Major celebrations are being planned for St Andrews next March, to mark the centenary of the birth of Bobby Jones. Given that Jones's last visit there was in 1958, it will be a spiritual homecoming to a place which, after a decidedly unhappy baptism, he grew to love above all others.
On Friday, March 15th next, a Bobby Jones Commemorative Dinner will be held in the Younger Hall in St Andrews, where the guest speakers will include the great man's grandson and members of the Atlanta Athletic Club. Then, two days later (yes, Jones was born on St Patrick's Day), a centenary shotgun tournament will be held on the Old Course.
Much has been written about Jones's love-affair with St Andrews after he had got over the embarrassment of tearing up his card on his first visit there, as a 19-year-old, for the 1921 British Open. What he later described as his greatest disgrace, far worse than the frequent club-throwing of his middle teens, happened when he took a double-bogey five at the short 11th in the third round.
Far less has been written, however, about an episode 30 years later, which must have cut him far more deeply. When the Royal and Ancient decided eventually to honour an American with the captaincy of their club for 1951, Jones seemed the logical candidate. But they chose Francis Ouimet, the first amateur winner of the US Open in 1913.
At the time, it was felt the R and A were revealing their discomfort with financial rewards Jones got from golf after his retirement in 1930. For instance, from 12, one-reel instructional films for Warner Brothers, he is reputed to have earned $600,000, an astonishing amount at that time.
His rationale was: "The rules of the game, whatever they were, I have always respected, sometimes even beyond the letter. But, since I am no longer a competitor, I feel able to act entirely outside the amateur rule, as my judgement and conscience may decide."
It is clear that the USGA and the R and A took a less liberal view. Still, Jones's affection for St Andrews, where he won the Open in 1927, never dimmed. Indeed he made an unexpected visit in 1936, while en route to the Berlin Olympics, and when he arrived on the first tee, a crowd of 2,000 spectators had already gathered.
Carding 33 for the front nine, he went on to complete a round of 72, by which stage it was as if the entire population of the town had gathered around the 18th green. He came back only one more time - in 1958, as non-playing captain of the US team for the inaugural Eisenhower Trophy.
Crippled and in a wheelchair, he became the first American to be honoured with the freedom of St Andrews since Benjamin Franklin, 199 years previously. We are told that having spoken brilliantly in his soft, southern drawl, Jones made his painful way from the stage before going down the centre aisle of the Younger Graduation Hall in an electric golf cart, draped with the flag of the State of Georgia.
Whereupon an audience of 1,500 broke spontaneously into the Scottish love-song "Will ye no' come back again?" Herbert Warren Wind wrote later that it was "10 minutes before many who attended were able to speak again with a tranquil voice." It can be taken that similar emotions will be evoked by the celebrations next March.
"If I see any wives or other people running onto greens, I will personally kick their arses." Rest of the World skipper, Gary Player, speaking to his team prior to the UBS Warburg Cup at Kiawah Island last weekend.
