The Open Championship has become part of my morning routine this week.

There is something relaxing about waking up, making a cup of coffee, and listening to British announcers discuss golfers battling links golf while I search for interesting nuggets from 100 years ago.

Naturally, it made me wonder what golf looked like exactly one hundred years ago. I’ve already noticed golf was a major sport back then. I’ve covered that year’s British Open already. The British Amateur. Weird rule proposals of the day. Golf was nearly an everyday event in the newspapers.

And obviously, to anyone who’s ever followed golf, if you’re in 1926 reading the newspapers, you’re going to run into Bobby Jones. A lot.

By the summer of 1926, amateur Jones had already accomplished more than most professionals ever would. Just twenty-four years old, he had captured both the U.S. Open and the British Open, becoming the first amateur to win The Open Championship since 1897. Newspapers didn't just report the victory. They celebrated it.

The Atlanta Journal devoted an entire page to his triumphant return from Britain. There were photographs of the crowds waiting to greet him, pictures of Jones holding the Claret Jug, and stories describing the reception he received in New York. He wasn't simply a successful golfer anymore. He had become the face of the sport.

If you know golf, you also know Bobby Jones retired really young. Just 28 years old. In today’s world, that seems strange. But back then, it makes more sense when you realize four years before he retired, they were already talking about his career like this.

Across the top was the headline "Bobby Jones... Goliath of Golf!" Draped over his head were ribbons listing title after title: U.S. Opens, U.S. Amateur championships, runner-up finishes, and now the British Open. Off to the side, a tiny cartoon version of Jones shrugged and asked a question that must have seemed perfectly reasonable in July 1926:

"Now what is there to live for?"

It's a funny caption today because we know that he would go on to win the grand slam, all four majors in a single year.

But it does make more sense now why he retired immediately following that feat in 1930.

Even better? In 1926 he was so good, papers joked that he should simply play himself.

Since Jones now held both the British and U.S. Open titles, there couldn't even be an unofficial champion-versus-champion match. The solution, the writer joked, was simple enough. Let Bobby Jones represent Great Britain one day and the United States the next. The article even suggested people would happily pay to watch him play himself.

It sounds ridiculous, but it also says everything about how untouchable he had become.

The newspapers believed Bobby Jones had reached the summit of golf. They had no way of knowing they were watching the middle chapter, not the final one.

The Sunday sports pages weren't just reporting on golf. They were teaching it.

Swing lessons from 100 years ago… just in case you don’t hook it far enough into the woods already.

That surprised me.

By the time Bobby Jones won The Open in 1926, no amateur had lifted the Claret Jug since Harold Hilton did it in 1897, nearly three decades earlier. For an entire generation, winning The Open had become the domain of professionals.

Jones didn't just add another trophy to his résumé. He joined a club with exactly one other member.

Looking back, it's easy to think of Bobby Jones' 1930 Grand Slam as the defining achievement of his career. But in July 1926, becoming only the second amateur ever to win The Open Championship, and the first to win both the U.S. and British Opens, was enough to convince everyone that there was nothing left for him to accomplish.

After his retirement, he would make a comeback… to play in the first Masters tournament. Find out how that one went:

See you tomorrow!

-Chris