Gary Galyean's Golf Letter

GARY GALYEAN’S ® OLF ETTER ® G T H E I N S I D E R E PL O R T O N W O R L D G O L F NUMBER 329 OUR 30th YEAR AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2019 Dear Subscriber: The Tour Championship, Bobby Jones’ history, and Golf with a Purpose have each contributed to the frequent he 20th century’s most important golf and and truly extraordinary events that have taken place here T neighborhood restorations took place simulta- - on and off the course. neously five miles east of downtown Atlanta in the mid 1990s. That fact becomes clearer and more prominent “When there is really a force for good ...” with time. We are reminded The East Lake neighbor- of it each year as the golf hood was within the Crim world’s focus returns to Cluster, one of 20 compris- East Lake Golf Club for the ing the Atlanta Project. By season-ending Tour Champi- the early 1990s, it was made onship. East Lake’s distinc- up of 650 public housing tion in hosting that tourna- units and was so ravaged ment for the nineteenth year by poverty, drugs and vio- - 15 consecutively - gives it lence that it was nicknamed unique standing. The fact “Little Vietnam”. Taxi driv- that Rory McIlroy won $15 ers sometimes refused to million last Sunday under- drop newcomers there in standably captured the golf broad daylight because of news cycle. the danger. Even Atlanta’s Well prior to last week’s mayor said it was the only championship, East Lake’s part of the city where she competitive legacy accu- would not go alone, with- mulated for more than a out police protection. The EAST LAKE G.C. century. That legacy is but one The home club of Bobby Jones, Golf with a Purpose, Atlanta Project was attempt- of the three truly significant and the Tour Championship. ing to pay special attention elements that have raised East to the education of inner city Lake to such prominence in the world of golf. youths and the revitalization of the city’s major crime and poverty areas, but at East Lake it was not working. Sixty years before the establishment of the P.G.A. Tour, East Lake was where Robert Tyre (Bobby) Jones learned to In 1994, Thomas G. Cousins, a widely-respected play, and where he played his first and last rounds. Atlanta real estate developer whose family had been East Lake members for many years, was blessed with the idea Thirdly, and arguably the element of greatest impor- of re-generating the entire East Lake community by raz- tance at East Lake, is the breathtaking success of Golf ing the public housing and replacing it with single family With a Purpose that transformed the neighborhood that townhouses and apartments while also providing schools, surrounds the golf club “from a war zone to a national a grocery store, a YMCA, playing fields, limiting tenants model”. to those with a job and no criminal record, and then us- Published Monthly • Subscription Rate US $88 Per Year www.thegolfletter.com • 19 VIII / IX 1p ing the golf club as a central hub in the vocational and With regard to members’ competitive achievements, recreational rebuilding of the community’s youth. “I East Lake is without peer. Its members dominated com- knew that [just] housing would not be the answer,” he petitive golf more than those from any other member- has said. The entire community needed to be rebuilt - ship in the history of the game. They won more than 50 education, services, recreation and safety provided. regional, national and international championships within a 31 year span - including 17 national championships. To begin the work, Mr. Cousins and his wife Ann created the East Lake Foundation and then convinced Only two clubs in golf’s long history, East Lake in 100 corporate donors to contribute $200,000 each to- 1930 and Victoria G.C., Melbourne, Australia, in 1954, ward that goal. They referred to their work as Golf with have simultaneously housed both the [British] Open and a Purpose, it was work that the community and the city the [British] Amateur trophies. Only once (1925) have could not afford to be without. the two finalists for the U.S. Ama- teur hailed from the same club - The result was Villages at East East Lake. In that year, Bobby Jones Lake. Their website describes itself defeated his childhood friend, Watts in this way: Gunn, 8 and 7, at Oakmont. Our homes are nestled among All of these competitive ac- the conveniences of a perfectly complishments are made more planned community; including a astounding by the fact that East grocery store, bank, Drew Charter Lake’s champions were drawn from School, East Lake Family YMCA, the neighborhood children who ei- as well as the East Lake and Char- ther grew up near the Club or spent lie Yates Golf Courses. Residents their summers there: Bobby Jones, are drawn to The Villages of East Alexa Stirling, Watts Gunn, Charles Lake because of its recreational and Dan Yates. amenities, superior educational opportunities, and largely to be- Bobby Jones was born in Atlanta come part of a vibrant supportive on St. Patrick’s Day, 1902. At the community. age of five he was stricken in suc- cession with whooping cough and Their charter school provides measles so his parents moved him cradle to college classes and guid- for the summer to East Lake. The ance. The results in reading levels, Robert Tyre Jones, Jr. East Lake G.C., a branch of the high school graduations, and college greater Atlanta Athletic Club, had admittance rates are stunning. opened that same year (1907). By the following summer Mr. Cousins now works to apply this same approach at East Lake, six-year-old Bobby competed for and won in other communities around the United States. After 40 his first tournament. He defeated Alexa Stirling, who years of failed government attempts (our words, not his) would go on to win three U.S. Women’s Amateur titles, to break the cycle of poverty in America, it is reassuring finish as runner-up three times, and win the Canadian to hear Mr. Cousins reflect on what was learned at East Women’s Amateur title twice. Mr. Jones later recounted Lake. that among all his golf trophies he was proudest of the one he won in his victory over Miss Stirling, and it was “We learned that we can change neighborhoods,” the only trophy with which he ever slept. he has said. “There are so many serious problems in our country that don’t have to be there. When there is really East Lake was the foundational home for Mr. Jones’ a force for good - something good happening -miracles competitive training. It was at East Lake that he watched will happen.” Ted Ray play “the greatest shot” he ever saw; and where, as a child, he relentlessly followed East Lake’s profes- Only once from the same Club sional, Stewart Maiden, the Scotsman from Carnoustie he ascent of golf as a widely popular sport is after whom Mr. Jones patterned his seemingly effortless Tinextricably woven within the fabric of its great and relentless swing, around the course watching closely clubs, and the notoriety of such clubs is founded on the but never taking a lesson proper. competitive performances that have taken place on their From East Lake, at the age of 14, Mr. Jones entered courses and/or been achieved by their members. THE GOLF LETTER® • 19 VIII / IX 2p the world of national competition making the third round of match play in his first U.S. Amateur Champi- the Clubhouse. As the group onship (Merion, 1916). From this time, until his retire- reached the locker room ment from competitive golf at age 28, Mr. Jones played door, a third bolt struck in 52 tournaments, of which he won 23. the Clubhouse’s big double chimney showering bricks During these 14 years, he was either a high school or and mortar as far as 300 feet college student for nine years. He graduated from high away. Once the players were school at age 16; won his first college degree (Georgia safely inside, it was discov- Tech, Engineering) at 20, his second (Harvard, English ered that the back of Mr. Literature) at 22; and passed the Georgia Bar examina- Jones’ shirt had been torn tion after just two years of law school at Emory. to the waist and a six-inch In 1923, ineligible to play collegiate sports because he scratch inflicted by falling had already graduated from college for the first time, he chimney debris. volunteered to manage Harvard’s golf team. He was told Following his 1930 U.S. Amateur victory and the the team already had a manager. He then volunteered to completion of the Grand Slam at Merion, a line of 50 be assistant manager, which was accepted rather grudg- Marines was needed to escort him through the 18,000 ingly. At the time he was the reigning U.S. Open cham- spectators - a jaunt described by The New York Times as pion. “the most triumphant journey any man ever travelled in In his first ten attempts, Mr. Jones did not win a na- sport”. tional championship. Then came 1923. From that year Mr. Jones retired from competitive golf immediately until his retirement, he won 21 of the national champi- following his 1930 Grand Slam victories. He contracted onships he entered. He held one or more major titles in with Warner Brothers for instructional films which were each of those years.

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