The Golfer Who Bet on Bobby Jones — And Won Big
10 Jun 2025
by AmateurGolf.com Staff
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In the spring of 1930, Bobby Jones was preparing for what would become the most legendary season in golf history. What he didn’t know — and what few remember today — is that a fellow professional, Bobby Cruickshank, was so convinced of Jones’ inevitable success that he made a bet. A real one. And it paid off in a big way.
Bobby Cruickshank was no weekend hacker. Born in Scotland and playing full-time on the PGA Tour, he was one of the most respected professionals of the 1920s and ’30s. He had already battled Bobby Jones in major championships — most notably in the 1923 U.S. Open, where Jones defeated Cruickshank in a playoff to win his first major title.
So when Cruickshank followed Jones for just nine holes at the Savannah Open early in 1930, he wasn’t just admiring his swing. He was scouting. Watching Jones in action, Cruickshank saw something different. Not just brilliance — destiny.
“After I played with Bobby at Atlanta this spring,” Cruickshank later told reporters, “I knew he could win everything he tackled this year. He was in grand shape — and there’s no golfer like him when he’s right.”
Inspired, Cruickshank reached out to his father-in-law in Britain and asked him to place a bet with British bookmakers. The wager: Bobby Jones to win the British Amateur, the British Open, and the U.S. Open — the three biggest titles of the year. The amount? Just $50. But at 210-to-1 odds, the potential return was massive.
Jones did exactly what Cruickshank predicted.
He claimed the British Amateur at St. Andrews in May. He followed that with a win at the British Open at Royal Liverpool in June. Then in July, Jones captured the U.S. Open title at Interlachen Country Club, completing the trio. The bet had hit.
Cruickshank’s payout was $10,500 — an enormous sum at the time, especially during the Great Depression. In today’s money, that’s nearly $200,000. And in a show of familial generosity, he split the winnings evenly with his father-in-law.
“That’s all right,” Cruickshank said at the time. “It’s all in the family.”
A Legend Grows… and WarpsOver the years, this incredible story took on a life of its own. Versions began to circulate that Cruickshank had bet $200 instead of $50, or that the total payout was $105,000. One version even claimed that the New York Times misreported the winnings, and the IRS showed up at Cruickshank’s door demanding back taxes on money he didn’t actually receive.
It makes for a fun punchline — a Depression-era comedy of errors. But it isn’t true.
The real story is well documented. The Associated Press ran an article about the bet shortly after Jones won the U.S. Open, and the New York Times followed with their own item. Both correctly reported the amount as $10,500. There was no typo. No tax audit. Just a story so good that people couldn’t resist making it even better.
And to be fair, the truth doesn’t need any embellishment.
A Perfect Bet on a Perfect SeasonJust two months after Cruickshank cashed in, Bobby Jones did the impossible. He won the U.S. Amateur, completing the “Grand Slam” — a term coined to describe winning all four of golf’s most prestigious championships in a single calendar year. No one had done it before. No one has done it since.
And then, in a move that stunned the world, Jones retired from competitive golf. He was just 28 years old.
As for Bobby Cruickshank, he continued to compete and added 17 PGA Tour wins to his résumé. But his most memorable victory didn’t come on the course — it came from a hunch, a wire to his father-in-law, and an extraordinary belief in another golfer’s destiny.
It’s rare in any sport to witness greatness before the rest of the world catches on. Rarer still to back it with your own money and be proven right.
But that’s exactly what Cruickshank did.
He didn’t just recognize greatness.
He bet on it.
And he won.