Knowles was 'one of the best' amateurs in '40s, '50s

AIKEN — It’s almost impossible to visit Pal­metto Golf Club and come away without learning something about Robert W. Knowles Jr.

Pictures and mementos from the amateur’s golf career fill the pro shop. In the clubhouse, his name is on many of the wooden boards that list the champions of various club tournaments.

His friends called him Bobby, and Knowles was the first Aiken resident to participate in the Masters Tournament. He died in 2003 at age 88.

A native of Cambridge, Mass., Knowles was the great-grandson of poet Henry Wads­worth Longfellow. But golf was his passion.

“If we answer that in terms of my golf career, I’ve won over 100 tournaments of one level or another,” Knowles told The Augusta Chronicle in 1999, when asked what he was most proud of. “I played in the quarterfinals of the 1950 U.S. Amateur and made the 1951 Walker Cup team. I was invited to play in the Masters in 1951 and 1952 for those two. I also won the French, New England and Massachusetts amateurs and the South Carolina Amateur twice.”

Knowles moved to Aiken in the late 1940s and quickly became a fixture at Palmetto, one of the oldest courses in the nation. He was a dominant force not just on the local golf scene, but nationally as well.

“Bobby Knowles was probably one of the best five or 10 amateurs in the country,” Palmetto pro emeritus Tom Moore said. “Back then you didn’t make anything on tour. He played amateur golf. He was a great player.”

Knowles is enshrined in the South Caro­lina Golf Hall of Fame, the South Caro­lina Ath­letic Hall of Fame, the Carolinas Golf Hall of Fame and the Aiken County Sports Hall of Fame.

Knowles, whose father was a wealthy financier, played with golf legends Sam Snead and Ben Hogan before World War II. He also rubbed elbows with celebrities and politicians, including President John F. Kennedy.

Although his best finish at the Masters was a tie for 42nd, Knowles went on to make an important contribution there as he helped introduce the “over and under” scoring system as a member of the tournament committee. Red numbers on the scoreboard next to a player’s name indicate the golfer is under par, while green numbers mean the player is over par.

“I can’t say I invented it – (Masters Chair­man) Cliff Roberts had the most to do with it – but I did have some involvement with it,” Knowles said in a 2002 interview.