This week marks the 89th year of the Masters Golf Tournament at Augusta National Golf Club. The Masters, known for the pristine course, gorgeous azaleas and dogwoods, well-mannered crowd, and unforgettable pimento cheese sandwiches, is the holy grail of golf. Since I live in Atlanta, and will be lucky enough to go watch the final day of the Masters this year, it only seems right to write about Bobby Jones.
An Atlanta favorite son, Bobby Jones (1902-1971) was born in Atlanta and lived there his entire life. He is one of the most influential figures in the history of golf. He founded and helped design the Augusta National Golf Club and co-founded the Masters Tournament. Jones is most famous for his unique “Grand Slam” consisting of his victory in all four major golf tournaments of his era (the open and amateur championships in both the U.S. and the U.K.) in a single calendar year (1930).
Health issues played a significant role in his life.
Jones had significant digestive issues as a child, and nobody was sure he would live. He stayed home while other children were out playing. In fact, he was unable to eat solid food until he was older than five years. Apparently, his older brother had the same illness and died at age three months. There is no further medical information I can find about it; could it have been severe pyloric stenosis? Pyloric stenosis, excessive tightness of the stomach outlet muscle (pylorus), causes persistent vomiting, as nothing can leave the stomach to flow into the intestines. It is most common in first-born males (? Bobby’s brother?) and has its onset around 3 weeks after birth. It has been described for hundreds of years, but in the 1700s and 1800s had a uniformly poor outcome; most infants died. Successful surgery to slice the tight muscle wasn’t developed until 1910- too late for young Bobby. We will never know if that’s what he had, but it seems likely.
He was a sickly child, frail and shy. Sports were prescribed as a way to strengthen him. He fell in love with golf, and by the age of 6 he was playing in children’s tournaments at Atlanta’s East Lake Golf Club (he and his family lived across the street.) and won the Georgia Amateur Championship at age 14. He won his first US Open at age 21. He went on to have a storied career, at the same time as studying Engineering at Georgia Tech, English Literature at Harvard, and Law at Emory. After winning almost every possible tournament and award, he retired from tournament golf at age 28 to concentrate on his family and his law practice. Thereafter, he only played golf with friends for pleasure. He designed golf courses and golf clubs, wrote books and articles, made a few instructional films, and was golf’s best ambassador.
Jones totally stopped playing golf in 1948, at the age of forty-six, and never played thereafter. Why? It may have all started in 1929. He was at his beloved East Lake Club during a thunderstorm, and in a freak accident some bricks from a building fell, injuring his neck. He seemed fine, but over the next fifteen years he developed searing neck pain, leg weakness, and difficulty walking. In 1948 he was diagnosed with syringomyelia, a spinal condition.
Syringomyelia (syrinx= Greek for tube or channel, myelia = Greek for spinal cord) is a fluid-filled cyst (like a water balloon) that forms within the spinal cord. It’s a rare condition, affecting 1/13,000 people. The cyst can be from a congenital malformation or an injury to the cord, or can just arise slowly over many years. (We will never know for sure if the bricks-on-the-neck accident really caused Jones’ problems or not.) Over time, as the cyst develops it puts pressure on the spinal cord and nerve roots, causing severe pain, nerve malfunction, and gradual deterioration. Typical symptoms include headache, neck pain, numbness in arms, weakness in arms or legs, muscle atrophy and difficulty walking. Now we can diagnose syringomyelia with MRI; in Bobby Jones’ time, it would be diagnosed based on physical exam and symptoms, and confirmed with a myelogram, an x-ray/dye test not commonly used now. Surgical intervention was the primary treatment, but it was risky, and not always successful. Newer surgical techniques used now are successful only 50-80% of the time.
Jones had surgery in 1948 and again in 1950 without much improvement. Newspaper photos from 1950 show him, upon return from surgery in Boston, standing with a cane in his hand. The photo caption noted he was able to walk from the plane. Photos from the late 1950s on usually show him seated, often in a golf cart, sometimes with two canes by his side, sometimes with a leg brace on his right leg. He progressed from walking, to canes, to leg braces, to a wheelchair, and finally, to a bed. He attended his last Masters tournament in 1968, though he was ill with influenza and confined to a cottage on the grounds (where he watched the tournament on TV). In 1971, he moved out of his Tuxedo Road home (a gift from the City of Atlanta after he won the Grand slam) into a condominium on quiet Andrews Drive. Two units on the same level were combined, with a floor plan that suited his wheelchair. (My husband’s construction company renovated this double unit for a subsequent owner, years later). He died later that same year at age 69.
By all accounts he handled his disability with equanimity. When asked about living with a chronic disease, he said, “Golf is the closest game to the game we call life. You get bad breaks from good shots; you get good breaks from bad shots — but you have to play the ball where it lies.”
Jones is buried at historic Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta, where his modest grave is usually covered with golf balls, and other memorabilia, left by his fans. My friend David Moore, Director Emeritus of Historic Oakland Foundation, says the thousands of golf balls, notes, books, and clubs left there are periodically bagged up, and the Jones family comes and picks them up. Many professional golfers have dropped by, perhaps looking for inspiration or a blessing.
In 2019, Jones heirs founded The Bobby Jones Chiari & Syringomyelia Foundation (Bobby Jones CSF) to raise awareness and find a cure for Chiari malformation, syringomyelia and related disorders. In just its first few years it has funded over $6 million dollars in education and research projects and is on track to do much more.
I’ll reflect on Bobby Jones and his remarkable life, cut short by a rare disease, when I walk the course later this week.