The late Stuart "The Emperor" Jones, of Hastings, was touted as the best amateur golfer New Zealand ever had. PHOTO/FILE
The late Stuart "Emperor" Jones had all the physical attributes of a spellbinding golfer but the rigours of professional or international existence would have tested his mettle.
That's the verdict of Sir Bob Charles, who was at Napier Golf Club on Tuesday last week to promote the inaugural Duke of Gloucester Pro-Am as special chief guest and player.
Asked if Jones, touted as the best amateur golfer New Zealand ever had, should have turned professional, Charles responded: "Well, Stuart was a great ball striker and outwardly he had a good temperament but on the inside I think he was a very nervous man.
"I think he was very shaky on the inside. He didn't notice that but I think the constant grind would have been too much for him mentally, although physically he could have probably handled it," said the 80-year-old, who went on to become the first lefthander to claim a major, the British Open in 1963.
Charles said Jones and South Cantabrian Ross Murray, a former six-time Eisenhower representative, were contemporaries of his who never turned professional or tested themselves in the international scene.
"I think [Jones] would have done okay but whether he would have had the stomach and the heart for it week after week, I'm not too sure, but he certainly cleaned up on the amateur side of things."
Charles vividly recalled playing competitively against Jones for the first time, watching him play at the age of 17 as an amateur. He wasn't sure whether it was at Jones' home course at Bridge Pa, Hastings, or Charles' turf at Masterton Golf Club -but it was Jones who had prevailed.
"It was a four-round event over two days. We did that in those days but nowadays the young guys look at four rounds of golf in two days and take time to think about it," said Charles, who played in several Watties Open tourneys of yesteryear at the Bridge Pa course.
"I shot 300, which was even 75s, and I tied with a gentleman from Wellington called Guy Horne," he said of the 1946 NZ Amateur Champion.
Charles revealed he and Jones made two trips overseas together - South Africa in 1959 and Philadelphia, in the United States, the following year, just before Charles turned professional.
"We had a lot of tussles on the golf course, you might say."
The Hastings course was Charles' stamping ground in his heyday and the course where he etched his name on the Wattie's Open silverware a few times.
"I think 63 was my lowest score there, after I hit seven birdies in a row," the veteran said while recovering from carding an 81 in his first round of golf at the Waiohiki course last week in almost three decades.
"I've only done that a couple of times in my career. I did that once at my home course in
Masterton and also at Hastings here so it's something to be proud of."
A grinning Charles said he barely picked up a club these days to play but did hit a bucket of balls at the Clearwater Resort course golf range in Christchurch, where he lives.
Jones died in July 2012, a day after his 87th birthday and three weeks after wife Shirley died at the Mary Doyle resthome in Havelock North.
The NZ Golf Hall of Fame inductee represented his country from 1953 to 1975, playing in seven Eisenhower Trophy events. He went on to become a member of the Order of the British Empire in 1977.
John Durry, of Wellington, beat Jones in the 37th hole sudden-death play-off for the New Zealand amateur crown at Bridge Pa in 1967, in what was dubbed at the time as the "Match of the Century".
In an exclusive interview with Hawke's Bay Today in July 2005, Jones had said: "I pretty much travelled the world playing golf as an amateur while all my mates turned professional."
Admittedly, as Charles alluded to last week, Jones had the best of both worlds.
His father, the late James Jones, ran a general store, Bon Marche, in Hastings, selling mainly clothes. That meant Jones could get away from it to play tournaments.
"Somebody once asked my father ... how much time does [Stuart] have away from golf? And he said, 'Not much. Anyway, we figure it's a poor firm that can't carry one waster'," Stuart Jones had said, throwing his head back in laughter.
It was a stroke of bad luck that started Jones on his remarkable golfing journey.
After a rugby match one Saturday in July 1947, the unsuspecting 23-year-old Hastings Rugby Football Club player was sightseeing with teammates in Taupo when he fell victim to an ill wind -a Wairakei geyser belched its scalding contents over him, curtailing his promising career as a centre.
While wife Shirley had no qualms about raising their two daughters, Andra and Susanne, as he tamed fairways, she drew the line at Jones becoming professional.
"She said, 'Stuart, you go professional and I'll be leaving ya'," Jones had revealed in an interview from his Frimley home.
It was a decision he never regretted.