Robert “Bobby” Tyre Jones was a famous golfer in the early 1900s. While in 1916 at the age of 14 he won the first Georgia Amateur championship at the Capital City Club, Jones did not grow up playing on the Historic Brookhaven course or living in the neighborhood.

 

He was born in 1902 and grew up across the street from East Lake Country Club, which at the time was part of the Atlanta Athletic Club and considered a summer retreat from downtown Atlanta seven miles away. His father was a lawyer (Coca Cola was one of his clients) and East Lake member.

 

Bobby was a sickly young child and began hitting golf balls in his front yard to build strength. At the age of six, Bobby won his first East Lake tournament. He became the club’s junior champion at age 9 and won his first U.S. Amateur at age 14 – the same year he won the Georgia Amateur tournament at Capital City.

 

Jones went on to play in and win many other tournaments, although he retired from golf in 1930 at 28 years old not long after winning the Grand Slam. To date, Jones is still the only golfer to win a Grand Slam, which included the U.S. Open, British Amateur, British Open, and U.S. Amateur.

 

In 1925, Capital City Club issued Bobby a courtesy card to play the course for one year because of all the good he had done for Atlanta’s reputation on the world stage. Then in 1930, Jones was awarded a lifetime Capital City membership. In May of that year, Capital City’s governing committee and several members traveled to New York for a ticker tape parade in Bobby’s of his winning the British Amateur, one of the tournaments in his Grand Slam. When he later arrived back in Atlanta, the club provided him viewing space downtown for another parade in his honor.

 

Upon retirement, Bobby enjoyed golfing at Capital City and became involved in club activities in Historic Brookhaven and at the downtown club but still maintained residence outside Historic Brookhaven. He lived in at least two different homes in Tuxedo Park; the last one named Whitehall was designed by Philip T. Shutze, who was also the architect for the Swan House.

 

He helped to found Augusta National Golf Club in 1933, and the Masters Tournament. He attended law school at Emory and practiced in his father’s firm. Bobby also fought in World War II as a member of the U.S. Army Air Corps and landed at Normandy on D-Day.

 

Along with Robert Trent Jones as architect (no relation), Bobby built the Peachtree Golf Club in Brookhaven in 1947. Bobby reportedly did so to return golf to a game among friends, and to leave out the tennis courts, swimming pool, and other amenities of many Atlanta clubs.

 

In 1948, he contracted a rare spinal disease and was confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. He died in 1971.