The Tour Championship this week offers the chance to look back a hundred years, to September 1919, when Jim Barnes won the inaugural Southern Open at East Lake. Officially it was one of Barnes’ 22 PGA Tour victories, though this golf historian would happily argue for another dozen or so that the modern record books overlook.
That 1919 Southern Open makes a fine story, not least because it mirrors Harry Hall’s golfing intelligence — the same smart play he showed at the BMW Championship last week. Add to that Barnes’ head-to-head battle with a 17-year-old Bobby Jones, told by O.B. Keeler, and you have the making of a magical moment in golf history.
East Lake and Bobby Jones
East Lake and Bobby Jones go hand in hand. Bobby first picked up a club aged five, when his father rented a cottage on the course. A year later Stewart Maiden, the Scottish pro, fashioned him a set of clubs, and Bobby would spend hours chipping and putting around the 13th green.
By 14 he had won the Georgia State Amateur and earned a place at the 1916 U.S. Amateur at Merion. He made a stirring run before falling in the quarter-finals to defending champion Robert Gardner*.
By 1919 Barnes was the dominant figure in the game, sweeping the North & South Open, the Western Open, and the PGA Championship, alongside numerous other titles. So the scene was set when he and Jones met at East Lake in the first Southern Open.
Keeler’s story
O.B. Keeler, Bobby’s friend and manager, recalled it in his syndicated column years later. He had travelled with Barnes to the British Open and delighted in his unusual training methods:
“Long Jim Barnes trains on caviar and sleep for the British Open — at least on shipboard.
He left his clubs alone, caught up on rest, and tackled the caviar with enthusiasm. ‘Fish are brain food,’ Jim mused, ‘and besides, I like the stuff.’”
Whether or not it was caviar in 1919, Keeler described Barnes’ East Lake performance “as spectacular an explosion of golf as ever settled a title”.
Playing alongside young Jones in the third round, Bobby made three straight pars (3-5-3) — and promptly lost four shots to Barnes, who went 4-3-2: two birdies and an eagle.
Keeler never forgot that eagle on East Lake’s 600-yard 5th hole: Barnes pulled his drive into the rough, hacked his brassie across to the opposite rough, and from 150 yards out with no view of the green, lashed a mashie straight into the hole. Bobby, steady as ever, made a par five and lost two strokes.
Barnes held on to win by one. At the final green, four feet from the hole with two strokes to spare, he didn’t risk the putt — he played safe, used both, and claimed the title. As Keeler put it: “It was brains anyway.”
Photo credit: Robert Writh
Harry Hall’s echo
Fast forward a century. At the BMW Championship, Harry Hall needed two pars on the closing holes to seal a top-30 spot in the FedExCup and advance to East Lake. His audacious chip-in at the 17th gave him breathing space.
On the last, his mantra of “make good decisions” showed through. He avoided the right side entirely — Ludwig Åberg, behind him, flirted with it and took six. Harry steered left into safety, bunkered off the tee and again near the green, but always in control. With two putts for bogey, he signed for five and achieved his week’s goal.
Like Barnes in 1919, he had chosen brains over boldness.
Perhaps it’s caviar for Harry if he goes all the way this week. You wouldn’t put it past him.
Credit: newspapers.com – ‘Out of Keeler’s Golf Bag!’, The Dispatch, September 1927.
* In 1920, Robert Gardner was made honorary member of the West Cornwall Golf Club — a story for another day
Cornish Golfer 
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