember Mr. Hilton whispering to me that he was trying to get the swing of his putter smooth; that first putt, successful as it was, had shown signs of tension. After a four at the second he holed another and shorter putt for a three at the Cartgate and then at the fourth hit a very long tee shot rather to the left into the Cottage bunker. Thence, a culminating atrocity, he holed out, a full shot of 150 yards or so, with some sort of iron, for a two. After this astonishing display Bobby became comparatively quiescent and had to struggle as hard to get through as many less gifted players have done. Two of his most close-run things were against compatriots, Mr. Harrison Johnston and Mr. George Voigt. Mr. Johnston, after being several holes down, chased him to the last gasp and Mr. Voigt, if I may permit myself an `if', ought to have beaten him. Bobby was obviously struggling and when Mr. Voigt, very cool and steady and putting beautifully, stood two up with five to go, he looked like a winner. And then he committed' what the onlooker, who has nothing to do but criticise, felt inclined to call a gratuitous folly. With the broad space of the Elysian Fields to drive into he cut his tee shot over the wall and out of bounds. It was a heaven-sent reprieve; Bobby took it and fought his way home to win by a hole.
Yet even this paled before his battle with Cyril Tolley. Every man, woman and child in St. Andrews went out to watch it, and Mr. Gerard Fairley was quite right to set the scene of the murder in one of his stories on the afternoon of that match. There would have been ample opportunity to commit several murders and escape undetected through the lonely streets, though stained with the marks of crime. Never was there more perceptible the silence of expectation, that lull before the storm in which men speak instinctively in whispers, and Cyril gave it if possible a more thrilling emphasis, since he began with a full-blooded top from the first tee. It was ominous but it was no presage of disaster for he played finely afterwards and a dog-fight on a magnificent scale ensued, which delighted everyone save other poor wretches who were trying to play their own insignificant matches. Each man seeing the mighty flood approach him must needs crouch over his ball guarding it as best he might and pick himself up again when the torrent has swept over him. The most discussed shot in the match was Bobby's second to the Road Hole, as to which hundreds are prepared to take their oath that the ball would have been on the road if it had not hit a spectator and an equal number of witnesses are quite certain that it would not. I was there but was running for my life with my head well down at the moment and can offer no opinion. The hole was halved; so was the last and Bobby won at the nineteenth, where his adversary played a rather loose second and was punished by a stymie. Exactly how good the golf was I cannot now remember for there are occasions when that is of secondary importance. It was the devil of a match.
At last Bobby was in the final - against Mr. Wethered; his chance had come and he did not mean to waste it; he was on his favourite long trail of thirty-six holes. At the very first hole a shudder of surprise went through the crowd as he entirely missed his pitch and stayed short of the burn, but from there he chipped dead and got his four; nor did he ever exceed that figure till he put his second into the Road bunker at the seventeenth. I can see him very clearly now, as the stewards are moving away the crowd at the back of the green. He is gently smiling a protest to the effect that he does not mean to go on to the road. In fact his explosion shot gave him quite a good chance of a four but the putt did not drop; there was to be no fiveless round for him. His opponent fought manfully but without avail and Bobby won by 7 and 6.
Now for the last lap, the Open at Hoylake, which was won in the end as had been that at St. Anne's by sheer, hard fighting. As at St. Andrews Bobby jumped away with the lead with a 70 which was equalled by Macdonald Smith. He added a 72 while Mac Smith took 77 and his nearest pursuer was now Fred Robson with 143. The third round was sound enough, 74, but meanwhile another British hope had arisen. Compston, who had begun with 74 and 73, added to these a tremendous 68 and led Bobby by a stroke. Diegel was not far behind with a 71, giving him a total of 228; but Diegel, though having an astonishing game in him, has been in championships one of those unfortunates who can never quite do it. He has said bitterly himself that however hard the other fellows try to give it him he will not take it. This may be partly due to his highly artificial method of putting, "contorted almost to anguish", as was written of a fine putter of a much older generation. Such styles are always apt to break down under strain, and apart from this Diegel was cursed with a temperament the most highly strung possible. Walter Hagen, once sitting up cheerfully late before a final against Diegel, was told in a tone of mild reproach that his adversary had been in bed for hours. "Ah," said Hagen, "but he's not asleep." I have seen Diegel, as "crazy" as ever was Duncan, and as brilliant as anyone I ever did see, but somehow he did not quite seem the man to stop Bobby, and in any case it was with Compston that were all British hearts.
I went out to see him play the first hole in the last round. His drive was perfect; his iron shot adequate, to the edge of the green, and he took three putts. One five meant nothing to be sure but there came other fives and the final 82 was heartbreaking. So out again in search of Bobby. All went if not perfectly according to plan at least reasonably well until he came to the eighth or Far Hole, which measures according to the books 527 yards, two shots and a pitch for Bobby in ordinary conditions with the ground fairly fast. The two shots were entirely satisfactory but the pitch was weak and the ball rolled back from the plateau; the next was nothing to boast of and at the last he missed a shortish putt; result, a horrid seven without touching a bunker. As Ben Sayers might have said, "It was no possible but it was a fact." The news of that seven quickly spread all over the links bringing consternation or encouragement. To Bobby himself it must have been a cruel blow but he pulled himself together and fought his way, home, much, I imagine, in the frame of mind of a runner running himself blind, not seeing the tape but determined to get there. He was round in 75 and now we knew what had to be done. Compston was dead and buried; Diegel did a 75, good but not quite good enough for he had started two strokes behind. Those of us who were with him in one of the smaller rooms of the clubhouse united in assuring Bobby that all was well, as he wandered restlessly about holding a glass in two hands. And then there came a suggestion that all might not be well since Mac Smith was doing great things. To be sure he had to do a 69 to tie and that to an impartial judgment seemed very unlikely, but at such moments judgments can scarcely be impartial.
I remember very well going out to meet him. I could not go far for I had to broadcast and time was getting hideously short, but I must know. He holed out at the Dun taking to my jaundiced eye a very long time over it, and then we knew; two threes to tie. It was almost but not quite impossible. I saw him play the Royal-I was to broadcast from a house hot far off and his putt for three did not go in. Two to tie and that was surely impossible, but with an obstinate fidelity to duty I waited till his second had pitched on the home green and had palpably not holed out. Then I ran and ran and arrived just in time to announce in breathless tones to an expectant world that Bobby had won again.
I will not follow him home to America. He won the Open at Interlaken and the Amateur at Merion where he had played in his first championship at 14 and won his first Amateur Championship at 22. But as far as this country is concerned he departed in a blaze of glory from Hoylake.
He retired at the right time and could say with Charles Lamb, "I have worked task work and have the rest of the day to myself." After Tom Cribb had beaten Molineaux for the second time in the great battle of Thistleton Gap it was decided that he need never fight again but should bear the title of Champion to the end of his days. I think that most golfers in their hearts grant the same privilege to Bobby Jones.