Billy Florence - Leadership Determination
Bobby Jones Was Determination In Action
by Billy Florence
At age 14, Bobby Jones was considered the greatest golfing prospect in the world. At age 21, he was considered the greatest disappointment in the history of the sport. At age 28, he was considered the greatest that had ever played the game. These fourteen years were dubbed by Atlanta newspaper man O. B. Keeler “Seven lean years and seven fat years,” and defined in startling relief the power of determination in fulfilling a person’s potential.
Jones was his own worst enemy during his teen years. He was plagued by a driving perfectionism that would accept nothing short of infallible excellence in his play – a tall order for a young man battling the pressures of an adoring and expectant public in addition to the normal anxieties of adolescence. A particularly bad outing could throw him into a tailspin of self-criticism that would damage his game for weeks at a time. In addition, he possessed an inordinately bad temper and was given to embarrassing tantrums on and off the links. Grantland Rice said of Jones that he had “the face of an angel and the temper of a timber wolf.”
But a single day, a single hole, a single shot seemed to turn it all around for Jones. On the 18th hole of the final round of the 1923 US Open, Jones hit a near-perfect shot out of the rough which landed eight feet from the hole and ensured his first ever major golf championship. Over the next seven years, he won 13 of the 21 major championships he entered, culminating his career by winning all four major championships in a single season (1930) – to this day the only golfer ever to accomplish the feat. Jones retired from golf at 28, but his influence on the game was only beginning. He invented the modern system of identifying clubs by numbers instead of names, and helped to design the Augusta National golf course, home of the Masters Tournament.
Jones’s was a promising life that seemed headed for disappointment and despair. Instead, he identified and overcame the obstacles before him, and unleashed his potential as few have done before him or since. His story is an enduring testimony to the power of human determination.
“Competitive golf is played mainly on a five-and-a-half inch course – the space between your ears.” -- Bobby Jones
Billy Florence, “Read more on Jones’s remarkable life and career at BobbyJones.com.”
About Leadership Avenue columnist Billy Florence
The people we've chosen to write about have/had their quota of human failings and foibles just like the rest of us... But they share one transcendent quality: All of them in some way, at some time, acted courageously. Billy Florence, is focusing on Bobby Jones challenges as well as accomplishments because this better equips us to lead.
© 2006 Florence News reprint permission to Billy Florence Team Dream Chasers site.
by Billy Florence
At age 14, Bobby Jones was considered the greatest golfing prospect in the world. At age 21, he was considered the greatest disappointment in the history of the sport. At age 28, he was considered the greatest that had ever played the game. These fourteen years were dubbed by Atlanta newspaper man O. B. Keeler “Seven lean years and seven fat years,” and defined in startling relief the power of determination in fulfilling a person’s potential.
Jones was his own worst enemy during his teen years. He was plagued by a driving perfectionism that would accept nothing short of infallible excellence in his play – a tall order for a young man battling the pressures of an adoring and expectant public in addition to the normal anxieties of adolescence. A particularly bad outing could throw him into a tailspin of self-criticism that would damage his game for weeks at a time. In addition, he possessed an inordinately bad temper and was given to embarrassing tantrums on and off the links. Grantland Rice said of Jones that he had “the face of an angel and the temper of a timber wolf.”
But a single day, a single hole, a single shot seemed to turn it all around for Jones. On the 18th hole of the final round of the 1923 US Open, Jones hit a near-perfect shot out of the rough which landed eight feet from the hole and ensured his first ever major golf championship. Over the next seven years, he won 13 of the 21 major championships he entered, culminating his career by winning all four major championships in a single season (1930) – to this day the only golfer ever to accomplish the feat. Jones retired from golf at 28, but his influence on the game was only beginning. He invented the modern system of identifying clubs by numbers instead of names, and helped to design the Augusta National golf course, home of the Masters Tournament.
Jones’s was a promising life that seemed headed for disappointment and despair. Instead, he identified and overcame the obstacles before him, and unleashed his potential as few have done before him or since. His story is an enduring testimony to the power of human determination.
“Competitive golf is played mainly on a five-and-a-half inch course – the space between your ears.” -- Bobby Jones
Billy Florence, “Read more on Jones’s remarkable life and career at BobbyJones.com.”
About Leadership Avenue columnist Billy Florence
The people we've chosen to write about have/had their quota of human failings and foibles just like the rest of us... But they share one transcendent quality: All of them in some way, at some time, acted courageously. Billy Florence, is focusing on Bobby Jones challenges as well as accomplishments because this better equips us to lead.
© 2006 Florence News reprint permission to Billy Florence Team Dream Chasers site.
posted by Billy Florence at
8:51 AM
