BOOK REVIEW: GRAND SLAM BY MARK FROST

by Doug McAllister

Upon completing GRAND SLAM by Mark Frost, author of THE GREATEST GAME EVERY PLAYED, I took a moment to read some of the online reviews for this book. I was not surprised by what I found. One, however, struck me. The review was titled, "The Tiger Woods of Another Era." Indeed!

The fact is, Bobby Jones was and is irreplaceable. Period! Frost's marvelous biography, if read carefully, paints such a portrait that honest assessors of the game of golf have no choice but to agree with Oscar Bane "Pop" Keeler: "There will never be another like him!" Not the Tiger Woods of another era. Far from that. Frost's volume clearly points out that every other golfer -- from Hagen to Sarazen to Palmer to Nicklaus to Woods -- is but a shadowy also-ran when compared to the inimitable Robert Tyre Jones, Jr.

GRAND SLAM tells the story of Jones' unlikely and never again equaled feat of winning all four of golf's major championships in a single calendar year. And if you are remotely interested in the game of golf -- beyond taking the sticks out once a year -- you cannot read this book and come away with any other notion than that, very likely, the greatest golf every played on this planet was played some 80 years ago! And there is nothing wrong with that fact. Who says that, as time passes, we need to see better and better golfers? Just because the equipment is supposedly better and the conditions are supposedly better doesn't for a minute mean that the best to ever tee it up has already finished his round. And please don't come to the table with arguments that today's competition is greater or that life on tour is harder or that today's Majors are more rigorous.

Yes, there is Eldrick Tiger Woods and, yes, there is his amazing Tiger-Slam. A great sporting event in its own right. I admit it. But, despite Tiger's claims that he has already matched what Jones' did, it doesn't even come remotely close to equaling--as retold in Frost's GRAND SLAM--what Jones accomplished in 1930. Not hardly! That's it and that's all. Let's just all take a deep breath and accept it!

Like THE GREATEST GAME..., GRAND SLAM is masterfully written, telling the story of Jones' early experience in golf, his brush with death at East Lake, his steady rise to golf's greatest pinnacle and his elegant retirement from competitive golf at the ripe old age of 28. And Frost's narrative regarding the four majors of 1930 is simply riveting reading for any true golf aficionado. The volume also presents wonderful biographical sketches of the other major players in the drama, including Walter Hagen and Chick Evans.

GRAND SLAM is a must read for anyone who fancies himself a devotee of the grand game. Read it and allow yourself to be amazed, as I was, that such a one a Bobby Jones ever, in flesh and blood, played the game that we love!

Read it and then...HELAS!