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Intimate chronicle of legend returns
Posted: Sunday April 07
By John Boyette
The Augusta Chronicle
Throughout the annals of sports, great performers have always had their exploits chronicled by the media.
Throughout the annals of sports, great performers have always had their exploits chronicled by the media.
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The Bobby Jones Story: The Authorized Biography, 288 pages, hardcover. SPECIAL |
Muhammad Ali had Howard Cosell, and Bobby Jones had Oscar Bane Keeler.
The Jones-Keeler relationship was much more than the conventional star-writer union. Keeler was more of an uncle to Jones, who was much younger than The Atlanta Journal reporter assigned to cover him when he burst onto the national golf scene at age 14.
In The Bobby Jones Story: The Authorized Biography, Keeler does an admirable job of bringing golf's greatest amateur to life through a series of short chapters. Keeler had plenty of material to choose from; after all, he traveled more than 120,000 miles to cover Jones' exploits in 27 major tournaments and countless other events.
The book, originally published in 1953, was re-released to celebrate the centennial of Jones' birth. The book covers "Little Bob" and his introduction to golf at Atlanta's East Lake Club to "The End of the Trail," which explains why Jones retired soon after winning golf's Grand Slam in 1930.
In between are marvelous chapters filled with little-known stories, such as Keeler's description of Jones' wedding.
"Wedding march stops. Ceremony begins. Everybody on tiptoes," Keeler wrote. "Queer what vagrant thoughts get in your mind at times. I catch myself thinking it is a well-behaved gallery, but packed awfully close. Will the players have room to swing!"
The author also addresses young Jones' fiery temper, which caused him to withdraw from the 1921 British Open at St. Andrews. He also tells how Jones survived the "seven lean years" between his first major tournament and his breakthrough victory at the 1923 U.S. Open.
Jones, who went on to found Augusta National Golf Club and the Masters Tournament after his retirement as a player, fully appreciated Keeler's work.
"If fame can be said to attach to one because of his proficiency in the inconsequential performance of striking a golf ball, what measure of it I have enjoyed has been due in large part to Keeler and his gifted typewriter," Jones wrote in the foreword to the original book.
The new version also includes a foreword by Jack Nicklaus, a great admirer of Jones, and an introduction by famed sports writer Grantland Rice. Bob Jones IV, grandson of the great golfer, wrote a touching afterword.
BOOK: The Bobby Jones Story: The Authorized Biography, 288 pages, hardcover
AUTHOR: O.B. Keeler
PUBLISHER: Triumph Books
COST: $19.95
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