BILL TILDEN’S TENNIS RACKET
Great athletes are a joy to behold, carrying with them a sense of destiny that makes people want to participate, if only by watching. The first man to bring that spirit to American tennis was Bill Tilden.
From 1920 through 1925, he competed in eight Grand Slam tournaments and won them all.1 He also led the United States to seven Davis Cups, from 1920 to 1926.2 In 1924 he won 95 straight matches.3 He was the first man to win 10 Grand Slams.
Tilden was a late bloomer; at college, he failed to make the team. But he steadily built his game. By 1918, at age 25, he had reached the finals at Forest Hills, and he did so again in 1919. He spent that winter refining his backhand drive and studying the game with the analytic intensity of a Talmudic scholar, a scientist, or an artist.
Tilden would have appreciated the analogies. He saw tennis as many people see religion: something that gave meaning to his life. He brought his considerable intellect to bear on teasing out the intricacies of the game. His 1925 book, Match Play and the Spin of the Ball, was a great leap forward in terms of sophisticated analysis; future tennis greats Jack Kramer and John Newcombe swore by it.4 And he brought an artistry and showmanship to men’s tennis that had never been seen before.
In a sense, “Bill Tilden” is American for “Suzanne Lenglen” (see 1926 entry). Both had temperament, style, and charisma in buckets. Both made fortunes, and lost opportunities, by going pro. Both had arrogance leavened with charm. Both were adored for their play, but alone in life. Both could be imperious on the court; Tilden’s glare was legendary. Lenglen attracted royalty and decayed aristocrats; Tilden attracted Hollywood. Naturally, they detested each other.
Most important, both lifted their sport to new heights on the basis of otherworldly play and blazing personality. Lenglen drew so many fans to the cozy little grounds on Worple Street that the All-England Club created a new facility down the road in Wimbledon.5 Tilden did the same in New York, leading the West Side Tennis Club to build the Forest Hills complex, which would host the American championships until 1978.6 In spite of his WASPy Main Line Philadelphia roots, Tilden made people see tennis as a sport that demanded mental and physical excellence, not as a genteel pastime for rich dilettantes.
Tilden used this racket below at his last Wimbledon triumph in 1930, at age 37. He is still its oldest champion.7 The victory came almost exactly a decade after he won his first, and over those 10 years, Tilden stamped his game and his personality on the sport.
At the end of 1930, he turned professional. Well into his forties and fifties, he was capable of taking sets off the likes of Don Budge and Bobby Riggs in their prime.8 Tilden made a good deal of money after he turned professional; one estimate is $500,000 in the first six years.9 It disappeared in good living, greedy friends, legal woes, and bad stage plays. As his competitive career wound down, he turned to giving lessons, including to the likes of Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks.10
But when he died of a coronary in a small walk-up apartment in Hollywood in 1953 at age 60, poor financial management and scandal had left him just about destitute.11 What he left behind—besides the few trophies he had not yet pawned—was a reputation as the greatest player of his time. In 1950 an Associated Press poll of sportswriters named him the greatest tennis player of the first half century, and the vote wasn’t close. Don Budge, the next American to dominate the sport, put it simply. Big Bill Tilden, he said, was “the only genius tennis has produced.”12
1930
BOBBY JONES’S PUTTER, CALAMITY JANE
P
robably the most famous club in the history of golf, Calamity Jane helped Bobby Jones complete the game’s only Grand Slam.
Today, the Slam refers to the British and US Opens, the PGA, and the Masters. In 1930 it meant the British and US Opens and the British and US Amateurs. The latter two, by definition, were restricted to nonprofessionals, so the fields were not as strong. Because of this, Ben Hogan’s three major wins in 1953 and Tiger Woods’s four in a row in 2000–2001 might well be considered greater accomplishments.
But that does not diminish what Jones did. He set out to win the four biggest events on the golf calendar. He did it—and then quit, at age 28. He had achieved all he could in golf, Jones said, and competing took too much out of him. So he retired to his life in Atlanta as a husband, father, lawyer, mentor, and founder of Augusta National, the home of the Masters.
Jones first came to national attention in 1916 as the 14-year-old “Dixie Wonder” who won two matches at the US Amateur at Merion. If there was a prize for the category, he might also have won for most clubs thrown. But for the next six-plus years, he never won on the biggest stages. The low point came in 1921, when he was playing poorly in the third round at the British Open—and quit. Though he later finished the round, he would be forever ashamed of himself for that lapse, which he considered an insult to the game.1
Jones broke through in 1923, when he won the US Open. It didn’t come easily; he blew a lead in the fourth round. Jones was distraught, keening that he had played “like a yellow dog.” Francis Ouimet (see the 1913 entry), who had taken a fraternal interest in the decade-younger man, consoled him, took him out to dinner, sang to him, and all but tucked him into bed.
The next day, Jones won on the final hole of the 18-hole playoff.
Confident now that he had both the mental and physical qualities to excel, from then through 1930 Jones won five US Amateurs, four US Opens, three British Opens, and a British Amateur. Over that period, he contested 21 majors and won 13 of them. No one has ever come close to that kind of dominance. In 1926, when Jones became the first man to win the US and British Opens in the same year, he got a ticker-tape parade down Broadway. In 1930, when he became the first man to win both the British Open and Amateur in the same year, he got another. He is still the only person to be thus honored twice.
He also became known as a great sportsman; his example did much to establish the high standard of behavior that continues to be a welcome feature of the game. In the 1925 US Amateur, for example, he called a one-shot penalty on himself when his ball moved as he addressed it. He later lost in a playoff. He accepted no praise for his act: “You might as well praise me for not robbing a bank.”2 The British golf writer, Bernard Darwin (grandson of Charles), was not known to gush. But he said of Jones, “Even the golf ball cannot help but like him.”3
About 33 inches long, with eight degrees of loft and a hickory shaft, the putter pictured here is the second Calamity Jane. The face on the first Calamity, which was battered and might have been 20 years old when Jones bought it in Scotland in 1923, eventually wore out.4 He replaced it with this one in 1926.
During his march to the Slam in 1930, Calamity Jane II served Jones well. At the British Amateur, for example, a match-play tournament that comprised the first side of the quadrilateral, he used it to drain a nasty eight-foot uphill putt on the famous Road Hole, number 17. In the semifinal, he had to do the same—this time an 18-footer to stay even. He won the match on the next hole, and the tournament shortly after.5 At the US Open at Interlachen, he used Calamity Jane to drop a 40-footer on the eighteenth; that gave him a two-shot cushion.
Bobby Jones not only recorded the only Grand Slam in golf history, but when he retired, he closed the door on an era when amateurs routinely competed with the pros. John Goodman would win the US Open in 1933, but no amateur has taken a major since. In part because of the visibility Jones brought to the game, more men could make a living as touring pros—something that Walter Hagen had become the first to do only in 1919. Jones was also one of the last competitive players to use hickory-shafted clubs.6 His Slam, then, ended an era in several ways.
Even after Jones retired from competition, he stayed connected to the game. He made a small fortune starring in a series of sometimes corny, sometimes funny, always instructive short films, How I Play Golf, teaching Hollywood stars like W. C. Fields and James Cagney.7 He worked with Spalding to design a set of mass-market irons. He also consulted with the Works Progress Administration during the Great Depression to build and repair some 600 golf courses.8 He could have played golf exhibitions during World War II; instead, he insisted on active duty, and landed on Normandy shortly after D-Day.9 In 1950 a sportswriters’ poll named the 1930 Slam the most notable sports achievement of the half century.10
By that time Jones had been unwell for years. In 1956 he was diagnosed with a rare and painful degenerative spinal disease, syringomyelia. It turned his hands into claws and confined him to a wheelchair, and eventually his bed. By the time he died in December 1971, his once-magnificent physique was down to 90 pounds. When the birthplace of golf, St. Andrews, got the news of his death, play stopped in honor of the man Scotland had grown to love as “our Bobby.”
Great athletes are a joy to behold, carrying with them a sense of destiny that makes people want to participate, if only by watching. The first man to bring that spirit to American tennis was Bill Tilden.
From 1920 through 1925, he competed in eight Grand Slam tournaments and won them all.1 He also led the United States to seven Davis Cups, from 1920 to 1926.2 In 1924 he won 95 straight matches.3 He was the first man to win 10 Grand Slams.
Tilden was a late bloomer; at college, he failed to make the team. But he steadily built his game. By 1918, at age 25, he had reached the finals at Forest Hills, and he did so again in 1919. He spent that winter refining his backhand drive and studying the game with the analytic intensity of a Talmudic scholar, a scientist, or an artist.
Tilden would have appreciated the analogies. He saw tennis as many people see religion: something that gave meaning to his life. He brought his considerable intellect to bear on teasing out the intricacies of the game. His 1925 book, Match Play and the Spin of the Ball, was a great leap forward in terms of sophisticated analysis; future tennis greats Jack Kramer and John Newcombe swore by it.4 And he brought an artistry and showmanship to men’s tennis that had never been seen before.
In a sense, “Bill Tilden” is American for “Suzanne Lenglen” (see 1926 entry). Both had temperament, style, and charisma in buckets. Both made fortunes, and lost opportunities, by going pro. Both had arrogance leavened with charm. Both were adored for their play, but alone in life. Both could be imperious on the court; Tilden’s glare was legendary. Lenglen attracted royalty and decayed aristocrats; Tilden attracted Hollywood. Naturally, they detested each other.
Most important, both lifted their sport to new heights on the basis of otherworldly play and blazing personality. Lenglen drew so many fans to the cozy little grounds on Worple Street that the All-England Club created a new facility down the road in Wimbledon.5 Tilden did the same in New York, leading the West Side Tennis Club to build the Forest Hills complex, which would host the American championships until 1978.6 In spite of his WASPy Main Line Philadelphia roots, Tilden made people see tennis as a sport that demanded mental and physical excellence, not as a genteel pastime for rich dilettantes.
Tilden used this racket below at his last Wimbledon triumph in 1930, at age 37. He is still its oldest champion.7 The victory came almost exactly a decade after he won his first, and over those 10 years, Tilden stamped his game and his personality on the sport.
At the end of 1930, he turned professional. Well into his forties and fifties, he was capable of taking sets off the likes of Don Budge and Bobby Riggs in their prime.8 Tilden made a good deal of money after he turned professional; one estimate is $500,000 in the first six years.9 It disappeared in good living, greedy friends, legal woes, and bad stage plays. As his competitive career wound down, he turned to giving lessons, including to the likes of Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks.10
But when he died of a coronary in a small walk-up apartment in Hollywood in 1953 at age 60, poor financial management and scandal had left him just about destitute.11 What he left behind—besides the few trophies he had not yet pawned—was a reputation as the greatest player of his time. In 1950 an Associated Press poll of sportswriters named him the greatest tennis player of the first half century, and the vote wasn’t close. Don Budge, the next American to dominate the sport, put it simply. Big Bill Tilden, he said, was “the only genius tennis has produced.”12
1930
BOBBY JONES’S PUTTER, CALAMITY JANE
P
robably the most famous club in the history of golf, Calamity Jane helped Bobby Jones complete the game’s only Grand Slam.
Today, the Slam refers to the British and US Opens, the PGA, and the Masters. In 1930 it meant the British and US Opens and the British and US Amateurs. The latter two, by definition, were restricted to nonprofessionals, so the fields were not as strong. Because of this, Ben Hogan’s three major wins in 1953 and Tiger Woods’s four in a row in 2000–2001 might well be considered greater accomplishments.
But that does not diminish what Jones did. He set out to win the four biggest events on the golf calendar. He did it—and then quit, at age 28. He had achieved all he could in golf, Jones said, and competing took too much out of him. So he retired to his life in Atlanta as a husband, father, lawyer, mentor, and founder of Augusta National, the home of the Masters.
Jones first came to national attention in 1916 as the 14-year-old “Dixie Wonder” who won two matches at the US Amateur at Merion. If there was a prize for the category, he might also have won for most clubs thrown. But for the next six-plus years, he never won on the biggest stages. The low point came in 1921, when he was playing poorly in the third round at the British Open—and quit. Though he later finished the round, he would be forever ashamed of himself for that lapse, which he considered an insult to the game.1
Jones broke through in 1923, when he won the US Open. It didn’t come easily; he blew a lead in the fourth round. Jones was distraught, keening that he had played “like a yellow dog.” Francis Ouimet (see the 1913 entry), who had taken a fraternal interest in the decade-younger man, consoled him, took him out to dinner, sang to him, and all but tucked him into bed.
The next day, Jones won on the final hole of the 18-hole playoff.
Confident now that he had both the mental and physical qualities to excel, from then through 1930 Jones won five US Amateurs, four US Opens, three British Opens, and a British Amateur. Over that period, he contested 21 majors and won 13 of them. No one has ever come close to that kind of dominance. In 1926, when Jones became the first man to win the US and British Opens in the same year, he got a ticker-tape parade down Broadway. In 1930, when he became the first man to win both the British Open and Amateur in the same year, he got another. He is still the only person to be thus honored twice.
He also became known as a great sportsman; his example did much to establish the high standard of behavior that continues to be a welcome feature of the game. In the 1925 US Amateur, for example, he called a one-shot penalty on himself when his ball moved as he addressed it. He later lost in a playoff. He accepted no praise for his act: “You might as well praise me for not robbing a bank.”2 The British golf writer, Bernard Darwin (grandson of Charles), was not known to gush. But he said of Jones, “Even the golf ball cannot help but like him.”3
About 33 inches long, with eight degrees of loft and a hickory shaft, the putter pictured here is the second Calamity Jane. The face on the first Calamity, which was battered and might have been 20 years old when Jones bought it in Scotland in 1923, eventually wore out.4 He replaced it with this one in 1926.
During his march to the Slam in 1930, Calamity Jane II served Jones well. At the British Amateur, for example, a match-play tournament that comprised the first side of the quadrilateral, he used it to drain a nasty eight-foot uphill putt on the famous Road Hole, number 17. In the semifinal, he had to do the same—this time an 18-footer to stay even. He won the match on the next hole, and the tournament shortly after.5 At the US Open at Interlachen, he used Calamity Jane to drop a 40-footer on the eighteenth; that gave him a two-shot cushion.
Bobby Jones not only recorded the only Grand Slam in golf history, but when he retired, he closed the door on an era when amateurs routinely competed with the pros. John Goodman would win the US Open in 1933, but no amateur has taken a major since. In part because of the visibility Jones brought to the game, more men could make a living as touring pros—something that Walter Hagen had become the first to do only in 1919. Jones was also one of the last competitive players to use hickory-shafted clubs.6 His Slam, then, ended an era in several ways.
Even after Jones retired from competition, he stayed connected to the game. He made a small fortune starring in a series of sometimes corny, sometimes funny, always instructive short films, How I Play Golf, teaching Hollywood stars like W. C. Fields and James Cagney.7 He worked with Spalding to design a set of mass-market irons. He also consulted with the Works Progress Administration during the Great Depression to build and repair some 600 golf courses.8 He could have played golf exhibitions during World War II; instead, he insisted on active duty, and landed on Normandy shortly after D-Day.9 In 1950 a sportswriters’ poll named the 1930 Slam the most notable sports achievement of the half century.10
By that time Jones had been unwell for years. In 1956 he was diagnosed with a rare and painful degenerative spinal disease, syringomyelia. It turned his hands into claws and confined him to a wheelchair, and eventually his bed. By the time he died in December 1971, his once-magnificent physique was down to 90 pounds. When the birthplace of golf, St. Andrews, got the news of his death, play stopped in honor of the man Scotland had grown to love as “our Bobby.”
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