The Grand Slam

What an awesome, in-depth story of the greatest golfer of all time. Bobby fans will love this book - loaded with info - and also lots of history from the early 1900's. I knew this would be a great book, I'd read The Match and Greatest Game - Mark Frost and Golf history go together beautifully! A must for golf history fans - and essential for Bobby Jones admirers.

Excellent Book

If you love golf you are going to love this book. A very worthwhile read

THERE WILL NEVER BE ANOTHER LIKE BOBBY JONES!

Interesting. Upon completing GRAND SLAM by Mark Frost, author of THE GREATEST GAME EVERY PLAYED, I took a moment to read some of the other reviews here on Amazon. I was not surprised by what I found. One, however, struck me. The review was titled, "The Tiger Woods of Another Era." Indeed!

The fact is, Bobby Jones was and is irreplaceable. Period! Frost's marvelous biography, if read carefully, paints such a portrait that honest assessors of the game of golf have no choice but to agree with Oscar Bane "Pop" Keeler: "There will never be another like him!" Not the Tiger Woods of another era. Far from that. Frost's volume clearly points out that every other golfer -- from Hagen to Sarazen to Palmer to Nicklaus to Woods -- is but a shadowy also-ran when compared to the inimitable Robert Tyre Jones, Jr.

GRAND SLAM tells the story of Jones' unlikely and never again equaled feat of winning all four of golf's major championships in a single calendar year. And if you are remotely interested in the game of golf -- beyond taking the sticks out once a year -- you cannot read this book and come away with any other notion than that, very likely, the greatest golf every played on this planet was played some 80 years ago! And there is nothing wrong with that fact. Who says that, as time passes, we need to see better and better golfers? Just because the equipment is supposedly better and the conditions are supposedly better doesn't for a minute mean that the best to ever tee it up has already finished his round. And please don't come to the table with arguments that today's competition is greater or that life on tour is harder or that today's Majors are more rigorous.

Yes, there is Eldrick Tiger Woods and, yes, there is his amazing Tiger-Slam. A great sporting event in its own right. I admit it. But, despite Tiger's claims that he has already matched what Jones' did, it doesn't even come remotely close to equaling--as retold in Frost's GRAND SLAM--what Jones accomplished in 1930. Not hardly! That's it and that's all. Let's just all take a deep breath and accept it!

Like THE GREATEST GAME..., GRAND SLAM is masterfully written, telling the story of Jones' early experience in golf, his brush with death at East Lake, his steady rise to golf's greatest pinnacle and his elegant retirement from competitive golf at the ripe old age of 28. And Frost's narrative regarding the four majors of 1930 is simply riveting reading for any true golf aficionado. The volume also presents wonderful biographical sketches of the other major players in the drama, including Walter Hagen and Chick Evans.

GRAND SLAM is a must read for anyone who fancies himself a devotee of the grand game. Read it and allow yourself to be amazed, as I was, that such a one a Bobby Jones ever, in flesh and blood, played the game that we love!

THE (GOLFING) HORSEMAN

Please forgive my pedantry

As one of the greatest sportsmen of the last century, Bobby Jones deserves better than this slapdash mediocrity. The editing lacks rigour, the prose lacks lucidity and the golfing naivete is embarrassing.

There is a reference to Sunningdale's 'demanding combination of precision and menace'. I wonder what that means. It seems that Willie Park Jnr designed Olympia Fields 'before he died'. Time and again Mr Frost fails to convey his thoughts: 'Bobby broke 80 for the first time at Inwood twice on the day he qualified'. 'Sixty-seven New Yorkers had died from the heat and Pop feared he might be the sixty-eighth'. 'Bobby had successfully defended an Amateur title for the first time since Jerry Travers did in 1913'.

The author must have assumed in his readers a complete ignorance of the game's history. On page 360 we are told that Joyce Wethered 'could drive the ball as far as any man'. Is that so indeed? Augusta National GC presented RTJ with a grandfather clock - in 1930; Hagen formed a friendship with the future Edward VII; Eddie Lowery was 27 in 1927; Goodman was the second low amateur at the '29 US Open; Muirfield is inland; Cyril Tolley won the US Amateur; Compston beat Hagen 18 and 17 - over 36 holes.

And to say Jones is portrayed as saintly is to understate the matter. When, for example, he glares at an unruly fan we are told that it is 'the only time he ever showed anger at a spectator'.

It is tempting to conclude that Mr Frost is pinching a living. Some might say that he is not qualified to write about Jones, that he regards his readers with contempt. I believe this would be harsh. With his books on golf, Mr Frost has promoted interest not only in Jones but also in men like Hogan, Ouimet and Harvie Ward, and for that he should be applauded. My main objection is that he appears to write not out of compulsion but for money, that he is not a writer in the spirit of Herb Wind or Bernard Darwin, but more in the mould of John Feinstein or Rick Reilly; not a specialist but a jack of too many trades.

"Bobby Jone" - Grand Slam

I just loved this book. Talking about the early days of
golf in America and the golf experiences overseas was truly fascinating. I would recommend this book to anyone
who plays golf. Learning about the early days of golf, the stars both amateur and professional, the tournaments played in and comparing golf today with golf in the early days in America was eye opening.