bobby jones
DENVER (AP) ― The Denver Nuggets sent forward Reggie Evans and the draft rights to forward Ricky Sanchez to the Philadelphia 76ers on Monday in exchange for swingman Steven Hunter and forward Bobby Jones.
The Sixers weren't finished, agreeing to terms with free agent Calvin Booth. The six-foot-11 centre played in 44 games with Washington last season, averaging 1.6 points and 1.8 rebounds.
The trade is the second between the teams since December, when Allen Iverson joined the Nuggets in a blockbuster deal.
"Steven is an athletic, seven-foot big man ... that can block shots," said Mark Warkentien, Denver's vice president of basketball operations. "We think his presence will provide us with a more balanced roster. Bobby is an intriguing young player, who really played well at the end of the season.
"This move greatly helps us add depth at our centre position while reducing our inventory of power forwards. Reggie played a valuable role for us during his time in Denver and we appreciate his professionalism."
Evans averaged 5.0 points and 7.5 rebounds in 92 games for the Nuggets after his acquisition from Seattle on Feb. 23. He led the league in rebounds per 48 minutes last season at 19.7.
"He is an accomplished rebounder that we feel will make an immediate impact and will exemplify our commitment to hard work, rebounding and defence," 76ers general manager Billy King said. "At 6-11, Ricky Sanchez is a young prospect that has potential and we will continue to monitor his development as he plays overseas."
Hunter set career highs with averages of 6.4 points and 4.8 rebounds in 70 games for the 76ers last season. He has appeared in 360 regular season games in six seasons with Orlando, Phoenix and Philadelphia.
The Sixers had a deal to send Hunter to the New Orleans Hornets in 2006, but the trade was rescinded because of unspecified concerns over his physical condition.
Jones played in 44 games for the 76ers last season, averaging 2.5 points and 1.3 rebounds.
Sanchez's rights were acquired by the Nuggets along with the draft rights to Linas Kleiza in exchange for the draft rights to Jarrett Jack in a draft-day deal in 2005.
Booth has career average of 3.5 points and 2.9 rebounds in eight seasons.
Bobby Jones wouldn't understand the FedEx Cup. For one, FedEx ― much less its corporate sponsored PGA tournament series ― didn't even exist. Back in Jones' day, the U.S. Postal Service was closer to a Pony Express than one with worldwide overnight shipping.
See, Jones, an Emory Law Student (1928-29), played during the 1920s. Back then, shoes didn't have vise-grip spikes, and golf clubs sported the names of the players who used them. None of these non-descript behemoths like Big Bertha branded the equipment. Only sophisticated names � like Jones' putter called Calamity Jane � made it on to the course.
Step inside the clubhouse at East Lake Golf Club, and you'll find all this memorabilia on display in a tribute paid to arguably the most accomplished professional athlete to ever enroll at Emory University.
Not even Tiger Woods � the likely winner of the inaugural FedEx Cup concluding at East Lake this weekend � has accomplished all that Jones achieved during his career.
Jones won all four majors in the same calendar year (1930) � about the only feat Tiger hasn't pulled off. And inside the clubhouse, you'll find all the gleaming trophies lining cases of memorabilia devoted to our legendary alumnus.
Jones won all of his majors in a seven-year stretch from 1923 to 1930. Even Tiger, who is tied with Jones for second All-Time (for now), has needed a decade to win a baker's dozen.
Jones even won a major during the summer between his two years at Emory Law. And no, Tiger hasn't done that either.
But despite all Jones accomplished and all the history on display at East Lake, some of the PGA's top stars still admitted they don't know all that much about a man who was arguably more dominant in the 1920s than Woods is today.
"I think [Jones] had a house up there or something," said 2007 Masters champion Zach Johnson as he pointed beyond the 18th fairway. "But I don't know much more than that."
And according to the Tour's Steve Stricker, players don't talk much about Jones' accomplishments amongst themselves. Not even during a week where the PGA event is played on Jones' home course. The clubhouse, however, doesn't go entirely unnoticed.
"You feel a little bit of history here just like when you go to Augusta or something like that," Stricker said. "It's very much the same."
But Johnson and Stricker probably won't study the East Lake clubhouse in detail. After all, they do have a golf tournament to win. The 7,154 yard, par 70 course will more than challenge the best 30 golfers in the world this weekend.
"[The course] doesn't feel old because it's so stinkin' long," Johnson said.
What the players will probably miss in the clubhouse, as they chase a purse approaching the size of Emory's endowment, are a series of items illustrating just how remarkable Jones played during that seven-year run.
The four trophies from the 1930 Grand Slam (the U.S. Open, U.S. Amateur, British Open and British Amateur), Calamity Jane, Sportocasins � a combination moccasin/golf shoe � and Jones' own clubs highlight a clubhouse steeped in tribute.
Players will complain about the greens this weekend, especially after Atlanta's summer heat wave kept players off some of the putting surfaces until the tournament began Thursday. But none of them will have to use Jones' putter that had an eight-degree loft or wear Sportocasins, shoes that look more suited for fishing than golf.
Tour players appreciate what Jones did for the game and understand his impact. Johnson and his Midwestern charm even went so far as calling him "Mr. Jones."
The course's history may not be the first thing on the players' mind as they walk into East Lake's clubhouse this week.
But be sure, in the back of their mind, the history will always be there. good priest does celibacy.
It also is home to the PGA Tour's season-ending Tour Championship, where the select field of 30 players practically has to machete its way through thickets of hundred-dollar bills on the way to the first tee. First place today pays $1.26 million. Last place pays $112,000. Also at stake is the FedEx Cup bonus that tops out at another $10 million. That plus all the courtesy car hot laps a player can turn.
Curtis Compton / AJC
(ENLARGE)
Agnes Pilane (right) and Charlotte Buffington take good care of Bobby Jones' artifacts.
INTERACTIVE: The East Lake Course hole by hole
PHOTOS: From Wednesday's clinic
Stricker holds on to second
Tiger wraps up two trophies
East Lake takes a beating
East Lake a world away from Jones' reign
Johnson steals Ogilvy's thunder
East Lake's longer No. 6 puts up a fight
Woods up by 3 shots, all but assured victory
Two 40-somethings stay close
For Woods watchers, perfect day at East Lake
Tiger takes control of Tour Championship
This is East Lake Golf Club, where they have not let a romantic history get in the way of a perfectly good modern success story. It is where both Bobby Jones and Dow Jones are reverently served.
East Lake is so much more than a piece of inner-city ground where ― when Tiger Woods hasn't reserved the course ― heads of industry compare driver size.
You cut across the hundred-year history of the place and, even more than with the rings of a great tree, it is possible to mark the story of a city, a society and a sport.
It is a place so grand that one golden age wasn't enough. The second is well under way.
Every third Sunday of the month, 88-year-old Dan Yates still goes to the club to enjoy the members' buffet. He doesn't play anymore, but then, he has plenty of rounds from decades ago to remember.
"You never knew, you might tee off right behind Bob Jones. And then play a three-hour round of golf ― that's all it was," said Yates, whose original family home was just across from the No. 4 tee. The Yateses are one of East Lake's real anchors, their names written on trophies and over door frames throughout the place.
When he enters the Tudor clubhouse ― the third incarnation of the building, after the first two burned down ― Yates is surrounded by the bling and black-and-white photos that glorify East Lake's past.
It all still revolves around the ultimate amateur who grew up on the course. From the Bobby Jones collection, there are replicas here of the four trophies from his 1930 Grand Slam and photos of him with such period pieces as Ty Cobb, Grantland Rice, Ben Hogan and Jimmy Demaret.
Note the replica of his famed putter Calamity Jane, a flat stick that today's player wouldn't use to clean his gutters.
And on the wall near the entrance to the bar is a tribute to his last round of golf ever, played at East Lake with three stout members on Aug. 18, 1948. Jones shot 72, and was third in his foursome. Guess he was buying.
In this sanctuary of leather and wood, you almost can hear the huzzahs from that day in 1925 when two East Lake members (Jones and Watts Gunn) played head-up for the U.S. Amateur title at Oakmont. You almost can envision the late-night delivery of corn liquor that helped sustain the membership through Prohibition.
The treasures from those storied days stand in fierce contrast to all the free-enterprise clamor of the modern PGA Tour, reaching its 2007 crescendo just outside the door. One steps out into the sunshine and catches in full color the sights of the spectating masses roaming the commercialized landscape in order to grab a glimpse of a famous logo-laden pro.
Just how far has East Lake come in the transition between then and now? Surely, in his most vivid fever dream, Jones could not have envisioned the day's best golfers traipsing his course in search of such a fortune. Nor the giant grandstands and scoreboards, the tented corporate villages erected everywhere, the imperfect "playoff" system that brought all this here.
East Lake is a story in three parts: the Jones Era, the Great Decline and Rebirth With a Conscience. The decline has been thoroughly documented, because without it, East Lake would be just another fine golf course rather than an experiment in splicing agronomy with social engineering.
At the worst of it, after the Atlanta Athletic Club had abandoned the place for the suburbs in the late 1960s and a bleak public housing complex would close in on the north, Yates' son, Danny, remembers that he'd still play East Lake. But he wouldn't bring his family.
For a time there, he said he could get a membership for $30, plus another $30 for annual dues. Now, there is a full quota of 100 corporate memberships, at $275,000 per, with a waiting list.
With the Tour Championship settled here for good, the PGA Tour's big finish serves notice to the good work they are attempting to do here: A charter school with an exemplary graduation rate, a neighborhood remade, a self-renewing seed of hope that developer Tom Cousins first planted in 1995.
"It has a new life. It's born again," says Cousins, head of the East Lake Foundation and the point man for it all. "You can look back in the '20s and into the '30s some of the national press referred to East Lake as the St. Andrews of America. To see it go from that to off the map was hard.
"But East Lake never has had this much exposure. The biggest reason we wanted to have this event is they'll talk about it on national television, talk about the neighborhood restoration, talk about what is possible in your town. We're trying to get it going all over the country. I don't know how you put a value on that. And, of course, it's good for our town, too, to have a major event, have Atlanta on world television four times a year."
At the core, East Lake's mission is so much different than when it was open as a place to idle away the day. Here was a property not satisfied with remaining a green anachronism. Here was a place that would remake itself on the ideal that, along with being a diversion, golf could be a Swiss Army tool of transformation.
And still at the surface, hold a big, rich party like this week's. Few know that before there was a golf course here, the East Lake property was the site of an 1890s vintage amusement park, where Atlantans would visit a penny arcade to view all the fantasies and wonders of the day. To tour the grounds this week and witness professional golf's embarrassment of riches is to know that much about the place, at least, hasn't changed during its second golden age. Robert Tyre "Bobby" Jones Jr. (March 17, 1902 � December 18, 1971), born in Atlanta, Georgia, was one of the greatest golfers to compete on a national and international level. He participated only as an amateur, primarily on a part-time basis, and chose to retire from competition at age 28.
Jones was a child prodigy who won his first children's tournament at the age of six and made the third round of the U.S. Amateur Championship at 14. Jones graduated from Georgia Tech with a degree in mechanical engineering in 1922. Jones added an A.B. in English from Harvard in 1924. He then attended Emory University's School of Law.
As an adult, he hit his stride in 1923, when he won his first U.S. Open. From that win at New York's Inwood Country Club, through his 1930 victory in the U.S. Amateur he won 13 Major Championships (as they were counted at the time) in 20 attempts. Jones was the first player to win The Double, both the U.S. Open and the British Open in the same year (1926). He is still the only player ever to have won the Grand Slam, or all four major championships, in the same year. He represented the United States in the Walker Cup five times, winning nine of his 10 matches. He also won two other tournaments against professionals: the 1927 Southern Open and the 1930 Southeastern Open. Jones was a life-long member of the Atlanta Athletic Club and the Capital City Club in Atlanta.
Jones is considered one of the five giants of the 1920s American sports scene, along with baseball's Babe Ruth, boxing's Jack Dempsey, American football's Red Grange, and tennis player Bill Tilden. He was the first recipient of the Amateur Athletic Union's James E. Sullivan Award as the top amateur athlete in the United States. He received two ticker-tape parades in New York City, the first in 1926 and the second in 1930. Jones is memoralized in Augusta, Georgia at the Golf Gardens and has the Bobby Jones Expressway, also known as Interstate 520, named for him.
Contents
1 Sportsmanship
2 St Andrews, Scotland
3 Later life
4 Major championships
4.1 Wins (7)
5 Films
6 Books
7 The Bobby Jones Golf Company
8 See also
9 External links
[edit] Sportsmanship
Jones was not only a consummately skilled golfer, but he also exemplified the principles of sportsmanship and fair play. In the beginning of his amateur career, he was in the final playoff of the U.S. Open. During the match, his ball ended up in the rough just off the fairway, and as he was setting up to play his shot his iron caused a slight movement of the ball. He immediately got angry with himself, turned to the marshals, and called a penalty on himself. The marshals discussed among themselves and questioned some of the gallery if anyone had seen Jones' ball move. Their decision was that neither they nor anyone else had witnessed any incident, so the decision was left to Jones. Bobby Jones called the two-stroke penalty on himself, not knowing that he would lose the tournament by one stroke. When he was praised for his gesture, Jones replied, "You may as well praise a man for not robbing a bank." The United States Golf Association's sportsmanship award is named the Bob Jones Award in his honor.
[edit] St Andrews, Scotland
Jones had a unique relationship with the town of St Andrews, Scotland. On his first appearance on the Old Course in The Open Championship of 1921, he withdrew after 11 holes in the third round. He firmly stated his dislike for the Old Course and the town reciprocated, saying in the press, "Master Bobby is just a boy, and an ordinary boy at that." He came to love the Old Course and the town like few others. When he won the Open at the Old Course in 1927, he wowed the crowd by asking that the trophy remain with his friends at the Royal and Ancient Golf Club rather than return with him to Atlanta. In 1958, he was named a Freeman of the City of St Andrews, becoming only the second American to be so honored, the other being Benjamin Franklin in 1759. Today, a scholarship exchange bearing the Jones name exists between the University of St Andrews and both Emory University and the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. At Emory, four students are sent to St Andrews for an all-expenses-paid year of study and travel. In return, Emory accepts four students from St Andrews each year. The program, the Robert T. Jones Scholarship, is among the most prestigious scholarships offered by either university. A similar exchange exists in Canada between St Andrew's University and the University of Western Ontario and Queen's University; the associated foundation is under the patronage of Prince Andrew, Duke of York as a member of the Canadian Royal Family.
[edit] Later life
Jones's grave in Oakland CemeteryJones was successful outside of golf as well. He earned his Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology where he was a member of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity and a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from Harvard University where he was a member of the Owl Club. After only one year in law school at Emory University, he passed the bar exam.
Jones was married in 1924 to the former Mary Rice Malone. They had three children, Clara, Robert Tyre III, and Mary Ellen. When he retired from golf at age 28, he concentrated on his Atlanta law practice. In addition, he made eighteen instructional films, worked with A.G. Spalding & Co. to develop the first set of matched clubs, co-designed the Augusta National course with Alister MacKenzie and was one of the founders of The Masters Tournament, first played at Augusta in 1934. During World War II, while he was serving as an officer in the U.S. Army Air Forces, Jones permitted the U.S. Army to graze cattle on the grounds at Augusta National. Later, in 1945, he founded Peachtree Golf Club in Atlanta and co-designed the course with Robert Trent Jones.
In 1948, Jones was diagnosed with syringomyelia, a fluid-filled cavity in his spinal cord which caused first pain, then paralysis. He was eventually restricted to a wheelchair. He died in Atlanta, Georgia, in December of 1971, about a week after becoming a Catholic, and was buried in Atlanta's historic Oakland Cemetery. He became a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1974.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home