In the decade following World War I, America luxuriated in the Golden Era of Sports and its greatest collection of super-athletes: Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb in baseball, Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney in boxing, Bill Tilden in tennis, Red Grange in football and Bobby Jones in golf.

Many of their records have been broken now, and others are destined to be broken. But one, sports experts agree, may outlast them--Bobby Jones's grand slam of 1930.

Jones, an intense, unspoiled young man, started early on the road to success. At the age of 10, he shot a 90 for 18 holes. At 11 he was down to 80, and at 12 he shot a 70. At 9 he played against men, at 14 he won a major men's tournament and at 21 he was United States Open champion.

At 28 he achieved the grand slam--victories in one year in the United States Open, British Open, United States Amateur and British Amateur championships. At that point, he retired from tournament golf.

A nation that idolized him for his success grew to respect him even more for his decision to treat golf as a game rather than a way of life. This respect grew with the years.

"First come my wife and children," he once explained. "Next comes my profession--the law. Finally, and never as a life in itself, comes golf."

His record, aside from the grand slam, was magnificent. He won the United States Open championship four times (1923, 1926, 1929 and 1930), the British Open three times (1926, 1927 and 1930) and the United States Amateur five times (1924, 1925, 1927, 1928 and 1930).

"Jones is as truly the supreme artist of golf as Paderewski is the supreme artist of the piano," George H. Greenfield wrote in The New York Times in 1930.

Felt the Tension

Success did not come easily. Though Jones was cool and calculating outwardly, he seethed inside. He could never eat properly during a major tournament. The best his stomach would hold was dry toast and tea.

The pressure of tournament competition manifested itself in other ways too. Everyone expected Jones to win every time he played, including Atlanta friends who often bet heavily on him. He escaped the unending pressure by retiring from competition.

"Why should I punish myself like this over a golf tournament?" he once asked. "Sometimes I'd pass my mother and dad on the course, look at them and not even see them because I was so concentrated on the game. Afterward, it made a fellow feel a little silly."

The quality of the man projected itself, too. He was worshiped as a national hero in Scotland, the birthplace of golf. Scots would come for miles around to watch him play.

In 1936, on a visit, he made an unannounced trip to the Royal and Ancient Golf Club at St. Andrews for a quiet morning round with friends. There were 5,000 spectators at the first tee and 7,000 at the 18th. Businesses closed as word spread that "Our Bobby is back."

In 1927, when he tapped in his final putt to win the British Open there, an old Scot stood by the green and muttered:

"The man canna be human."

Off the course, Jones was convivial in a quiet way. He was a good friend and always the gentleman, though he had full command of strong language when desired. He had a fine sense of humor, and he laughed easily. He smoked cigarettes and drank bourbon.

He was besieged by people who wanted to play a social round of golf with him. When they talked with him, it was always golf. He managed to tolerate their one-sided approach to life. He also learned to put up with the name of Bobby, which he hated (he preferred Bob).

He was not always so serene. As a youngster, he had a reputation for throwing clubs when everything was not going right. When Jim Barnes, the 1921 United States Open champion, watched him let off steam, he said:

"Never mind that club-throwing and the beatings he's taking. Defeat will make him great. He's not satisfied now with a pretty good shot. He has to be perfect. That's the way a good artist must feel."

The defeats Barnes spoke of were frequent in the early years. For young Jones, though he had the game of a man, had the emotions of a growing boy. He never won the big tournaments until he got his temper under control.

At 18, he learned that his greatest opponent was himself. He was playing at Toledo one day with Harry Vardon, the great English professional, and was his usual brash self. They were about even when Jones dribbled a shot into a bunker. Hoping to ease his embarrassment, he turned to Vardon and asked:

"Did you ever see a worse shot?"

"No," replied the crusty Vardon. It as the only word he spoke to Jones all day.

Jones matured, so much so that O. B. Keeler, an Atlanta sports writer and his long-time Boswell, once wrote:

"He has more character than any champion in our history."

He also had the dream of every golfer--a picture swing. No one taught it to him, for he never took a golf lesson in his life. He learned the swing by watching Stewart Maiden, a Scottish professional at the Atlanta Athletic Club course. He would follow Maiden for a few holes, then run home and mimic the swing.

His putting was famous. So was his putter, a rusty, goosenecked club known as Calamity Jane. His strength was driving, putting and an ability to get out of trouble. He was an imaginative player, and he never hesitated to take a chance. In fact, he seldom hesitated on any shot, and he earned an unfair reputation as a mechanical golfer. The game often baffled him. "There are times," he once said, "when I feel that I know less about what I'm doing on a golf course than anyone else in the world."

When he was an infant, doctors were not sure that he would survive, let alone play golf. He had a serious digestive ailment until he was 5, and he stayed home while other children played. In his later years, he was crippled by syringomyelia, a chronic disease of the spinal cord, and he had circulation and heart trouble.

Robert Tyre Jones Jr. (named for his grandfather) was born on St. Patrick's Day, 1902, in Atlanta. His father was a star outfielder at the University of Georgia, and the youngster's first love was baseball. He also tried tennis. At the age of 9 he settled down to golf.

His parents had taken up the game after moving to a cottage near the East Lake course of the Atlanta Athletic Club. Young Bobby would walk around the course, watch the older folk play and learn by example. He was only 6 years old, a scrubby youngster with skinny arms and legs, when he won a six-hole tournament. At 9 he was the club's junior champion.

In Philadelphia Tourney

He was 14 when he journeyed to the Merion Cricket Club near Philadelphia for his first United States Amateur championship. He was a chunky lad of 5 feet 4 inches and 165 pounds and somewhat knock-kneed. He was wearing his first pair of long trousers.

After qualifying for match play, he defeated Eben M. Byers, a former champion, in the first round. He beat Frank Dyer, a noted player at the time, in the second round, after losing five of the first six holes. Then he lost to Robert A. Gardner, the defending champion, 5 and 3.

In 1922 he reached the semifinals of the United States Amateur before losing. That ended what he called his seven lean years. Next came what Keeler called "the eight fat years" as Jones finally achieved the heights.

All this time, golf was a sidelight to education. Jones wanted to be an engineer, and he earned bachelor's and master's degrees in engineering at Georgia Tech. Then he decided to become a lawyer. He went to Harvard and earned another bachelor's degree, then to Emory University in Atlanta for a Bachelor of Laws degree. In 1928, he joined his father's law firm in Atlanta.

In 1924, Jones decided that he was worrying too much about his opponent in match-play (man against man) competition. He vowed to play for pars and forget about his opponent.

This was a turning point in his career. He started to win match-play competition. That year, at Merion, Pa., he won the United States Amateur for the first time. In the final, he defeated George Von Elm by the overwhelming score of 9 and 8.

Also in 1924, he married Mary Malone, his high school sweetheart.

In 1929 Jones had a close call in the United States Open at the Winged Foot Golf Club, Mamaroneck, N.Y. He sank a 12-foot sloping, sidehill putt on the last green to tie Al Espinosa. The next day, Jones won their 36-hole title playoff by 23 strokes.

Then came 1930 and the grand slam. Lloyds of London quoted odds of 50 to 1 that Jones wouldn't win the world's four major tournaments that year. He won them.

First came the British Amateur. He started his opening match by shooting 3, 4, 3 and 2. In the final he beat Roger Wethered, 7 and 6. Next was the British Open at Hoylake, England, and his 72-hole score of 291 won that championship.

Back home, Jones got his sternest test of the year in the United States Open at Interlachen near Minneapolis. There were 15,000 spectators in the gallery as he played the par-4 18th hole. He got a birdie 3 by sinking a 40-foot undulating putt, and his 287 won by two strokes.

He had become the first man to win three of the four major titles in one year. The last of the grand-slam tournaments, the United States Amateur at Merion, was almost anticlimactic.

No one doubted for the moment that Jones would win. He captured the qualifying medal. He routed Jess Sweetser, 9 and 8, in the semifinal round, and in the final he defeated Gene Homans, 8 and 7. The crowd surged around him so wildly that it took a detachment of United States Marines to get him out safely.

Soon after, he retired from tournament play and made a series of golf motion pictures, the only time he ever made money from the game. Later, he became a vice president of A. G. Spalding & Bros., the sporting goods manufacturer. He became a wealthy lawyer and soft-drink bottler and a business and social leader in Atlanta.

He never played serious tournament golf again. He didn't seem to mind.

"Golf is like eating peanuts," he said. "You can play too much or too little. I've become reconciled to the fact that I'll never play as well as I used to."

A few years later, Jones and the late architect, Alister Mackensie, designed the Augusta National Golf Course in Georgia. In 1934 the Masters tournament was started there, and in Jones's lifetime many golf people considered it the most important tournament of all.

Jones played in the first Masters and in several thereafter, but he was never among the leaders. He always wore his green jacket, signifying club membership, at victory ceremonies, and he served as club president.

He became strong enough to rip a pack of playing cards across the middle, but his health deteriorated. He underwent spinal surgery in 1948 and 1950. He was forced to use one cane, then two canes and then a wheelchair, and his weight dropped to less than 100 pounds. He last saw the Masters in 1967.

He was a close friend of Dwight D. Eisenhower, and the President often used his cottage adjacent to the Augusta National course for golfing vacations. During his first term in office, the President painted a 40-by-32-inch oil portrait of Jones at the peak of his game. On the back was printed by hand:

"Bob--from his friend D.D.E. 1953."

In January of 1953, three months after a heart attack, Jones was honored at Golf House, the United States Golf Association headquarters in Manhattan. Augusta National members, including General Eisenhower, had donated another oil portrait to be hung at Golf House. A highlight of the ceremony was the reading of a letter from the President.

"Those who have been fortunate enough to know him," the letter said, "realize that his fame as a golfer is transcended by his inestimable qualities as a human being. . .His gift to his friends is the warmth that comes from unselfishness, superb judgement, nobility of character, unwavering loyalty to principle."

Bobby Jones listened and cried.

Robert Jones