THE R&A’s OFFICIAL OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP MAGAZINE
Calamity Jane and the Walter Hagen Concave Niblick both played vital roles in Bobby Jones’s 1930 ascension into golfing immortality.
The first was the name Georgia’s favourite son gave his putter; the second, the revolutionary club he pulled from his bag after hooking his second into the greenside bunker on the 16th at Hoylake when tied for the lead with fellow American, Leo Diegel, in the 58th Open.
Bobby Jones had set sail for England in April of 1930 as captain of the US Walker Cup team. At the time, the four ‘Majors’ were considered to be the British Amateur and Open plus the US Amateur and US Open. His quest on the trip was to win the Walker Cup and the first two Majors in the space of just five weeks.
Jones and his American teammates first thrashed Great Britain 10-2 at Royal St. George’s in Sandwich. In imperious form, he next traveled up to St Andrews, where he beat Roger Wethered, 7 and 6 in the final of the British Amateur. After his win, the 28-year-old Jones spent a week relaxing with his wife, Mary, in Paris before returning for the Open.
The Royal Liverpool Golf Club, near the village of Hoylake on the Wirral, dates back to 1869 but had been substantially refurbished in the 1920s by Henry Shapland Colt. This was the sixth Open to be held at the venerable club, and, having won in 1926 and 1927, Robert Tyre ‘Bobby’ Jones Jr. was looking for his third Open title.
The pressure was intense. Under amateur regulations he was only a part-timer. After a BA from Harvard and the Georgia Bar exam, he’d started practising law in 1928, but now he was within touching distance of history. No golfer had ever won all four Majors in the same year.
After the first round, Bobby Jones was tied for the lead with Macdonald Smith and Henry Cotton on 70. Jones followed up with a 72 to take a one-stroke lead ahead of the field. On the third round, a brilliant 68 by Archie Compston vaulted the Englishman into the lead, one shot ahead of Jones, who had gone round in 74.
Heading into the last round, Jones’s form was erratic, and on the relatively straightforward par-5 eighth, he took a triple-bogey 8. Now back in the pack, the turning point came on the 16th, another par-5, with bunkers protecting the green. Badly needing a birdie, Jones hit a perfect drive and went for the green with his brassie. The ball landed in the bunker left of the green, with a difficult lie.
Unable to take a full backswing, Jones chose the Walter Hagen Concave Niblick, which had a face like the business side of spoon. With his right foot on top of the bank, he delivered a sharp, descending blow to the ball, which popped out softly, coming to rest inches from the hole for a tap-in birdie with Calamity Jane.
Leo Diegel bogied the same hole. Jones won the title with a 75, beating his fellow countrymen Diegel and MacDonald Smith by two shots.
Later that summer, Bobby Jones went on to win both American Majors. Borrowing a bridge term, the Atlanta Journal’s O.B.Keeler dubbed the achievement, the ‘Grand Slam’. Jones’s record of taking all four Majors in one calendar year remains unequalled.
“With no worlds left to conquer,” as he declared, Bobby Jones retired from serious competition later in 1930. The Concave Niblick was outlawed in 1934.