The Greatest Shot Bobby Jones Ever Hit & The Greatest Shot Walter Hagen “Never” Hit.

The Greatest Shot Bobby Jones Ever Hit

I have no doubt that there could be a hearty debate on what shot encapsulates the greatest shot of Bobby Jones’ career. Off the top of my head there is “the great miss” which resulted in the famed Lily Pad Shot at Interlachen- and while amazing, it’s hard to call a topped shot a great one. One of my personal favorites: Under the lights of Hollywood, Jones hit a long iron in his movie short, Bobby Jones: How I Play Golf and in one take, aiming at a camera perched way up in the air, Jones smashed the lense.

Today I thought we could focus on the shortest club in Jones’ bag… his putter.

While Jones’ putter may have been shorter than the other clubs in his bag, it’s status loomed larger than life- it wasn’t just a putter, but a putter known round the world by the brilliant name of Calamity Jane!

There are so many stories that I could share about Calamity Jane - for instance it forged in Scotland by the famed iron maker Robert Condie & sat disguarded, unloved and its magic unrealized in the shop of Jimmy Maiden, until it found its King Arthur.

Or I could write about the putting lesson Bobby Jones received that made him one of the greatest putters in the history of the game (not to mention the secret he was given), but today we dive into the putt that won a US Open and a putt that perhaps set up the roadmap for the Magnificent Quadrilateral,  or better known today as the Grand Slam.

In 1929 Bobby Jones only signed up to play two of the four majors - the US Open and the US Amateur. The first of those majors was to be held at a golf club that was only six years old at the time… AW Tillinghast’s 36 hole masterpiece Winged Foot.

Bobby Jones (an amateur golfer) entered the championship the heavy favorite despite a field that included Gene Sarazen, Tommy Armour, & (at that time) 10 time major winner Walter Hagen. To Bobby Jones’ credit from 1922 until the year he retired in 1930, he NEVER finished worse than second place in the US Open!

After three rounds of play, Bobby held a three stroke lead over Gene Sarazen and a four stroke lead over Al Espinosa. Jones looked like a lock through 7 holes of the final round, as he had expanded his lead over Sarazen to six and Espinosa by five. Jones was on cruise control until he played the 8th hole. An errant drive created some worry but a shot from one bunker to another led to a triple bogey 7. Jones bounced back on the 9th with a birdie, but the relief would not last, as he finished with two more bogies and a double bogie on the 15th. He went from five up on Espinosa to tied with Espinosa, who had already completed the round. Jones parred the 16th and 17th steadying the ship. Jones needed a par to push the championship into a 36 hole playoff (yes the US Open used to be a 36 hole playoff).

On the 18th Jones hit a good drive that found the fairway, but his approach into the 419 yard, 18th hole, hit the green - caught a slippery slope and found itself in the green side bunker. Now this is important… this was back in a day when hazards were truly hazards - before the days of bounce & the sand wedge. As a matter of fact, the sand wedges of the era - called niblicks - generally had no more than 50 degrees of loft (think 9 iron) and actually had a dig sole- meaning that the instrument Jones would use to try to save par and was ill equipped for the purpose.

Jones’ bunker shot finished 12 feet from the pin, but on the wrong side of the hole. He faced a devilish putt with a ton of break.

Let’s take a moment to capture what this putt meant- in the words of Grantland Rice:

“It was one of the great moments I have ever known in sports. The silence was complete. Only a few short minutes before, Jones had been six strokes up with only six holes to go. Now he had one putt left, for a tie. Bobby Jones had faced crucial putts before—more of them than any other golfer I have ever known—where important championships were at stake. But this putt meant more to Bob Jones than merely winning an Open. It meant the recapture of his golfing soul. It meant removing a dark stain from his pride, certain nationwide ridicule that was to follow failure…

On the green, Bobby Jones crouched partly on one knee studying the slanting line of the treacherous putt. There was a dip or a break in the green of at least a foot-and-a-half that had to be judged. Bob was usually a fast putter. This time he took a few seconds longer than usual, for in addition to the speed of the fast green he had to decide how big the break was.”

The putt was struck but it looked short…barely reaching the edge of the cup, it looked like it was about to stop short when gravity took hold of this Spalding sphere and and pulled the ball into history.

Grantland Rice: “I have heard in my time a sudden roar—a great crash of noise, many, many times at many different games. I never heard before, or since, the vocal cataclysm that rocked the oaks of Westchester.”

Jones tied Espinosa and forced the 1929 US Open into a 36 hole playoff. Unfortunately for Espinosa, Jones game seemed to springboard from that slick putt on the 72nd hole. Jones not only defeated Espinosa he BURIED HIM.

(YOU MAY WANT TO SIT DOWN FOR THIS PART). Bobby Jones beat Al Espinosa by 23 strokes in that 36 hole playoff!

So what is the argument for this being the greatest shot of Jones’ career? OB Keeler, Jones’ friend and biographer confided to famed golf writer, Grantland Rice after 1930, that Jones would have retired from golf had he missed that 12 footer. For those of you who are unaware- the next year in 1930, Bobby Jones won the Grand Slam and changed the game forever.

“The Greatest Shot I Never Hit”

By Walter Hagen

“I will tell you about a shot you'd still be talking about if it had come off.

Hagen sipped his highball appreciatively and began:

“It was on the final hole of the 1926 British Open. (That was on the Royal Lytham & St. Anne's course, where the hole is a 349-yard par four.)

"Bobby Jones had already finished with a 291 to lead the field, and watching from the clubhouse balcony, as I walked up to where my ball lay on the fairway after my drive.

"I could reach the green with a five-iron, and I needed to hole it to tie Bobby.

"Now, I always figured second place was no good, and I got to thinking what a shame it would be If the ball rolled up to the pin and it didn't drop.

"There were about 10,000 people in the gallery and they knew as well as I did, that if I just the ball on the green, it would be a pretty good shot. I didn't want to tip them off by sending my caddie to take out the pin and have them saying, 'the bloody fool thinks he's going to hole out.'

"So I turned to a courteous little Englishman who had been tagging along, and asked him if he would walk up and remove the pin. Then maybe they'd think the Englishman, not me, was crazy. He sald righto; but walked only about half way and stopped.

"I had to motion him to go on up, and by then half the crowd knew my intention. He walked on but stopped again beside the green.

"That made the picture tough. I had to yell at him, so that everybody knew I was going to try to hole out. I could hear the gallery buzzing.

"Well, I played the shot. The ball flew straight over the hole it would have hit the pin--struck the green and rolled 15 feet into a trap.

"Bobby won the champlonship. I took a five on the hole, lost second place to Al Watrous, and tied George Von Elm for third."

The Haig chuckled reflectively.

"With that build-up." he said, “everybody would have sworn it was the greatest shot in history, If the ball had gone in the cup!”

My Favorite Golf Quote:

When Bobby Jones won the Grand Slam in 1930 a reporter reminded Bobby Jones that he had used 14-15 clubs in his bag, whereas Chick Evans used only 7 clubs in his 1916 US Open and Amateur victories.

Jones’ response:

“Well I suppose it’s better to be an expert with 7 clubs, than vaguely familiar with 14.”