I watched a really interesting golf documentary on golf channel the other day. It discussed how the landscape of professional golf differs from today. Back in the day Even while Jack Nicholas was placing on the PGA tour he still was selling insurance to his fraternity brothers and Byron Nelson had to do side jobs in addition to winning PGA tour events. Today a title purse amounts to many years worth of a healthy salary. What was particularly interesting is that Tommy armor actually gave Bobby Jones two strokes aside and it wasn’t uncommon for an amateur golfer to be head and shoulders above a professional golfer. It was also interesting to hear how professional golfers I had to enter the back of country clubs, a stark contrast two today when any country club in the country would extend a free membership to a PGA tour professional that would hang his hat there.

The final Takeaway I had was that the US amateur win Bobby Jones won it really did truly constitute a major because some of the finest golfers in the country were amateurs and had day jobs. Plus, while Bobby Jones was winning his majors he was concurrently getting a lot degree from Harvard and managing several businesses.

While Tiger may go down as the greatest golfer ever to pick up the sticks, Bobby Jones really did lay the foundation for American golf and I like how he paid his respects to the open and overseas golf, much like Palmer and Watson after him.