Of all the giants of golf’s Golden Age, Bobby Jones was the most revered. His intelligence, modesty, eloquence, and charm--and the fact he remained an amateur throughout his career--so completely captivated the public that at times it seemed almost beside the point that he was also the best golfer in the world. Jones’s fame reached its peak in 1930 when he became the only golfer to ever win the Grand Slam and the only person in history to receive a second ticker-tape parade on Broadway.

Yet beneath the easy grace he exhibited on and off the golf course, there was another Bobby Jones--one who through the years battled his volatile temper; the pressure of competition that grew so unbearable he was often left near tears and unable to take any pleasure in winning; and, in the final decades of his life, an agonizing physical decline that robbed him of everything but his dignity.

Drawing on scores of interviews, a careful reconstruction of contemporary accounts, and Jones’s voluminous correspondence, award-winning sportswriter Ron Rapoport reveals the man behind the legend and provides a moving depiction of a long-gone sporting age.

Ron Rapoport was a sports columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times for more than twenty years and also wrote for the Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Daily News, and the Associated Press. He served as the sports commentator for NPR’s Weekend Edition for two decades and is the author of Let’s Play Two: The Legend of Mr. Cub, the Life of Ernie Banks and editor of The Lost Journalism of Ring Lardner (Nebraska, 2017), among other books. He lives in Santa Monica, California.