Masters and commander commemorated on film

AS the 98 players who will contest the 68th Masters pore over the pairings issued late last night for tomorrow’s opening round, they would do well to turn over the sheet and digest the words written in red ink.

Alongside a map of Augusta National and a copy of the scorecard, the reverse side carries a message which reads: "In golf, customs of etiquette and decorum are just as important as rules governing play. It is appropriate for spectators to applaud successful strokes in proportion to difficulty, but excessive demonstrations by a player or his partisans are not proper because of the possible effect upon other competitors.

"Most distressing to those who love the game of golf is the applauding or cheering of misplays or misfortunes of a player. Such occurrences have been rare at the Masters, but we must eliminate them entirely if our patrons are to continue their reputation as the most knowledgeable and considerate in the world."

Written in 1967 by Robert Tyre Jones, the co-founder of both Augusta National and the Masters, its words and spirit underline what gives this competition its unique identity. And what made Jones a remarkable personality.

There is little escaping Bobby Jones at the Masters, even 33 years after his death; from his message on decorum, to the cabin named in his honour overlooking the 10th tee, to the cabinet devoted to him in the library and the photographs in the locker rooms.

But this week, more than ever, the spirit of Bobby Jones, arguably the game's greatest exponent and certainly its greatest amateur, will be very much alive at Augusta National. It is this week that players and the media will be treated to special screenings of a new feature film about Jones to be released in the US at the end of this month.

Entitled "Stroke Of Genius," the film charts Jones's dramatic route to the 1930 Grand Slam, highlighting his exemplary conduct on and off the golf course and serving as a testimony to the man's integrity, honesty and character.

Back then, before the Masters which he would help to create in 1934, the majors were regarded as the British Amateur, the British Open, the US Open and the US Amateur. In 1930, at the age of 28, Jones became the first and only golfer to win the lot in one year and land the fabled Grand Slam.

Augusta National had never been used as a film location before, the renowned authoritarians who run the club had not allowed it. But like the Royal & Ancient grandees who rule the Old Course at St Andrews, the powers that be at Augusta National opened their doors for director Rowdy Herrington and actor Jim Caviezel, who portrays Jones.

Caviezel, last seen playing Jesus in Mel Gibson's controversial The Passion of the Christ "I went from playing the messiah to the messiah of golf" portrays Jones as an extraordinary man struggling to balance a fierce temper and competitive zeal with an integrity that made the burdens he was placing on his family life almost unbearable.

The result is the story of an heroic figure and great champion who at the same time realises there is more to life than winning golf tournaments, even before he developed a crippling, degenerative back disorder - syringomyelia.

Caviezel was not a golfer before taking on the role but he's hooked now.

He watched Jones swing on tape "literally a half-million times" to master the move.

"He had so many moving parts. It was easier learning to fence for Count of Monte Cristo," Caviezel admitted.

"There's nothing I hate more than watching a basketball movie. I used to play in college, and I spot immediately a guy who doesn't really play.

"Maybe he addresses the free-throw line wrong or his elbow is out or something, but I can just tell if he doesn't have the knack. I didn't play much golf before this. I hit it around a little, but I just substituted what I knew about shooting a basketball for hitting a golf ball.

"The one thing that all athletics have in common is balance. As soon as I found my centre and balance, it was much easier to learn. I think we got it about 95% there but I wanted to make sure that any professional golfers who saw this film could slow the stroke down and believe that I had it."

The actor is clearly in awe of the man he portrays.

"I knew very little about Bobby Jones. I just loved the story, and I felt (despite having just played Jesus) I couldn't think of a finer man to play. I read the script and saw how the other characters saw him, and what he said and how he lived. That's what attracted me.

"Jones carried great burdens. He had family problems, enormous pressure to win the Grand Slam, a disease that was taking over his body he was on the verge of snapping."

Caviezel must have come close during one particular moment in shooting. "In one scene, I made a 93-foot putt, and the crowd went nuts. I look over and [director] Rowdy [Herrington] has his face in his hands. He said, 'Jim, we missed it. The camera wasn't rolling'.

"But no man is perfect. We tend to forget all the other things that maybe he wasn't so great at. Like his temper. But in order for a piece of coal to change into a diamond, it has to undergo some serious heat and pressure. I just kept thinking, here's a guy with three university degrees. He's a lawyer, and an engineer, and he knows English literature. Being so smart, being an engineer, and trying to hit a golf ball must have been so frustrating at times. I kept imagine Bobby thinking, 'Ok, I did all the math so why is this ball going way over there? Why did I slice it?' I thought about that, about utilizing that frustration, and it made it easy for me to throw a golf club.

"When you play someone like the Count of Monte Cristo, nobody ever says, 'Well he walked this way or he looked like this or he fenced this way'. And then with Jesus, people might not know quite the way he walked or sounded, but everybody has some idea about it. But when you play Bobby Jones, everybody in Georgia knew how he talked, walked, ate, spat, drank. So I think that made it pretty hard."

Tom Crow, one of the film's financial backers, is delighted with the end product. As the 1961 Australian amateur champion and founder of the Cobra equipment company, he also acted as a technical adviser on the movie.

"They asked me to keep them on the straight and narrow as far as the facts were concerned. They did not want any Hollywood-style poetic licence.

"It is not like Bagger Vance. That, to me, was typical Hollywood. They took poetic licence. Junuh (played by Matt Damon) is supposed to have gone birdie, eagle, birdie, birdie and was still hitting off last from the tee. For golfers, it was not real. I liked the book. I thought it was great fun but the film was awful.

"I think it is going to be a great movie. It reminds me of Chariots of Fire and Seabiscuit. The genre for these two were the Olympic Games and horse racing but the stories were about the individuals. In this, the genre is golf but the real story is of Jones and his family. I think it is important that someone like him be better known.

"If people liked Chariots of Fire, they will like this. There are films coming out of yesteryear that give us a feel for what the world was like at another time."

Except, that is, at Augusta National, where everybody still plays by the Bobby Jones code.