by Byron Nelson
Fortunately, Mr. Heatherwick played a lot of golf and was also willing to let me play, as long as it wasn’t the end of the month. I worked about thirty hours a week and my salary was fifteen dollars, though it varied some.
One time he called me from Eastland, where he was playing in a tournament. After checking to see if everything was caught up at the office, he asked, “Why don’t you come out here and play?” I hopped on a bus and got there just in time to qualify, playing in the rain. Everyone else had already qualified, so they had to send a scorer with me. As it turned out, I won the tournament, so it was worth the trip.
At that point, I was winning something in nearly every tournament, usually a silver cup or plate or something like that. I’d sell most of the prizes to get enough money to get to the next tournament. I also played in a lot of local invitationals—every city had one back then. I guess I played in twenty or twenty-five tournaments in those two years, plus the pro-ams and such. I was nervous sometimes, but I really enjoyed playing. And of course in between I was working on my game and practicing as much as I could.
In the summer of 1931 I qualified to play in the U.S. Amateur at Beverly Country Club in Chicago, but it looked like I wouldn’t get to go. I had enough money for train fare, but not enough to stay at a hotel while I was there. Only two golfers from my area qualified—Edwin McClure and me. His father had a little money, and they were going to stay at the Morrison Hotel in Chicago. They offered to let me stay in their room, so I did. I ended up sleeping on the couch.
I got to Chicago late in the afternoon the day before the tournament began and never had time to play a practice round. The next day I had to play 36 holes. I’d never seen bentgrass greens before, and I had thirteen 3-putt greens. I failed to qualify by one stroke. I remember very little else about that Amateur. The course was fairly hard. The club pro was Charlie Penna, Tony’s brother, with whom I became very good friends in later years. The tournament was won by Francis Ouimet, though I didn’t get to meet him while I was there, because I had to go back home the next day. I was nineteen, it was the first time I’d ever left Texas, and the only time I ever played in the National Amateur.
The rest of that summer and fall I continued playing in local amateur tournaments. There were so many of them back then, one nearly every weekend. Fort Worth was the clearinghouse for setting them up, so that’s how I found out about them. Some of the amateurs I’d played with had turned pro by then, and I quite often would play as well as or better than some of the pros. I won the Rivercrest Invitational in September, and I was also medalist in the qualifying rounds. But for some reason I’d never thought about becoming a professional. That just goes to show you you never know what’s around the next corner.
Ted Longworth had been at Texarkana for about two years when he got the members to hold a little Open tournament, with the prize money being $500. It drew a lot of fine players from four states—Missouri, Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana. In November, Ted wrote me a note from Texarkana (we didn’t have a phone yet), saying the club was having a tournament and he’d like me to come play in it. This was to be an Open tournament, with both pros and amateurs playing. The total prize money was $500, Ted said, but of course he thought I’d be playing as an amateur.
A week or so later I got on the bus with my clothes in a little suitcase and my golf clubs at my side. By then, Southwest Bankers magazine was defunct, and I was out of work again, living at home and just doing odd jobs here and there to earn enough to keep body and soul together. There were even fewer jobs available then, as you might guess, because it was about the middle of the Depression. On that long ride to Texarkana, I got to thinking about that prize money. I knew you couldn’t make much of a living playing professional golf, but there was some pretty good money going at these tournaments, and I felt I was good enough to have a chance at some of it.
It was on that bus that I decided to turn pro. When I got there for the qualifying rounds, I asked the tournament officials what I had to do to turn pro, and they told me, “Pay five dollars and say you’re playing for the money.” It was as simple as that—no qualifying schools, no mini-tours like they have today. So I did it. I put my five dollars down and announced my intentions, and that was that. It was November 22, 1932.
I finished third and won $75. Boy, I thought that was all the money in the world. I’d never even seen that much money in my hand at one time in my entire life. The tournament was a pretty good one, really. You might be surprised at some of the other pros who were there. Hogan, who’d turned pro two years earlier, was third in the qualifying rounds but didn’t finish in the money, which only went to six places. Jimmy Demaret and Dick Metz played, and Ky Laffoon finished second, three strokes back of Ted, who won. So I wasn’t in such bad company for my professional debut. I don’t have that $75 any more, but I do still have a newspaper clipping about it, sent to me by my good friend, Bill Inglish of The Daily Oklahoman.
You have to understand that my parents at the time didn’t really approve of me playing so much golf. Golf pros then didn’t have as good a reputation as they do now. But when I came home and told them what I’d done, Mother was real proud of me, and though my father didn’t say much, they told me, “Whatever you do, do it the best you can, and be a good man.” They always supported me, even though they didn’t get much of a chance to come see me play.
I’d made my move. I had $75 in my pocket, but still no job. I knew enough, though, to realize my next step was to go on the tour in California that winter, if I could possibly get there. So that was what I set out to do.
THREE
Texarkana
and a Girl
Named Louise
AFTER I GOT BACK HOME FROM TEXARKANA, I STARTED reading about the tour in California. There were four winter tournaments in the Los Angeles area in the early thirties: the Los Angeles Open, the Long Beach Open, the Pro-Am at Hillcrest, and one at Pasadena’s Brookside Golf Course, right next to the Rose Bowl. Of course I didn’t have any money to get there, even with my Texarkana winnings. But some friends in Fort Worth decided to back me, and gave me $500—enough to get there, plus some extra. These were a couple of amateurs who’d won some money on me in Calcutta pools, where people would bet on their favorite golfers, and I guess they thought I was a better player than I was. In those days, a one-way train ticket was over $250, so I had to find a cheaper way to get there. Luckily, I found a ride with a man named Lee Davis, and we drove in his car. But I knew I had to win some money if I wanted to take the train back home.
Unfortunately, I didn’t do very well. I didn’t play all that badly, but most of the tournaments in my time only paid twelve, maybe fifteen places. Today, everyone who makes the cut—usually sixty or so—wins some money. I came close to the money, but didn’t win a dime, and pretty soon I’d gone through about all my expense money. When I wired my backers that I needed more cash to continue on the tour, they told me they couldn’t send me any more, not even enough for the train, and I’d have to get back home the best way I could. Thank goodness, there was a man I knew from Fort Worth in L.A. on business at the time, a fellow by the name of Charlie Jones. He was headed back to Texas right after the Pasadena tournament, and I got a ride back with him.
That was my first time in California, and I thought it was very pretty country. There were no freeways to speak of, and the traffic wasn’t bad at all then. There was more interest in golf, more play at the clubs, and the courses were much harder than those in Texas. They were longer, and had more bunkers, more rough, and a different kind of rough from what I was familiar with.
By the end of January 1933 I was back home, practicing and playing at Glen Garden, helping around the house and garden, milking the cow, and so forth. It was kind of a dead time. I decided to write to Ted Longworth about my experiences in California. Along about the middle part of March I got a letter from him, saying he was leaving Texarkana for Waverly Country Club in Portland, Oregon. He said I might want to apply for the Texa
rkana job—I wouldn’t make any money at it, just enough to eat regular. That was enough for me.
A man named Pharr who owned a general merchandise and hardware store was president of the club at the time, and I had played golf with his wife in an amateur tournament in Fort Worth in early ’32. She was a fine player, about middle-aged, and had been both the Texas and Arkansas Women’s Amateur champion as well as the club champion at Texarkana. So when I went there, I went to see Mrs. Pharr first before I talked to her husband. She told me she’d help me. I don’t know if it helped or not, but I did get the job in the first week of April 1933.
My parents were happy about it in one respect, because they knew by now I had golf in my soul. They were sad to see me leave town, though, and told me to be a good pro, to take care of myself, to be good, and to go to church.
I only took a few things with me—my golf clubs and some clothes. I really didn’t have much more than that, anyway. I found a place to live close by, about a par-five distance from the club. It was the home of Mr. and Mrs. J. O. Battle, and they gave me a nice room plus two good meals a day for $7 a week.
That sounds pretty inexpensive, and it was, but it took nearly half my earnings each month. I received no salary, just whatever I got for lessons and anything I made in the shop. I got $2 for a half-hour lesson, but not many people took lessons then—especially not from a young, inexperienced pro like me. We had about sixty sets of members’ clubs at $1 per set monthly storage fee, and we sold balls, tees, new clubs, and golf bags. There were no golf shirts or other clothes like they have now. Besides, whatever you wanted to sell in your shop, you had to pay for first, out of your own money, not the club’s. Ted left me the inventory, and over the next few months, I paid him what he’d had in it. So I netted about $60 a month. Like he’d told me, enough to live on.
After finding a room, the next order of business was finding a church. In the phone book I saw the Walnut Street Church of Christ, which was about three miles away. I started attending, and they had quite a large group of young people, so I placed my membership there right away. It was a very good influence for me, particularly since this was my first time away from home.
I had no transportation, of course, and even taxis were expensive. I could walk to the club, but had to ride a streetcar to church at first. There was a member of the club named Dyer who owned the local Ford dealership, and he took a liking to me after I’d been there about a month. We got to talking one day and I mentioned that I sure would like to get a car, but there was no way I could buy one on what I was making. He just said, “Come down to my office and we’ll talk about it.” When I went to see him, he showed me a ’32 Ford Roadster, royal blue with cream wheels and top. Since it was already the middle of 1933, he’d had this car over a year. He was willing to let me have it for $500, paying whatever I could each month, with no interest. It didn’t take me long to say yes. I worked pretty hard, and after a bit, things got better at the club, so by the time I left for Ridgewood in ’35, I had that car pretty well paid for.
It wasn’t too long after I got my car, about June of ’33, in fact, that I met Louise, my wonderful wife of over fifty years. The way I roped that gal in is a story in itself.
One Sunday at Bible study, there was a new girl—a tiny brunette with pretty brown eyes who came up and introduced herself to me as Louise Shofner. She had been living with relatives in Houston until recently, learning to be a hairdresser—we called them beauty operators in those days. I liked her right away.
The young folks got to talking about the picnic they were having that evening after worship at Spring Lake Park, and they invited me along. Well, I was busy at the club and didn’t get to go to evening church, but I went ahead to the park anyway. The food was great and after I’d had my dinner, I went and got a piece of angel food cake with some sort of delicious lemon-flavored butter frosting. After I took the first bite, I said, “Who made this cake?” and found out it was Louise’s.
She was dating another boy at the time, so I went and took the seat out of my car—Fords then had seats that came out easily—and invited Louise and her date to sit with me on that car seat, rather than on the grass, while we had dessert. I had seconds, too. She impressed me as quiet and reserved, but friendly. She was about 5″2″ and couldn’t have weighed more than 100 pounds. The next day, I called and asked if I could have a date with her, but she told me, “No, I’m busy.” But I called every day after that with the same question.
The following Sunday when I got to church, Louise was sitting there with her little sister, Irma Drew, who was just a little bitty child, seventeen years younger than Louise. I went up and sat right next to them on Louise’s other side. The boy she’d been dating came in, saw me sitting there, got mad and went to sit someplace else.
After church, I asked if I might take Louise and her sister home, and she said yes, so I did, and got her to agree to a date the next Saturday. We went to a picture show—I think it was a musical—then to the drugstore for a sundae, and I remember I had to have her home by 10:30. I was twenty then, and she was nineteen. That was the first real date I ever had in my life, and once I met Louise, I never even thought about dating anyone else.
The next day, Sunday, I sat with Louise and her sister again, and I noticed how she was able to get that little child to behave, to sit up and pay attention to the preacher, even though Irma Drew wasn’t but two or three. I drove the two of them home again, and we had to stop at a railroad crossing to let a train go by. While we were waiting, I looked over at Louise and said, “Are you going to make our children behave like you do your sister?” She looked at me a minute, then said, “I guess so.” So she never had any more dates with anyone but me. In fact, she used to kid me that on our first date, I had this to say about the boy she had been dating, who worked at a bank: “If I ever catch him on the street, I’ll run over him!” So it wasn’t too long before everyone understood we were unofficially engaged.
I owe at least some of my success in courting Louise to Mr. Arthur Temple, the president of Temple Lumber Company. I would play in fivesomes with the club members sometimes, and Mr. Temple liked to bet me a dollar that he could beat me. I nearly always shot par or better, so when I played Mr. Temple, I could usually count on having a dollar to spend on a date with Louise. With a dollar, we could go to a movie and then go to the drugstore for what was called a “Stuttgart,” kind of an ice cream sundae but with a whole lot of real thick chocolate syrup on top. Boy, that was good. If it weren’t for Mr. Temple, most of the time we’d just have to sit on Louise’s folks’ front porch and talk the whole evening, and I wasn’t very good at talking then. So, thank you, Mr. Temple.
Now I had more interest than ever in becoming a good player, because I wanted to impress Louise. My game was falling together well, but I still couldn’t put four good rounds together, and I knew I needed to do that to get anywhere.
Texarkana was a good club, and had a great golf course. The original course was cut out of a forest, so there were lots of wonderful pine trees, and that was one of the things that made the place so beautiful. I had a certain spot where I parked my car each day, and I kept a nice soft chamois so I could keep all the dust off it. In fact, I kept it so clean I almost wore the paint off it, and every once in a while I’d wax it, ’cause I had plenty of time.
The course itself had a lot of bunkers, and the sand in them was more like fine gravel. The greens were stiff bermuda grass with a lot of contour to them. The course forced me to learn to hit the ball straight, to get out of deep bunkers, and to play to elevated greens. It was built by Langford and Monroe, who also did the Philadelphia Country Club at Spring Mill, where I won the Open in ’39. Through the years, the course gradually got redone and basically ruined until Ron Prichard redid it in 1985. He restored it to its original design, only better, and he did a wonderful job.
The best thing about the Texarkana job was it gave me plenty of time to practice. They had a big practice area. Of course, there
weren’t any practice balls, you had to furnish your own. And in that day and time, I was not a prominent enough player, so I had to buy my golf balls. No manufacturer was going to give me any like they do with so many of the players today. I guess they did it even then with the prominent players, but I wasn’t prominent at all. So I saved my money and bought a few, and eventually I had a good shag bag full of golf balls.
I’d go out to the practice area and—well, back then there were plenty of caddies around, but I couldn’t afford a caddie to shag my balls, so I would shag my own. I’d hit ’em down the practice field, then I’d go down and hit ’em all back to where I’d hit ’em from. Then I’d hit them out again, then back. And it wasn’t the 8-iron, it was the niblick, or mashie niblick, because we didn’t use the numbers back then. I really got to practice a lot there, and it was very good for my game.
I finally did get to where I could afford to pay a caddie to help me practice, and the one I remember best was Miller Barber, who was about thirteen or fourteen at the time. He’d shag balls for me quite a bit, and for years, he’s told people that the reason he’s bald is because my shots hit him on the head so many times while I was practicing. I wish I could say I really was that accurate. He caddied for me some, too, and sometimes we’d play nine holes together. I’d play him for a dime, and give him four strokes. He told me the other night that he never did beat me, but I never took his dime. See—I wasn’t such a bad guy.