How I Played the Game

by Byron Nelson

  As it happened, my next tournament was the Inverness Invitational Four-Ball, which involved seven two-man teams. It was an interesting format, where you scored only plus or minus over seven rounds and four days of play. I was paired with McSpaden, and we tied for first at plus 6, then lost on the first playoff hole. This was my first real chance to see the course and the club where I’d be working the next year, and I enjoyed myself.

  One week later, I won the Massachusetts State Open. McSpaden wanted me to come play in it because he knew the course real well, and because we were such good friends. I went, and in the last round, Harold and I were battling it out pretty tight. Along about the middle of the last nine, there was a long par 3 with a bunker on the right. I pushed my tee shot into the bunker and holed it from there. That kept me going good and I won by four shots. I won $400 plus $250 appearance money. There weren’t many events that paid appearance money then, and I’m glad the PGA stopped it, but it sure did come in handy back when most of us were just barely making ends meet.

  The PGA that year was at Pomonok, Long Island. The World’s Fair was in New York, and my mother came to see me play and see the fair, too. It was the only tournament she ever saw me play in. I beat Chuck Garringer, Red Francis, John Revolta, and Emerick Kocsis—brother to Chuck, a wonderful amateur who still shoots better than his age—to get to the quarterfinals. Then I went up against Dutch Harrison, and either I was playing awfully well or he was way off his game, but after the 26th hole, I was 9 up, and as we came to the 27th hole, Dutch said to me, “Byron, why don’t you just birdie this one, too, and we won’t have to go past the clubhouse.” I thought it was a good idea. As it happened, I did birdie, and beat him 10 and 9.

  In the finals, though, I had my hands more than full with Picard. I was one up coming to the last hole, and Picard laid me a dead stymie. It was a short par 4, and I had pitched to three feet. But Picard’s shot stopped twelve inches from the hole directly in my line, and since we were playing stymies, you didn’t mark your ball or anything—the other fellow had to figure out a way to get over or around you and in the cup. Unfortunately, I didn’t make my shot go in, and we tied.

  Picard won on the first extra hole, but there’s a little story connected with how it happened. This was the first tournament ever that was broadcast on radio. It was just short-wave, and it was done by Ted Heusing and Harry Nash. Ted Heusing was an excellent broadcaster who my good friend Chris Schenkel admired a great deal, and Harry Nash was a fine golf writer for the Newark Evening News.

  On that first extra hole, Picard hit his drive into the right rough, and Ted and Harry were riding in a sizable four-wheeled vehicle, right close by. They didn’t see where Picard’s ball had landed, and drove right over it. The officials ruled that he should get a free drop, which was only right, and he put his next shot twenty feet from the hole and made birdie to win.

  I took the next week off, missing the tournament in Scranton, to make sure things were in order back at the club and to practice some for the Western Open, another major I had my sights set on. It was at Medinah #3, and I drove exceptionally well—seldom ever got in the rough at all. I won by one shot, and it meant even more to me because the trophy had been donated by my friend J.K. Wadley.

  Though the North and South and the Western Open aren’t considered majors now—the North and South doesn’t even exist anymore—you knew then which ones were more important because the golf club companies would award bonuses for them. I got $500 from Spalding that year for the Western, which was always considered somewhat more important than the North and South because it drew from all around the country. The other was always played at Pinehurst, and a lot of the players from the western part of the country didn’t go. Another reason the Western was ranked higher was that the tournament contributed money to the Chick Evans Scholarship Fund, which added prestige and publicity. Evans, an excellent golfer, was always there, too, and his name meant a lot of good things to golf. He’d won the Open himself, and had been a caddie like most of us, so I felt really good about winning the Western.

  The next regular tour event I played well in was the Hershey Open several weeks later. The tournament was sponsored by Mr. Hershey himself, who was the president of the club and a very nice man. Par was 73. I was 5 under and leading going into the fourth round, and paired with Ed Dudley and Jimmy Hines. We came to the 15th hole, where you’d drive down the fairway and over a hill. Well, I drove right down the middle of it, but when we got to the place where my ball should have been, it was nowhere to be found. There wasn’t any confusion about it, because my golf balls had my name imprinted on them, and everyone there had seen mine go absolutely straight down the fairway and disappear over the hill.

  I had no choice but to go back and hit another ball. But with that two-stroke penalty I ended up in fourth place. Afterwards, I was talking to the press in the locker room and told them what had happened. Fred Corcoran was managing the tour then, and always trying to get publicity, so he got all the papers he could to pick up the story.

  About ten days later, I received an anonymous letter stating that the writer’s guest and friend at the tournament, a young woman who knew nothing about golf, had picked up my ball and put it in her purse. After the tournament, as they returned to New York on the train, the woman opened her purse and showed him the ball she’d found on the course, and the gentleman realized then what had happened. Since these were the days before gallery ropes, people walked all over the course in front of you and in back of you and right alongside you. The young lady had apparently been walking across the fairway at the bottom of the hill after I drove, saw the ball lying there, and simply picked it up.

  The letter was postmarked from the New York Central Post Office, and the man included money orders totaling $300—the difference between third prize in the tournament and fourth, where I finished. The money orders were signed “John Paul Jones”—clearly fictitious. I never did find out who did it, but whoever it was, it was a nice thing to do.

  I guess I got a lot of media attention for that time but it was very little compared to what goes on now. I was glad for the attention, but since I hadn’t talked to the press much after beating Lawson Little in San Francisco in ’35 and winning the Masters in ’37, it took some getting used to. I was even being interviewed on radio now, though we always had to go downtown to the station to do it.

  I’ve always been fortunate with the publicity I received, and have had very little inaccurate reporting. Might be because I was always a little on the shy side, and didn’t really talk very much or very fast, so the reporters couldn’t get much wrong. I’d have to say, overall, that I enjoyed the attention. After I won the Open especially, people in the gallery would say, “Boy, you’re sure hitting your irons good,” or some such thing, and that would encourage me. Then I’d try even harder, because I didn’t want to let them down.

  With three majors to my credit, 1939 was definitely my best year so far. My official winnings were $9444, making me fifth on the money list. My stroke average was 71.02, good enough to win the Vardon Trophy, which was an added bonus.

  The year I’d have in 1945 was a little more unusual, but with the quality of the tournaments that I won—three majors—and the way I played, 1939 was right up there with ’45. And naturally, I had no idea what would happen in ’45 was even possible. No, at that point, I was simply looking ahead to the winter tour and wanting to do my best for the folks at Inverness the next spring.

  So Louise and I packed up and went back to Texarkana, where I practiced and played some with my friends or with the pro there, Don Murphy. Looking back on the whole year, I was more than satisfied with my accomplishments.

  SIX

  Inverness

  and the

  War Years

  WITH MY JOB AT INVERNESS—A WONDERFUL CLUB and wonderful golf course—waiting for me the next spring, I guess I was a little nervous going out on the tour that winter of 1940. I certainly didn’t get my game going very quickl
y. For some reason I can’t recall, I skipped several tournaments early that year. I didn’t play at Los Angeles, Oakland, or the Crosby Pro-Am; I lost in the quarterfinals at San Francisco, and finished out of the money at Phoenix. Not a very good start.

  Back then the tour was different than it is now. A lot of us pros drove from tournament to tournament in a kind of caravan, and right after Phoenix, which happened to end on my birthday that year, we all headed for Texas. Ben and Valerie Hogan and Louise and I liked to stick together, so we’d follow each other pretty closely on the road. You kind of had to do that, because if you had car trouble, it was good to have a buddy nearby to help you fix a flat or whatever.

  There was a place in Las Cruces, New Mexico, where we liked to stop for lunch. They had the best tamales and chili we’d ever tasted, with real authentic Mexican flavor. One particular time, we decided to ask if we could buy some to take along with us. The waitress told us, “Well, the tamales come in a can, and they’re made by the Armour Meat Company in Fort Worth.” All four of us just looked at her. Then at each other. Somehow, those tamales had suddenly lost their appeal, and we never ordered them again.

  On that same trip, the wives of Ed “Porky” Oliver and Harold McSpaden weren’t along, so Ed and Harold were driving together. It was a good hard day’s drive from Phoenix to Van Horn, Texas, where most of us stopped for the night. McSpaden drove pretty fast, but Oliver was a lot more cautious. They were going along down this two-lane road and had to go through a tunnel at one point. Ed kept telling McSpaden to slow down, but Harold just kept saying, “I know this road like the back of my hand.” They got into this tunnel, and the tunnels then were always narrower than the road, and halfway through, barreling along at full speed, they met this fellow driving a wagon pulled by two big old mules. They just barely squeaked by, with McSpaden not slowing down hardly at all, and when they got through, Oliver yelled, “Don’t tell me you knew that wagon and those mules were going to be there, too!” I don’t know that they ever rode together after that, because it scared Ed pretty bad.

  We all made it to Van Horn, including Oliver and McSpaden, and stayed at the El Capitan Hotel, which we always liked because they had wonderful hot biscuits and their food was very good. About dinnertime, we noticed that Oliver had disappeared. When he showed up about five hours later, everyone wanted to know where he’d been. He’d gone to a double feature movie the entire evening. Imagine—after sitting in a car from dawn till dark, he goes and sits in a theatre for four hours more. We couldn’t believe it. But it was all part of life on the road, and even though we had to do a lot of driving, we all stuck together and had a lot of fun.

  As far as tournaments go, though, the first good thing I remember about that year was the Texas Open at Brackenridge Park. Ben Hogan and I tied at 271. I beat him in the playoff, 70–71, and broke 70 all four regulation rounds. It seems as if I played better against Ben on the average than I did against anybody else. I tried harder against him, because I knew I had to.

  After we tied, we were told that a San Antonio radio station wanted to interview us. There wasn’t any such thing as a remote broadcast then, so they had to take us downtown to the station. I was asked how I felt about tying for the tournament and being in the playoff with Ben, and I said, “Anytime you can tie Ben or beat him, it’s a feather in your cap, because he’s such a fine player.” Then they asked Ben the same thing, and he said, “Byron’s got a good game, but it’d be a lot better if he’d practice. He’s too lazy to practice.” Ben never did think I practiced enough. But I did manage to beat him the next day, practice or not.

  The next tournament was the Western Open at River Oaks in Houston. On the morning of the first round, my head hurt and I felt terrible. I shot a 78. The next day, I tried to play, because I hated to withdraw, but I shot 40 on the first nine and nearly passed out, and just had to quit. It turned out I had the flu and ended up in bed four days. I didn’t get the flu often, but whenever I did, it really laid me flat. Jimmy Demaret won the Western that year in a playoff with Toney Penna.

  We went on to New Orleans, and I must have still been weak, because I finished fifteenth and won $146. I don’t remember much else about that week, except that we were staying at the St. Charles Hotel, and Louise and I were having breakfast in the dining room when she realized she’d left her aquamarine ring in our room. She went up to get it, but it was gone. We called in the manager and house detective and everyone, but it was never found. Louise was very upset about it. The ring wasn’t all that expensive, but I had brought it back from my trip to South America in ’37, and it had a lot of sentimental value for her.

  The spring of 1940 was my first chance to play in the Seminole Invitational, one of the pros’ favorite tournaments. In the pro-am, if you won, you got 10% of the money in the Calcutta pool. The pros loved to get invited, because not only was it a wonderful golf course, but they had great food—a buffet every night that had more good food than any of us had ever seen before.

  Next was the St. Petersburg Open. I made an eight-footer on the last hole for a 69, finished second to Demaret and won $450. Demaret was two years older than Ben and I, but he never would admit it until it was time for him to collect social security. He always claimed, in fact, that he was actually younger than we were.

  In the Miami Four-Ball that year at the Biltmore Hotel golf course, McSpaden and I were partners. In the first round, we beat Johnny Farrell and Felix Serafin, 7 and 6, and then got trounced in the second round by Paul Runyan and Horton Smith, 5 and 4. They were a fine partnership team and outputted us that day. They were always wonderful putters, both of them.

  In the Thomasville Open at Glen Arven Country Club in Georgia, I finished second again, this time to Lloyd Mangrum, though I broke 70 all four rounds. Next was the North and South, where I was defending champion. I finished second again at 2 under, won another $450, and lost to Hogan, who had two very fine first rounds and held on to win.

  The Greensboro Open was played then at two courses, Starmount Forest and Sedgefield. I shot 68–68 the last two rounds and was third at 280. My philosophy at this point was not to have a bad round, and to have at least one hot round each tournament. I didn’t always do it, but that was what I knew I had to do to win or finish near the top.

  Next was the Masters. Even then, just a few years after Bob Jones and Clifford Roberts started this wonderful tournament, it was a very prestigious one, and everyone coveted the title. I always loved going, seeing the flowers and Jones and Cliff. Just being at the Masters always got me excited and I nearly always played well there. That year, I finished third at 3 under and won $600. This was when the greens were not only as fast as they are today, but they were hard as rock, too. If you landed an iron shot on the green, it would bounce six feet in the air and roll off nearly every time. You couldn’t back the ball up no matter how much spin you put on it. Being able to back the ball up or land it on the green and stop it came about in later years.

  Immediately after the Masters, Louise and I drove straight to Toledo. I was a little anxious about how I would do at Inverness. I felt I could handle it, but there were so many more active members compared to what I was used to. At Reading, I had less than a hundred sets of clubs to care for, and not all of those members were real active golfers. At Inverness, I had 365 sets of clubs, all quite active. I replaced Al Sargent, whose father was pro at Atlanta and had been Bob Jones’s pro when Jones was a young man. The golf shop at Inverness was in a separate building, about seventy-five yards from the clubhouse and right next to the first tee. In fact, it had been the clubhouse at one time. It was built when the original clubhouse had burned down years before, and served as a temporary clubhouse until the new one was completed. Then it became the golf shop. The caddies’ room was in the back, then there was my office, and then the shop itself. It was a nice building with high ceilings, though the shop was a little smaller than I would have liked.

  One of the first things I did was to stock shoes. I brought in
eighty-four pairs of men’s shoes, both street and golf, by Foot-Joy, selected with the help of my friend Miles Baker. Miles told me I was really the first pro to do this. Most pros would have sample pairs of different styles, but the members had to order them and then wait several weeks to get them. My eighty-four pairs covered all the styles in just about all the sizes and widths, which made it very convenient to sell the shoes on the spot.

  Next, I talked to Mr. Carpenter and got his permission to put up an 8 × 8-foot square mirror on the wall across from the door. It not only made the shop look bigger, but when the weather was bad or I had time, I’d use that mirror to check my swing. When I had lessons scheduled during rainy weather, I’d put the students in front of that mirror and work with them, have them check their shoulder alignment, grip, stance, where they placed the ball, and so forth. It was really quite helpful.

  When I arrived they gave me a locker upstairs, right where a group of the most prominent and influential members’ lockers were. That was a big help, because I got acquainted with them more easily. Another thing that helped me greatly was that Huey Rodgers, the caddiemaster, would stand at the door of the shop, and when he’d see the members coming from the clubhouse, he’d tell me who they were. That way, I got to know the members by name very quickly, and it impressed them that I could learn their names so soon—I don’t guess they knew Huey was helping me.

  One of the first things I found to be different at Inverness was bookkeeping. At Reading, I had been fortunate in this regard. I just kept all the members’ charge slips and simply turned them in to the club bookkeeper each month. But at Inverness, it was a whole new world. It was so much busier, for one thing, and then I found I was expected to do my own bookkeeping, which naturally took quite a lot of time. Actually, I didn’t know how to go about it at all, and in about six weeks, I had all these boxes full of slips and charges and merchandise orders and no idea how to organize them. I was terribly confused. Finally I asked one of the members what to do, and he recommended Roy Bowersock, a fine CPA with the accounting firm Wideman and Madden, who got my books straightened out and taught me how to keep them myself. His firm was bought out by Ernst and Young some years later, and they moved Roy to Tulsa about the time I moved back to Texas in 1946. A year later, Roy was transferred to Fort Worth, and did all my bookkeeping and accounting for many years afterwards. I’ve been pretty good about it ever since—in fact, good enough to get me out of trouble with the IRS many years later.