ON A SWING AND A PRAYER
A review of the 2009 PGA Tour Championship: Musings from Bobby's Place,  Atlanta's East Lake

Editor's note:
Bobby Jones (1902–1971) is considered by many to be the greatest golfer who ever lived.  He learned to play at the East Lake course outside Atlanta.
Over the years this historic course had fallen into neglect. Because of the vision of an Atlanta businessman Tom Cousins, East Lake was saved from destruction and restored to a beauty far exceeding the place Bobby Jones knew. It had been "perfected" in 1963 for the Ryder Cup, but in 1995 Rees Jones worked his magic and returned it to the older course Donald Ross had designed in 1913, when Bobby Jones was 11.
As Linton Hopkins details here, not only were the club house and course restored to host the 2009 Tour Championship, but financial benefits have been given to the deprived children of the neighbouring suburbs.

Bobby Jones never earned a penny for winning 13 major golf championships, including the 1930 Grand Slam. Nonetheless $10m was on the table September 24–27, '09, at East Lake , his home course. The 2009 Tour Championship was more than a 4-day tournament; it was the climax of the four-tournament FedEx Cup Playoffs.

In Bobby's day pro-golf was for the most part a dreary affair. Pros were not invited into clubs and the purses were too small to support a family. Although Jones is portrayed as the noble amateur, he became a successful lawyer and business man and would have loved the hoopla, the high finance and the fact that so much was raised for the community of East Lake, where he learned to play as a five year old.

There are still only four major championships, but the East Lake "playoff-payoff" and its $1.2m tournament purse have added up to create an event that is in a class of its own at the end the American golf season.

Our eye-witness began inside the Tudor clubhouse with the first dose of history. Dan Yates, a 90 yr old friend of Bobby Jones, took us on the first time-ride of the day back through his amateur career with Bobby's friends, especially his older brother Charlie Yates, the Amateur Champion at Troon in 1938. Then we walked on a cloud of history to the stands surrounding the 1st tee in perfect breezy weather to watch our storyteller whack the ceremonial opening drive.

The older crowd held its breath, each of us avoiding thinking of ourselves falling flat trying to "tee it up" in front of so many, much less hitting it anywhere. Dan made us all proud because he was able to do it. He outsmarted fate and chance by tucking a second ball away in his pocket. The soaring Mulligan came so quickly, we hardly noticed his foozle. All we remember was cheering and smiling as the second ball soared straight down the fairway.

One minute later a graceful, 17 yr old college student named Tyler Lawrence walked up and slammed the other "first-ball" about 150 yards farther than Dan's, showing us all the effect of being born 73 years later. These two looked great together as they posed for pictures with Tom Cousins, the visionary business leader who made it all happen, and Rob Johnston, who directed the event as tournament chairman.

The ceremony ended with a choir of youngsters from the East Lake neighborhood singing, "The Star-Spangled Banner."

Bobby Jones had many friends and favorite courses all over Scotland and England, so he would have enjoyed knowing the children's choir represented the neighborhood school named for Dr. Charles R. Drew. Drew was the man who figured out how to preserve blood plasma so it could be safely sent across the ocean to save British lives during the Blitz in 1940. These Atlanta children are the real reason for the tournament. The event adds over $1m to their education. That's the priceless investment that will bring the pros and crowd back every year. It gives the event its soul and makes the city of Atlanta smile proudly.

Four days of golf followed with the top 30 players in the universe battling in real time among themselves, as well as through the years back to Bobby Jones.  It was fun to walk the course with a time machine handy so we could zip back and forth between 33 yr old Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson (39) in 2009 and the young Bobby, who retired from competition at age 28 in 1930, after history's only Grand Slam.

Tiger has played East Lake a lot in this yearly tournament, but Bobby played on the same ground a few thousand times between age five (1907) and his final round at 46 in 1948. They would have loved playing against each other for a big title. Bobby Jones certainly would have enjoyed the chance to make enough in one week to support and educate many generations of his family.

As it turned out, not one of the top golfers, playing East Lake at par 70, could match Bobby's lowest score of 63, shot on the par 72 course at age 20 with hickory shafted clubs. In 2009 at East Lake, 120 rounds produced two 6-under 64s (Perry & Ogilvy) and one 5-under 65 (Mickelson), but no one approached the 9-under 63 by Bobby Jones in 1922. Tiger's best in 4 tries was a 3-under 67.

Two more history-treats: On Saturday, September 16, 1922, 20 yr old Bobby Jones stood on the 18th tee at East Lake.  Here is O. B. Keeler's interview, published the next day in The Atlanta Journal, beginning with Bobby's words:

"I never played an easier round. That usually is the way, though. Your best scores come easily. You can't force them. When you work hard you don't score well. The ball rolls for you – or it doesn't. Dad and Brad and Abe were pretty much worked up, along on the last few holes, but I didn't feel worried at all until I stood on the last tee, and it was getting dark, and I thought for just a moment of all the things that might happen to that shot."

Then Bobby drew the trusty old driving iron – no wood for him on that shot. And through the thickening dusk the little white sphere bored its way, upheld by the backspin, climbing, climbing – to drop lightly, just at the right of the green, where Bobby's perfect chip shot, directed by his iron nerves, curled up dead at the cup, dead for a 3, and a 63 for the round, probably the greatest round of golf ever shot on as long and hard a course in the history of golf.

"I don't believe I'll ever break it," said Bob simply. (This proved to be correct – although the 13 major championship victories and thousands of casual rounds lay ahead, he would never beat that 9-under 63 at age 20.)

On Sunday, September 27, 2009, almost exactly 87 years later, Tiger Woods was standing in exactly the same spot, hoping to win the biggest prize in golf history. Like Bobby, he pushed his shot to the right, this time into a bunker. Then he hit a perfect shot close to the hole and made the short putt for par 3. His 3 final shots seemed like an echo of the events in 1922, similar, but slightly different. Was there a connection back and forth through the ages? Perhaps.

One final treat from old East Lake: Exactly 79 years ago to the day, on September 27, 1930, Bobby Jones completed the Grand Slam by winning the U. S. Amateur at the Merion Cricket Club in Philadelphia.

- Linton C. Hopkins

www.pgatour.com/tournaments/r060/