When Bobby Jones won the 1930 U.S. Open, Interlachen Country Club
etched its name in American golf history. With his victory, Jones set golf
partisans on edge. He was already the British Amateur and British Open champ
that year, and the Grand Slam was within reach.
The fact that Interlachen hosted the U.S. Open that remarkable
year—and that a golfer for the ages won it—is not lost on the club’s current
membership. Interlachen golfers are justifiably proud of their elegant Donald
Ross course. (William Watson designed the first course in 1910; Ross in 1919
revised the course to such an extent that it became essentially a new layout.)
The tale of Jones’ win is told in memorabilia hung on the walls of
a card room adjoining the men’s locker room. The temperature was approaching 100
degrees as Jones played his practice round on Tuesday. Afterward, he said,
“Somebody may go crazy and shoot [par]. If they do, they will win with no
trouble at all.”
Weather conditions multiplied the obstacles that memorable week.
It was so blistering hot and humid the first day that Jones was unable to undo
his tie; his friend and Boswell, O.B. Keeler, had to cut it off with a
pocketknife.
Jones shot rounds of 71-73-68-75 to win the championship with a
1-under-par 287. Only on the final day did temperatures cool into the mid 70s.
Along the way Jones had his adventures, including one that would come to be
known as the “Lily Pad shot,” on the par-5 9th, during the second round.
Jones had driven over the brow of a hill to the extreme right side
of the fairway, needing to carry a pond to reach the green. Distracted by two
girls running across the fairway during his swing, Jones half-topped his wood
shot and watched with first dismay, then wonder, as the ball skipped across the
water and landed on the bank on the far side. He pitched up near the hole, got
his birdie and moved on. Fans swore it hopped across a lily pad, but Jones later
wrote that the ball skipped across like a flat rock.
