Page 11 - Alabama Golf Association

A very interesting footnote is that thirteen-year-old Bobby Jones of Atlanta won that Roebuck Springs invitation tournament. Yes, the one and same Bobby Jones who would win what would be called the Grand Slam of Golf in 1930 and go on to form Augusta National and the Masters Tournament. In 1916 and 1920, Jones would also win the Country Club of Birmingham National Invitational, which began in 1913.
1915
The first State Amateur champion was Jack Allison of Birmingham, who was a cousin of the late twenty-fifth president of the United States, William McKinley, who had been assassinated in 1901. Allison worked for his father, Major Charles J. Allison, clerk of the United States Court. He defeated Judge Norborne R. Clarke
of Mobile 13 and 12 in the thirty-six-hole match play final at Montgomery Country Club. He held a commanding nine-up lead after eighteen holes and subsequently ran out an easy winner.
The September 12 issue of the Birmingham News described Allison as “. . . a clean-cut chap of athletic build and extremely fond of sports.”
The Birmingham News recounted friends hearing of Allison’s play: “When the Birmingham friends of Jack Allison received the news that he had obtained the lead on Judge Clarke . . . they became
wildly interested and The News telephones were kept busy answering inquiries as to the result. When the final result came in and the glad news was handed out it was met with cheers.
“. . . a clean-cut chap
of athletic build and extremely fond of sports.”
—Description of Jack Allison by the Birmingham News September 12, 1915
“‘Say, how’d Jack come out?’ was one inquiry Saturday night. The reply that he had landed the bacon brought a volley of cheers which told the large group at the other end of the line.”
Allison was also the medalist with
an 81, which according to Bob Phillips, long-time Birmingham Post-Herald Sports editor and columnist as well as the secretary of the AGA for many, many years, was “a rather neat score in that day, and he went on to defy the traditional medalist jinx by breezing to a 13-12 victory . . .”
Jack Allison
15
MEN’S STATE AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIP THE EARLY DAYS