Dear ---------,

Did you know that the Grand Slam of Golf was once termed the Impregnable Quadrilateral? Probably not, as the term seems more ancient than the game itself. While the Quadrilateral has expectedly faded from golf's lexicon, the historic significance of its evolution to the Grand Slam underscores the excitement brewing in Scotland this month.

The Grand Slam of Golf was declared so by O. B. Keeler of the Atlanta Journal when Bobby Jones captured the 1930 U.S. Amateur Championship at the Merion Cricket Club. Keeler wrote, "This victory, the fourth major title in the same season and in the space of four months, had now and for all time entrenched Bobby Jones safely within the Impregnable Quadrilateral . . . the Grand Slam of Golf, many are calling it, and while I invented the term to describe what I believe to be an absolutely impossible achievement, I fear it is too casual and futile for this supreme feat of the sporting world. It was in the book now. Nothing could change it."

Francis Powers of the Chicago News, paraphrasing Grantland Rice's story on the Notre Dame team, said: "There goes another race by the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse over the fairways of Merion, and this time their names are Jones, Jones, Jones and Jones. And so it was. There at Merion was Bobby Jones, Amateur Champion of Great Britain, Open Champion of Great Britain, Open Champion of the United States, and competing for the fourth victory of the quadrilateral, the Amateur Championship of the United States."

Bobby Jones' four major tournament victories in 1930 was the Grand Slam of Golf of that era, consisting of the Open and Amateur Championships of the United Kingdom and the U.S.A. The Masters and the PGA Tournaments have replaced the amateur crowns in constituting the current definition of the four majors and thus the modern Grand Slam.

This year's U.S. Open at Bethpage generated Nielsen viewer ratings as high as 14.0 on Saturday and Sunday. The multiple dynamics of golf's current popularity include Tiger Woods' pursuit of Jack Nicklaus' 18 major career victories and the single season Grand Slam. Tiger possesses the only other Slam being his four consecutive major victories spread over the 2000 and 2001 seasons. Bobby Jones is the only golfer to win the acknowledged four majors of the era in one season. And, Jack Nicklaus is the only golfer to have won 18 titles that were the recognized majors of his era. Until Tiger's spectacular first six years on the tour, the Jones and Nicklaus records appeared to be unassailable.

In 1972, Jack Nicklaus won the Masters and the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach. Leading up to the British Open of '72, Allistair Cooke wrote, Nicklaus "would be on the third leg of a four-lap ambition that has never been achieved: to win in one year what are now considered the four main golf tournaments of the world - the Masters, the U.S. Open, the British Open and the American Professional Golfers Association championship. In April in the Masters, Nicklaus led the field from the first day to the last. He did the same at Pebble Beach.

Because he is acknowledged to be the best golfer to have come along since Ben Hogan, and is thought (by himself among other experts) to be in his prime, he began to tempt himself last winter with the heady vision of performing the so-called Grand Slam. The phrase is borrowed from the unique performance in 1930 of Nicklaus' boyhood idol Bob Jones, in sweeping what a sports writer of the day called 'the impregnable quadrilateral.'

This grandiose morsel of leftover nineteen-twenties prose described what were in those days the four main world championships. It tells us something about the social shift of golf from 'a gentleman's game' to a money game that these events were then the U.S. Amateur championship, British Amateur, the U.S. Open and the British Open. Jones's feat, done by a 28-year-old Atlanta lawyer as handsome as Apollo and as engaging as Charlie Brown, earned him a ticker-tape parade down Broadway a la Lindbergh and made him the golfer known and adored in countries that wouldn't know a bunker from a hole in the ground. He retired, still an amateur, from all competitive golf and it is about as sure as anything can be that his Grand Slam will never be done again."

In 1953, Grantland Rice described Bobby Jones' run from 1922 to 1930, "He won the U.S. Open four times and tied for top place twice. He won the British Open three times, the U.S. Amateur crown five times, and the British Amateur crown once. Here was a marvelous amassing of 13 national golf crowns, the greatest sweep in the history of the Ancient Green."

Jack's win at Pebble Beach in 1972 was his 13th major victory equaling Jones' career record of 13 major victories of his day. When Tiger tees it up on July 18th, he will do so on the same Muirfield course in Scotland as Jack did in 1972 - the third leg of their quest to win the four major crowns in one season. Of further significant coincidence, Tiger will be seeking his 9th major victory to reach the halfway mark of Jack's major title record on the same Open course that Jack sought to exceed Jones' record.

Understanding these historic facts contributes mightily to the excitement and significance of Tiger's challenge to add a new chapter to a sport so rich in history. These unique circumstances provide a sub-tournament plot in Gullane, Scotland this week. Only three players make up this field and each of a different era: Bob, Jack and Tiger.

All the best,
Bert Hand, Chairman
Hartmarx Corporation