How I Played the Game

by Byron Nelson

  During the last two rounds, I had been paired with Horton Smith, who was about ten years older than me, and who took it upon himself to help the younger players learn the ropes on the tour. He never said a word when I threw my putter, but after the round, he said he wanted to take me to dinner that night. We ate at the hotel, and had a real nice meal. Then when we were about finished, Horton said, “Byron, I’d like to talk to you about throwing your putter today. I know you’re a nice young man and you know you shouldn’t have done that.”

  I said, “I know, it was terrible. I’ve never done anything like that before, and I promise I’ll never do it again.” Well, Horton talked to me a little bit about how being a professional golfer meant being a gentleman all the time, obeying the rules and etiquette of the game and such. Then he kind of smiled at me and said, “But you know, if you hadn’t thrown that putter, I don’t think you would have shot sixty-six!”

  This Pacific Northwest tour drew all the top players—Harry Cooper, Ralph Guldahl, Jimmy Thomson, and Al Zimmerman, as well as Horton. My winnings in those four tournaments, plus what I’d won in the Western and St. Paul Opens, totaled nearly $2500 in just six weeks. After that, I never looked back.

  The day after the Seattle tournament, I went out on a yacht for the first time and caught my first salmon. We ate it right on deck, and I still think that was the best-tasting fish I ever had. I’ve never been much of a fisherman, though, except for a couple of other salmon-fishing trips like that one. I’m not a good sailor, for one thing, but mainly, it’s just that fishing’s too quiet for me.

  At this point, my game was really going well. I liked the flight of my ball and the way it landed softly, with no hook. Even with the smaller British ball, which was harder to control, I could do it. Now, instead of having two or three good rounds out of four, I was playing four good rounds each time. I was achieving the consistency that I needed, and I never changed my grip, my swing, or my game after that.

  Following that Pacific Northwest trip, Louise and I stayed in Texarkana with her folks, where we fortunately didn’t need to pay room and board. Then we started on the tour in California right after the Christmas holidays. My little black book says that in 1936 I won money in twenty-four out of twenty-seven tournaments, at a time when most tournaments paid only ten or fifteen places, and some of them less than that.

  My total winnings for 1936 were $5,798.75. My salary and Spalding bonus and lesson fees added to that brought my annual income total to $7,898.75. I don’t know what my net profit was that year, but I hope it was better than the year before. Because we weren’t exactly in high cotton.

  FIVE

  Reading

  and Some

  Major Wins

  IN JANUARY OF 1937 I TIED FOR NINTH IN THE L.A. OPEN AND won $75. I wasn’t quite as happy with that sum as I was back at the Texarkana Open in ’32, I can tell you. Next, I tied for seventeenth at Oakland, out of the money, then I finished sixth at Sacramento and won $140. That was kind of the way it went. One week I’d do all right, the next they hardly knew I was there.

  At the San Francisco Match Play Tournament, though, I met a fellow who’d just turned pro, a fellow my age from Virginia, name of Sam Snead. I played him in the first round and beat him 2 and 1, but even then, I figured he’d always be someone to contend with. What a smooth swing Sam always had—looked like he’d never worked at it at all.

  I look at my scores for that winter tour, and they’re kind of interesting. Most of them are in the low 70’s, but then in the tournaments where I won some money, there’d be a 66 or a 68. So I was getting a little better and learning to play under different kinds of conditions in different parts of the country.

  See, we’d start in California, play four tournaments there, then drive to either Houston or San Antonio (in ’37 it was Houston), to Thomasville, Georgia, then to Florida for four events there. Next, it was Charleston for their Open, and after that the North and South, which was always played at Pinehurst. This time I did better, finishing third and winning $500.

  At this point, I’d played in twelve tournaments and had won about $1800—not a very good average, especially considering expenses. I was looking forward to getting back to my job at Ridgewood in April. I wanted to work on my game more and get closer to my goal of being consistent.

  However, back in February, Mr. Jacobus had called and told me he’d been contacted by Stanley Giles, president of Reading Country Club in Reading, Pennsylvania. The club was looking for a head golf pro. Besides being club president, Mr. Giles was head of the committee to find a new pro, so he’d called George. He wanted a young man who gave promise of being a good player as well as a good teacher, someone who also knew how to conduct the business of a golf shop. In those days, running a shop well was more important to most clubs than whether or not the pro was winning tournaments.

  Of course, all the time I was at Ridgewood, I wasn’t just working on my game, because no one could make a living playing golf then. You had to have a club job. So I was also learning how to be a head pro at a good club. I’d had a lot of good experience under George, and I was definitely interested in the Reading job, because the main reason for working for someone else at a fine club was to eventually get a club of your own. I’d done a lot of teaching and my game was getting better. In short, I felt I was ready.

  So, with a good reference from Mr. Jacobus, I drove to Reading from Pinehurst, which was about a three-hour drive, and had an interview with Mr. Giles. I could see he really knew what he wanted in a golf pro. Somehow, I convinced him I could fill the requirements he had, so we signed a contract. It was about two weeks before the Masters in ’37, and I was guaranteed $3750 per year, plus whatever I could make from the shop and my lessons. That was considerably more than I was making at Ridgewood. It certainly looked as if we wouldn’t have to borrow any more money from Louise’s folks.

  Naturally I was all excited about having a club of my own, so when I went to Augusta to play in my third Masters, I was high as a kite. That may be part of the reason why I played as well as I did. But I also had a practical reason for wanting to play well. I didn’t have any money to buy things for my shop at Reading. Ralph Trout was going to be my assistant there, and he would have my shop open by the time I got back from Augusta, so I needed to be able to stock it with new merchandise as quickly as I could.

  With all the adrenalin flowing about my new job and playing the Masters for the third time, I managed to win it, with a great opening round of 66 and a great last round on Sunday. That 66 stood as the best opening-round score by a Masters champion for thirty-nine years, until Raymond Floyd topped me in 1976 with his 65.

  Though the Masters was already considered a major tournament in the golf world in ’37, none of us had any idea it would get to be as popular as it is today. To think of all these people today trying every way to get tickets, when back then they maybe charged $3 and hardly had enough gallery to count—well, it sure is quite a change. And in most ways I think it’s good.

  Getting back to that 66, though, it was the best I’d ever played any golf course in my life, tee to green. I hit every par 5 in two, every par 4 in two, and every par 3 in one, for 32 strokes. Add 34 putts to that—pretty average putting, really—and you have an easy 66. I was paired with Paul Runyan that round. He called himself Pauly, and I remember he’d talk to himself quite a bit. “Hit it, Pauly,” or “Pauly, you sure messed up on that one.” But I wasn’t really paying a whole lot of attention to him. I was concentrating real well that day.

  We were staying at the Bon-Air Hotel then, a large hotel with a big foyer. The dining room was just off the foyer, and when I came down for breakfast that first morning, there was a lady in the foyer demonstrating a Hammond organ. She was playing soft, quiet music, mostly waltzes like “The Blue Danube.” I listened to her play for about thirty minutes while I ate, and never really thought much about it. But my rhythm was so good that day, I later thought listening to that waltz tempo might have had som
ething to do with it. Funny, because I don’t really like organ music.

  In the second round, I shot even par 72, and in the third, 75. I’d now lost the lead. In the fourth round, I was still faltering—shot a 38 on the front nine, leaving me three strokes behind Ralph Guldahl. Walking down to the tenth hole, someone in the gallery told me Guldahl had already birdied the tenth. That meant I had to birdie it too, or I’d be 4 back with eight holes to go. I put my second shot on the green about fifteen feet from the hole and made it. I was paired with Wiffy Cox, the pro at Congressional in Washington, D.C. When I sank that putt, he said, “Kid, I think that’s the one we needed.”

  I parred 11, and next was the wonderful, difficult 12th hole, one of the most famous par threes in the country. Rae’s Creek runs diagonally across the front of the green—on television, it looks like it’s straight across, but it’s not. If the pin’s on the right, it plays one club longer. And with that Amen Corner wind, it’s always a tricky shot, no matter where the pin is.

  Standing on the tee, I saw Guldahl drop a ball short of the creek, which meant he’d gone in the water from the tee. If he got on and 2-putted, he’d have a 5. Watching his misfortunes, I suddenly felt like a light bulb went off in my head, like the fellow you see in the cartoons when he gets a brilliant idea. I realized then that if I could get lucky and make a 2, I’d catch up with Guldahl right there. Fortunately, I put my tee shot six feet from the hole with a 6-iron into the wind, and holed it. So now I was caught up, with six holes to go.

  The 13th hole is a very famous par 5. I hit a good drive down the center of the fairway, just slightly on the upslope. I saw Ralph fooling around on the front of the green, and learned he’d made a 6. There was water in a ditch that runs just in front of the green, and there were a lot of rocks in it. Once in a while, if your ball landed in the right place, you could play out of it, but that day, Ralph didn’t have any luck.

  The green then had a real high left side, up on a ridge, making the left side much higher than the right. It’s been changed since then. The pin that day was on that high left side. Waiting to play my shot, I knew I’d have to play a 3-wood to reach the green. If I played safe and got on in three, I’d probably make a 5, or could even make a 4. That would put me in the lead by one shot, but I knew that wasn’t enough. So I said to myself, “The Lord hates a coward,” and I simply tried to make sure my ball didn’t go off to the right and into the water. I pulled it slightly, and it stopped just off the green, about twenty feet from the hole. I chipped in for a 3, which made me feel pretty good, because I was now three strokes ahead of Ralph.

  I parred fourteen, then got on fifteen in 2 and three-putted for par. Guldahl had made a 4 at fifteen, and we both parred in after that, so I won by two shots, with a 32 on the back nine. That 32 did more for my career at that time than anything, because I realized my game could stand up under pressure, and I could make good decisions in difficult circumstances.

  There was no green jacket then, but I got a great thrill out of winning, especially after leading, losing the lead, and finishing strong. The other thing that pleased me was having Bob Jones present me with the gold medal. He was the “King of Golf” then, so that was a real thrill. As I recall, Clifford Roberts and Jones made a few remarks each, and then presented medals to the first- and second-place players. And that was it.

  I still have that medal, and when my playing career was over, I looked back and realized that was the most important victory of my career. It was the turning point, the moment when I realized I could be a tough competitor. Whenever someone asks me which was the most important win of all for me, I never hesitate. It was the 1937 Masters, the one that really gave me confidence in myself.

  You know, in the early days of the Masters, it was the most enjoyable tournament to go to in the whole country, from the players’ point of view. The tournament was small enough, and with the smaller number of players, you got to enjoy a lot of wonderful Southern hospitality. Every year, several members would host an early evening party, with country ham and all the trimmings. Everyone felt free and easy, and we all had a wonderful time. There was a black quartet that sang each year. They’d go to wherever the party was, and that was the entertainment. They were mighty good. But as the tournament grew, it got too big for folks to have parties for all the players. It wasn’t done at all after the war.

  Because the tournament was so small then, there were only a couple of hotels in Augusta. It was a small town and didn’t have much going on the rest of the year. So even then it was difficult to find a place to stay. It wasn’t too long before people began renting out their homes to pros and others who might want to entertain friends, customers, and so forth during Masters week.

  Louise was there all week. She wasn’t at the medal ceremony afterwards—wives were never included in such things then. But she was at the course, and up around the clubhouse. Wives then didn’t follow their husbands much. Most of them didn’t play golf at all, and the women dressed up more then than they do now, so it was difficult to walk such a hilly course.

  Many people have wondered how I got the nickname “Lord Byron.” Well, O.B. Keeler was a sportswriter for the Atlanta Journal and also for the Associated Press. He had one stiff knee but still went out and watched the play so he would know what questions he wanted to ask—he didn’t just wait in the clubhouse for players to come in and talk to them afterwards. After I won in ’37, he interviewed me in the upstairs locker room that the pros used during the tournament. Things had kind of quieted down by then, and he said, “Byron, I watched you play the back nine today, and it reminded me of a piece of poetry that was written by Lord Byron when Napoleon was defeated at the battle of Waterloo.” We did the rest of the interview then, and the next day, the headline in his article for the Associated Press read, “Lord Byron Wins Masters,” and the nickname stuck. Oddly enough, I was sort of named for Lord Byron, who unfortunately was not an admirable man and drank himself to death at a very young age. But my grandmother Nelson had liked Lord Byron’s poetry, and she named my father John Byron. I was named John Byron, Jr. when I was born, but dropped the John and Jr. when I was twenty, and I’ve had good luck ever since then.

  It wasn’t too hard going off to Reading after that great week in Augusta. All we’d had in Ridgewood were our clothes, no furniture or anything, so all our personal belongings were in our car. Since I’d left Ridgewood in the fall of ’36 and played the winter tour in California, then the spring in Florida and the Carolinas, we hadn’t been back to New Jersey. But when George Jacobus heard the news, he called to congratulate me. It sure was good to hear from him and realize I’d come quite a ways from when I first arrived in New Jersey just two years before.

  My first impression of Reading was quite a bit different, since by now I’d been to New Jersey and New York. It was a bigger city than Texarkana, of course, but not anything like Ridgewood. Reading sits in the foothills of the Blue Mountains, southeast of the Appalachians, and that means coal mining country. The roads were narrow and hilly, so the traffic was pretty slow. The weather was different, too—lots of lightning storms, which took some getting used to. Besides the coal industry, there were several large textile mills in Reading, including Berkshire Mills.

  The people were more reserved than at Ridgewood, mostly Pennsylvania Dutch. But once they decided to take you in, they were very warm and hospitable. They loved desserts, and I remember we’d go to play bridge of an evening at someone’s home, and afterward they’d have what amounted to a full, heavy meal, complete with several desserts. I’d really have to watch it not to gain weight.

  I have to admit, at first we weren’t very impressed with Reading, but once we got to know the people and their ways, we had a very good time. In fact, when we left for Inverness in ’39, it was the first time Louise had cried over such a thing since she’d left Texarkana. Mrs. Giles, the wife of the club president, was especially nice to Louise and me. She’d have us over to dinner and they’d play bridge with us severa
l nights a week, and my, she was a good cook. She was quiet, easy, didn’t play golf but did all the usual housewifely things and did them very well. Mrs. Giles died in the summer of ’92, at the age of ninety-nine, and I was fortunate to have had a good visit with her two years earlier.

  The Reading clubhouse itself was done in English Tudor style, and was quite impressive. The course was fine—not as good as the Tillinghast design at Ridgewood, but very adequate. It had small greens, and while not really hilly, was quite rolling. I found out quickly that I wouldn’t have as much time to play and practice, because my responsibilities were quite a bit different from Ridgewood, since I was the only pro and did all the teaching. One big difference was that Reading had no practice range or practice bunkers. I used to use the bunker on the ninth green, next to the clubhouse, for my sand practice. Mr. Giles was kind enough to give me permission to do that. But he was the only one I ever had to get permission from—I never had to go to a committee or anything like that.

  They had to replace the sand in that bunker at least four times while I was there because I practiced so much. I got to where I could hit the ball out and deliberately spin it back in. And Mr. Giles used to get me to demonstrate that shot to his friends.

  A few days after we arrived, Mr. Giles called me and said, “I’ve got a Rotary Club luncheon this afternoon, and I want you to go with me and give a talk.”

  “Give a talk?” I said, scared to death. “Mr. Giles, I don’t know anything about giving a talk. I’ve never done anything like that in my life.” I started crawfishing any way I could, trying to get out of it. But he said, “All you have to do is tell them how you won the Masters.” I replied, “I shot the lowest score.” He laughed and said, “Here’s how we’ll do it. You’ll get up and tell them everything you can think of about how you won—the shots you hit on the last nine, and all that. Then when you run out of things to say, I’ll be sitting right next to you, and I’ll ask you questions and keep it going.” So that was what we did, and it worked out fine.