We are days away from Masters Week at Augusta National and with early April comes familiar Bobby Jones lore.
Jones' footprints can be found all over his native Atlanta, Druid Hills, East Lake, Emory University, Georgia Tech and Buckhead.
Stories of his remarkable life in Georgia are the stuff of legend. All of us who love our state, Atlanta, golf and history know chapters.
But here is a story I'll bet you didn't know.
(Even Dr. Bob Jones IV conceded with a laugh: “You know Jeff, I’ve never heard that one.”)
Sonny, here goes...
Tommy Calhoun is a fifth-generation Atlantan and a tenth-generation Georgian.
He attended Lovett High School and graduated from the University of Georgia in 1973.
Calhoun has serious Atlanta credibility.
“ My father was a WWII Navy pilot, Georgia Tech graduate with a law degree from the University of Chicago, and was the Attorney General of Jekyll Island,” offered Calhoun.
The Calhouns are as deeply rooted in the red Georgia clay as the giant Buckhead Oaks along West Paces Ferry.
And among the family stories and anecdotes of generational Atlanta living, an ace involves a legend.
September 1957, a little boy makes a new friend in an unlikely location.
With a soft, southern drawl, a middle-aged man says to the lad, “I’ll call you Tommy and you just call me Bobby, cause we’re friends and that’s what friends do.”
The 7-year-old met the immortal Bobby Jones in the parking lot of the A & P Grocery (now Publix) at Northside and West Paces Ferry.
“We went with several other boys for autographs and to have Bobby Jones look at their golf swing. Some had clubs. I was smallest and didn’t play,” Calhoun recalled.
Bob Jones provided an autograph, tearing a grocery bag and signing the scrap paper while his wife Mary shopped inside the A & P.
The co-founder of Augusta National and the Masters asked Tommy to show him his swing.
He didn’t have one, so Jones taught him the grip and the swing.
Tommy’s instructor was one of the most famous athletes of the 20th century.
Calhoun remembers the great man sitting back in his chair saying, “you have a natural swing.”
Jones was encouraging, explaining that he was once small too.
The Grand Slam champion knew the Calhoun family and offered to tutor the little boy. Adding that it was important to have a place to practice hitting balls.
“Bobby’s chauffer drove him to my house on Nancy Creek and said our lot was perfect,” Calhoun said. “I told my Dad about it, and he kept the autograph, telling me I had met the most famous Atlantan in the world. I should remember everything he said.”
The two would meet again in the A & P West Paces parking lot.
The Jones' car would always appear with a driver.
65 years ago, the West Paces Ferry A&P was packed with shoppers along narrow aisles.
“ Bobby did not want to be in the grocery store. [His wife] Mary saw me walking up and told him, 'Here’s your little friend. You can tell him something to remember.' "
Bobby called back: “And I will.”
He would remind me, “Your father said to remember this in the swing.”
The small conversations have had a lasting impact on a now older adult.
“The lessons had an immediate and positive effect on my life. His friendship was like having someone in the adult world 100% on my side. and I came to love golf because Bobby did."
Calhoun would visit the Jones home with his uncle on Tuxedo Road in Buckhead.
“I held his four grand slam golf balls in my hand. And saw other personal memorabilia."
All these years later, Tommy Calhoun runs his business, Calhoun Group LLC in Jacksonville and still plays golf.
“ I promised Bobby I would always play.”
