The Immortal Bobby: Bobby Jones and the Golden Age of Golf

by Ron Rapoport

Of all the giants of golf’s Golden Age, Bobby Jones was the most revered. His intelligence, modesty, eloquence, and charm—and the fact he remained an amateur throughout his career—so completely captivated the public that at times it seemed almost beside the point that he was also the best golfer in the world. Jones’s fame reached its peak in 1930 when he became the only golfer to ever win the Grand Slam and the only person in history to receive a second ticker-tape parade on Broadway.

Yet beneath the easy grace he exhibited on and off the golf course, there was another Bobby Jones—one who through the years battled his volatile temper; the pressure of competition that grew so unbearable he was often left near tears and unable to take any pleasure in winning; and, in the final decades of his life, an agonizing physical decline that robbed him of everything but his dignity.

Drawing on scores of interviews, a careful reconstruction of contemporary accounts, and Jones’s voluminous correspondence, award-winning sportswriter Ron Rapoport reveals the man behind the legend and provides a moving depiction of a long-gone sporting age.
 

Genres: Sports

366 pages, Paperback

First published January 31, 2005

About the author

Ron Rapoport was a sports columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times for more than twenty years and also wrote for the Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Daily News, and the Associated Press. He served as the sports commentator for NPR's Weekend Edition for two decades and has written a number of books about sports and entertainment.

Reviews

[Anson Cassel Mills · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m not a golfer or even a sports enthusiast, so I came at this book with a different perspective than most potential readers. Of course, I anticipated a considerable amount of hole-to-hole commentary on the golf tournaments that Bobby Jones (1902-1971) won and (more rarely) lost. That information is indeed here; but Ron Rapoport, an award-winning sports journalist, also did a fine job of providing the sort of background information that renders a time and place understandable and the protagonist and his supporting cast genuinely human.

Bobby Jones is a sympathetic character, self-effacing and gentlemanly, so the tension in the story mostly concerns Jones’s learning self-control and the ability to at least partially repress the nervous tension that was the dark side of his competitive nature. Rapoport even suggests that Jones’s crippling spinal disease might have been caused by the way he played golf.

[John Timothy · Rating 4 out of 5]

happyNewMonth and welcome to my #BookReview. This is one of the first biographies I've read and the author did an awesome job making it an interesting read.
I became a fan of Bobby Jones and golf and I have been influenced to watch and even follow the game some way.
I end by saying "we all have a story to tell, how are going about it? Would it still be told after long you have been gone?