A pair of books, filled with many heretofore unseen treasures, revive the memory of Bob Jones, an American icon.

WHEN most people think of Bob Jones, they recall the peaks in his life: his glorious Grand Slam of 66 summers ago, or the springtime warmth of Augusta National Golf Club and the Masters. We allow hundreds of little stories to fall to the background, yet they transform a line-drawing memory of Jones into a brilliantly colorful rendition.

This spring marks the 25th playing of the Masters following his death in 1971, and for anyone who has even the slightest interest in the game's forebears it should cause a momentary pause. We emerge from one of the harshest winters in years to find two of the most comprehensive books on Jones's life. The Greatest of Them All and The Life and Times of Bobby Jones celebrate his years in different methods, although they share a medium: black-and-white photographs that are 70 years old or more.

The Greatest of Them All (The American Golfer) is the collective effort of a half-dozen writers brought together by editor Martin Davis. Some of this team contributed to The Hogan Mystique, which made a 1994 debut to widespread acclaim. As with the Hogan book, written chapters are illustrated with famous and rarely seen photos.

Alistair Cooke, Dave Anderson, Ben Crenshaw, Peter Dobereiner, Larry Dorman and Nick Seitz each offer a retrospective of a part of Jones's life, from his swing and playing career to his impact in the British Isles. The dust jacket portrait, which appears on this magazine's back cover, is by Everett Raymond Kinstler, whose more than 500 commissioned works include five U.S. Presidents and some 40 cabinet officers.

In contrast, The Life and Times of Bobby Jones (Sleeping Bear Press) is the work of one man who came upon his subject quite by coincidence. Nearly 15 years ago, Sid Matthew's career as an attorney brought him to visit Jones's former offices in Atlanta. That sparked Matthew's search for Jones memorabilia. Many of the clubs and awards Matthew has collected are on display at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, where Jones played as a child, and Highlands Country Club in North Carolina, a favored Jones retreat.

The remainder of Matthew's voluminous collection is photographs and clippings, and the former serves as the centerpiece of The Life and Times. Matthew actually produced two books. The leather-bound collector's edition runs a hefty 608 pages and is an exhaustive chronology of his life, told in pictures and lengthy captions; the slimmer "trade" edition retains the continuity while halving the selections. It is photographs from the collector's edition that accompany this story.

Matthew's photos dominate his book, augmented by three written chapters. The first, "Bobby Jones' Secret Weapon," is on O.B. Keeler, the sportswriter who was at Jones's side in both public and private moments.

The Greatest of Them All and The Life and Times of Bobby Jones accomplish one magnificent feat: They gather the scattered details, presenting them in their own way. Jones was a man of many facets. His history, thanks to these two works, is of uniform renown.