Bobby Jones

While there may be dispute as to whether Bobby Jones (1902-1971) was the greatest golfer there has ever been, there are few who would argue that he is the greatest amateur player the world has ever seen. Jones, however, did not consider himself to be the best for when asked, at the height of his fame, "What does it feel like to be the greatest player in the world?" he modestly replied, "I don't know - the best player in the world is a woman," referring to Joyce Wethered. But his record speaks for itself: in seven years from 1923, Jones won the US Open four times, the Open three times, the US Amateur Championship five times and the British Amateur Championship in 1930, the year in which he completed a Grand Slam by winning all four.

After he had won the US Amateur at Merion, Jones retired from competitive golf at the age of twenty-eight. He founded the Augusta National Golf Club, the permanent home of the US Masters, and in 1958 he was made a freeman of St Andrews, the highest honour that could be bestowed on him. In 1936, six years after he had last played golf competitively, he played a round at St Andrews as an ordinary player where he had won the 1927 Open. When word got around that Bobby Jones was playing, the townsfolk turned out in force. The crowd at the first tee was over 2,000 and the numbers swelled as his round progressed. Later, confined to a wheelchair, he wrote of his welcome that day, adding, "I could take out of my life everything except my experiences at St Andrews and I'd still have had a full and rich life".