Bobby Jones

Robert Tyre "Bobby" Jones, Jr., named for his grandfather, was born March 17, 1902, in the Grant Park neighborhood of Atlanta, Georgia. He was the second son of Robert Purmedus Jones, an attorney who had played baseball at the University of Georgia, and Clara Merrick Thomas Jones. At age five, he and a friend laid out a small golf course in the front yard, and Jones played with a set of clubs cut down to fit his size. Soon afterward, the family moved to the suburb of East Lake, where they lived next to the East Lake golf course. There, young Jones watched the head professional golfer, Stewart Maiden, and learned to play by imitating his swing. These were the only "lessons" Jones ever had. Maiden coached him informally as the talented young golfer began to win local tournaments.

Jones played in his first U.S. Open Championship in 1920, at the Inverness Club in Toledo, Ohio, where he

Bobby Jones

tied for eighth place. In 1921 he played his first British Amateur at Hoylake, England, where he was eliminated after the fourth round. From there he entered the British Open on the Old Course at St. Andrew's, Scotland, considered the birthplace of golf, but he withdrew in frustration after the eleventh hole after missing a putt.