Today in golf history: Jones completes Grand Slam
- USGA photo
On September 27, 1930, Bob Jones
completed
the greatest year in the history of golf
with his victory at the U.S. Amateur at
Merion
Cricket Club’s East Course in Ardmore,
Pa., defeating Eugene Homans of
Englewood,
N.J., 8 and 7, in the 36-hole
championship match.
The victory gave the 28-year-old from
Atlanta,
Ga., the “Grand Slam.” He had won
the U.S. and British Opens, and the U.S.
and
British Amateur titles, a feat that had
never been achieved and was thought to
be
unachievable. A crowd of 18,000 came
out to watch the final and witness history.
Jones held a 7-up lead over Homans after
the morning round and cruised to the
historic
victory.
It was his ninth USGA title and
coincidentally
came at the same golf course where
Jones made his USGA debut as a 14-year-
old
at the 1916 U.S. Amateur. Jones retired
from competitive golf in November 1930
while
still in the prime of his career to devote
more time to his family and law practice.
As for Homans, Google searches will bring
his
name up again and again alongside that
of Jones as the player who lost in the
final.
And to think, he didn't even get the
consolation prize that today's U.S.
Amateur
runner-up leaves with, an invitation to the
Masters. That tournament, and Augusta
National for that matter, was just a
glimmer
in Jones' eye in 1930.
Legendary golf writer Herbert Warren
Wind, in
a 1955 Sports Illustrated story about
the silver anniversary of Jones' feat,
described
Homans' daunting task this way:
"If there ever was an assignment in golf,
or in
sports in general, that no one relished
filling, it was to be the other finalist in the
1930 Amateur, the one person standing
between Jones and the completion of the
Grand Slam. This was the lot that fell to
Eugene V. Homans, a gaunt, bespectacled
Princeton graduate with the solemn air of
a
deacon about him even when he was
outfitted
in plus fours and bright argyle socks.
Gene Homans was a very capable golfer
and,
furthermore, a match player with plenty
of fight. For instance, he had pulled out his
semifinal round after standing 5 down.
Against Jones, try as he did, Homans could
never get going, maybe because, despite
his efforts to win, he could never escape
the
discomfiture of the role in which
circumstance had cast him."