In a game that defies even an hour of perfection, Bobby Jones produced an entire year of flawless play. No one had won the Grand Slam before–and no one has since. In a splendid narrative worthy of Jones’s singular achievement, Curt Sampson, acknowledged as one of golf’s greatest writers, captures the magic of his feat and the high cost he paid to achieve it, set against the backdrop of the Great Depression. His capture of golf’s Grand Slam in 1930 was the best year a golfer ever had—and, possibly, the most dramatic accomplishment in sports in the twentieth century.

Bobby Jones was constantly in the spotlight–– In the newsreel, on the front page, Bobby holing the winning putt, peering through a flurry of falling paper in a ticker-tape parade, and saying the right thing when handed another trophy. Jones’s thrilling victories in golf’s four major tournaments captivated a worldwide audience hung-over from the end of the Roaring Twenties and beat-up and nervous from the stock market crash. He was among the last of his kind in big- time sports, a gentleman-amateur. In the hot summer of 1930, he became a symbol of perfection and grace in a very imperfect world. But behind the publicly––a perfect facade was a man falling apart. As author Curt Sampson explains in his fast-paced narrative, Jones’s handsome face obscured considerable torment. To better comprehend the stress Jones felt the year he conquered the world, in 2004 former pro Sampson played each of the courses Bobby played using period clubs with wooden shafts and while wearing a white shirt and tie. The result is the best, most honest look yet at a complicated, conflicted athlete in the midst of his greatest achievement.