Bobby Jones, Reporting from Pebble Beach c.1929

After winning the US Amateur Championship four times between 1924-1928, Bobby Jones lost to Johnny Goodman at the 1929 event. Jones wrote this article for the October 1929 issue of the American Golfer. This article has been excerpted, with permission, from that publication.

(NOTE: Jones also found time after being eliminated to referee the match between Jimmy Johnson and George Voigt. Can you imagine a young amateur sticking around today after being beat?)

LITTLE Johnny Goodman of Omaha fixed it up for me to see more of the Amateur Championship at Pebble Beach than I have ever before been in position to observe. I cannot say that my gratitude to Johnny is not tempered by some regret, but I found that being relegated to the gallery is not an entirely unpleasant experience especially when the later rounds of the championship prove as interesting as those staged by Messrs. Johnston, Willing, Ouimet, Voigt and others.

Photograph of Bobby Jones' first round loss at Pebble Beach, 1929

I think everyone connected with the tournament was immensely pleased when Jimmy Johnston won. Certainly it was impossible to hear a note of regret anywhere. There has never been in golf a finer sportsman or a more lovable chap than the new champion, and throughout the week he displayed a command of his shots and a courageous spirit which entirely deserved the honor which he eventually won.

Johnston has long been a topnotch player, an outstanding member of several Walker Cup teams and always prominent in National competitions, although until this year he had failed to win one.

The feature of the tournament from a competitive standpoint was the thirty-nine hole match which Johnston won from George Voigt. I had the good fortune to referee this match, and so saw every stroke. Both played very consistent and very good golf with rarely more than one hole and never more than two separating them at any time.

The thirty-eighth hole of this match showed us by what slender margins are championships won. Both players put together two fine wood shots to this par-five hole. Voigt lay just off the front edge of the green, while Johnston's ball was in the rough to the right, where he had to pitch over a bunker to reach the hole. Jimmy played his shot very well, but the ball slid ten or twelve feet past the hole. Voigt's chip left him scarcely more than six feet away. Both had courageously saved themselves from a good many serious difficulties and everyone in the crowd felt that there must come a break on this hole. Yet Jimmy holed his putt, the ball going in then almost coming out as it rolled around the edge. Voigt rapped his putt in, as confidently as onecould desire. There was a splendid exhibition of nerve on both sides, but it was a fearfully close call for Jimmy, where the decisive margin was very narrow.

The tournament and all things in connection with it were handled with impressive efficiency by the California Golf Association and the Bel Monte organization, as everyone knew it would be. The event was something of which California may long be proud. The galleries were unusually well behaved and conducted themselves as though they thoroughly appreciated the players problems. In this it was easy to see the effect of the amazing popular interest in golf on the Pacific Coast. It is always a delight to a golfer to play before a gallery of golfers who appreciate the fine points of the game, as those did.