by Byron Nelson
The eighth tournament in my streak was the Chicago Victory Open at Calumet Country Club at the end of June. I don’t remember a lot about it, except that I played very steady there, though the fairways were quite narrow and the rough pretty heavy. I shot 69-68-68-70—275, 13 under par, and won by 7 shots. McSpaden came in second again, tied with Ky Laffoon at 282. Sometimes people are surprised I don’t remember more about all these tournaments, but as I said, I was in a trance of sorts, so a lot of the events and people and so forth were all kind of a blur to me.
However, the next tournament is one I remember quite clearly—the PGA Championship at Moraine in Dayton, Ohio, a city that would prove to be very important to me some time later. First of all, I tied for medalist with John Revolta in the qualifying rounds. I didn’t have to qualify because I was a former champion, but in those days they gave a cash prize for medalist, and I wanted that money—all of $125—to go toward another acre or two for my ranch.
Some people think of match play as being easier than medal play, but there was a whole lot of pressure every round. And most of the PGA championships were 36-hole matches after the qualifying rounds. You had to sometimes play ten rounds of good golf just to make it to the finals, and it was nearly always played in August, the hottest time of the year. It was tough.
In my first match I took on the Squire himself, Gene Sarazen, and managed to top him 3 and 2. I was told later that he had asked Fred Corcoran to pair the two of us in the first round, because he wanted to either get beat early or stay a long time. I guess he got half his wish, but I don’t think it was the half he really wanted.
My second match was against Mike Turnesa, one of that great family of golfers. He was playing well too, and putting beautifully. So well, actually, that he had me 2 down going to the 15th tee in the afternoon round. The 15th was a par 3, about a 4-iron shot, and he put his ball on the green about ten feet from the hole. The way he was putting, I thought, “Man, if I’m ever going to get out of this match, I’ve got to get the ball closer than where he is.” And I did it, put mine just inside of Mike’s. He putted first and I thought sure he’d made it, he hit such a beautiful putt. But it rimmed the hole on the high side and stayed out. I was fortunate to get mine in, so I got one back.
Now I was one down with three holes to go. On the 16th at Moraine, you drive over a hill and pitch up to a little old dinky green. It’s a tough little shot. The hole is short, but you have to hit the ball straight and have it in the right position. Well, I made a birdie there while Mike parred, so I got even.
The 17th was a par 5. I’d outdriven Mike a little bit, and he put his second shot just on the front of the green. I put mine closer, about twenty-five feet from the hole. He putted up very close, and I gave it to him, so he had a birdie. Well, I scrambled around and made my putt for an eagle. Now I was one up, and the last hole is a drive and 2-iron par 4. Fortunately we halved that one, so I managed to beat Mike one up. His brother Jim was playing another match the same time we were playing ours, and he lost, too. They were Italian, and afterward they were kidding around in the locker room, saying, “We’ll have to eat our spaghetti without the meat sauce for dinner tonight.”
Then I played Denny Shute, who’d won the PGA twice, and beat him, too. That gave me confidence, because if I could beat those three fine players, I might have a chance to win. Next came the semifinals, where I played Claude Harmon, a wonderful player who became one of the greatest teachers of the game, and who had won the Masters as well as several other tournaments. But I shot 65 and Claude shot 68, and afterwards he said, “I know what you’ve got to do to win a match—you’ve got to shoot better than I’ve been doing. Because when I shoot 68 and lose three down, the game’s too tough for this old man.”
Now I was up against Sam Byrd, a wonderful player who was making a career out of golf after being a fine baseball player for the Yankees. In the morning, he finished with four birdies in a row, then chipped in from about forty yards off the green on the last hole to put me 2 down at noon. Starting off in the afternoon, he birdied the fourth and I was 3 down. Everybody said it looked like I was going to lose in the finals again. The wind was 35 miles an hour that day, so besides playing a tough opponent, I was playing under tough conditions as well. But I had grown up in Texas and was a much better wind player than Sam, fortunately. I managed to make a two at the next par 3, and from there to the 14th hole, where the match ended, I was 6 under par.
That PGA was one of the best match play tournaments ever for me, because I played some very difficult matches and very wonderful players. It was the most strongly contested championship of match play in my career. These were all 36-hole matches, remember, so by the time I won, I had played 204 holes and was 37 under par. That was a lot of golf, especially in July in Ohio, and there were more than 30,000 in the gallery. Fortunately, for the first time, each hole was roped off and the crowds were controlled with the help of soldiers from nearby Wright Field.
My back was beginning to bother me some by then, and I was having heat and massage and osteopathic treatments every night during the championship. A couple of weeks later, I went to the Mayo Clinic and had them check me out, which took about three days. All they told me was that I had a lot of muscular tension, which wasn’t much of a surprise, and they recommended that I find some way to relax, which was next to impossible right then.
But bad back or not, I was on the tour again two weeks later at the Tam O’Shanter All-American Open in Chicago and shot 269. I won by 11 shots, adding $10,200 to our savings for the ranch. It was one of my best tournaments that whole year—including my 259 at Seattle. The course was tough and the prize money of $10,200 brought out all the top players, including Hogan and Sarazen, who tied for second at 280. I may have said this before, but one reason I always did so well at the Tam was that I had learned to nip the ball off the fairway—I didn’t ever take much turf. This was important in Chicago because the Tam O’Shanter fairways were nearly solid clover, and when that clover got between the ball and the club, the clover had a lot of slick juice in it. You never knew where the ball would go, but most of the time, you’d hit a flier. Because of the way I nipped the ball, I didn’t ever hit many fliers, especially not at the Tam O’Shanter.
An interesting sidelight to that victory concerns George May, the fellow who put on the Tam. He liked to drive around the course in a cart and be very prominent in front of the spectators, doing whatever he could to promote interest in the tournament. In the first round that year, I had a 34 on the front nine, and George was waiting for me on the 10th tee. He bet me 100 to 1 that I couldn’t shoot 34 on the back. I could only lose a dollar, so I took him on. I started with an eagle 3 at 10 and a hole in one at 11, so I was four under after two holes. I parred the rest of the way, shot 32, and got my $100.
George loved to make those kinds of bets, and he especially loved to bet with Joe Louis, the great prizefighter. Joe was a pretty good golfer, but was really too muscular through the chest and shoulders to be as good as he wanted to be. One time on the first tee at the Tam, which was just to the left of the clubhouse—a long, low building about twenty yards away—May came up and bet Joe he couldn’t break 80 that day. So Joe got all fired up and took a swing at the ball, hit under it and off the toe, and we all watched it sail right over the clubhouse. So there went his chance to break 80 and make a little money off George.
Getting back to my streak, by this time the pressure from the press and the fans really was getting to me. Another thing that added to it was that I was expected to make a talk at some sort of civic club luncheon nearly every city I played in, since I was a leading player and these folks were doing the pros a favor by putting on the tournaments. I didn’t get paid, just got a free lunch, but it all added to the pressure, believe me. I got so sick of it that I just wanted to get it over with. Before I went out to play the first round at the Tam, I told Louise, “I hope I just blow up today.” When I came back in, she asked, “Did you blow up?” I replied, “Yes
, I shot 66.”
So it went on. A week after the Tam O’Shanter I played in the Canadian Open, and that was really a test. The Canadian PGA had gone to work to make the Thornhill course really difficult, and they succeeded. Snead said the first seven holes were the hardest seven holes in a row he’d ever seen. According to an article written before the tournament, those seven holes were lengthened specifically because of me—and some of the other fine players, I’m sure—and par was changed from 71 to 70. I guess a few of our friends across the border weren’t happy about my playing so well at Islesmere in June. My friend George Low, a pro famous for his wonderful putting, even bet that no one would break 70. But I shot 68-72-72-68—280 and won by four shots, ahead of Herman Barron at 284 and Ed Furgol at 285. So I think I gave everyone their money’s worth—except maybe the folks who bet against me.
As you can imagine, though I was playing very well, I was also getting very tired. The next week we went to Memphis, and that was where the streak was broken by an amateur named Fred Haas—no relation to my friend Cloyd Haas of Toledo. I read recently that Fred was supposed to have been wearing shorts during the tournament, but I surely don’t remember that he was. We weren’t allowed to then any more than the boys are now. But regardless of what Fred was wearing, I had gotten very tired and made some foolish mistakes and ended up fourth at Memphis.
Now comes a strange thing. I was definitely and genuinely relieved when the streak was broken, because it took so much pressure off me from the media and the fans. But the fact that I had played poorly at Memphis made me kind of hot, and I went out and won the next two tournaments. One of them, the Spring Lake Invitational in New Jersey, doesn’t count as an official tournament now, but I played and won $684.74 in the pro-am and $1500 in the tournament itself, so it counted as far as Louise and I and our bank account were concerned.
I went back to work at Knoxville, winning the pro-am with a 66 and the tournament by 10 shots with 67-69-73-67—276. Sammy Byrd was second with 286 and Ben Hogan was third with 287. After that came Nashville and the Chickasaw Country Club. I shot 70-64-67-68 and finished second. I had a good caddie, and in the first round on the back nine, I pulled my tee shot into the trees. When I got to the ball, my caddie was there ahead of me. I saw that I had a clear area for my swing and a clear shot to the green, so I said, “That’s all right.” The caddie said, “I was praying it would be all right.” Now, I have to explain that I’ve been a member of the Church of Christ since I was twelve, and quite a few of the fans knew that I was. We preferred to be called simply Christians, but sometimes were referred to as Camp-bellites, because a man named Alexander Campbell had begun the Restoration movement that resulted in the Church of Christ being brought back to life as we feel it was begun in the Bible. Anyway, a man in the gallery overheard the caddie and me, and said, “Your caddie must be a good Campbellite, too.” It made me feel good to realize I’d gained a reputation for not only being a good golfer, but also for being a Christian.
Next I played the Dallas Open, where I was third, then Southern Hills in Tulsa, where I was fourth. I didn’t drive well there, and at Southern Hills, you must drive well. The greens were bermuda, but for some reason I wasn’t negotiating them well. I was getting a little weary and feeling a little burned out by all the excitement and pressure of the whole year. Things were slipping a little, more than I liked, so I decided to try and put a stop to it when the tour went to the Pacific Northwest the next week. I did a little better in the Esmeralda Open at Indian Canyon Country Club in Spokane, sponsored by a local hotel called Esmeralda. I shot 266 and won by seven shots—McSpaden was second with 273—but there’s more to that story. Before Louise and I arrived in Spokane, I had made reservations at the Davenport Hotel. We got in very late, nearly midnight, and they didn’t have our reservation. The night clerk told me, “All our rooms are reserved for the golfers.” Obviously, he didn’t recognize me as being a golfer, which I could understand, but we were tired and I was somewhat put out by the confusion and the fact that they had no rooms at all. We called Fred Corcoran, who was staying at the other large hotel in town, the one that was actually sponsoring the tournament, and he managed to get us a room there. Louise was even more upset than I was at the situation, and before I went out to play the next day she said, “I just have one favor to ask. I want you to play well enough in this tournament that they’ll know who you are!” Fortunately, I did—though we never went back to that hotel anyway, so I’ll never know if they figured out who I was or not.
At the Portland Open the next week, Ben Hogan played the best tournament of his life and shot a new all-time record of 261, 27 under par. He obviously was playing quite well, and had been that entire year. I might have been happier for Ben if I hadn’t finished 14 shots out, even though I was only in second place. I remember the press asked me how long I thought Ben’s score would hold up, and I said, “Well, you don’t know in this game. It could be forever, or it could be broken next week.” As it turned out, I was two weeks off.
The next tournament was at Tacoma, Washington, the first weekend of October, on a course called Firecrest. I wasn’t on fire at all, finishing third, 8 shots back. I was still fuming at how I’d played the week before and that upset my concentration so much I had my worst finish all year, ninth place. Tacoma and Tulsa were the only two tournaments that whole year that I finished over par, by a total of seven shots. But that wasn’t much comfort right then. I was getting steamed about the way I was playing, and I really got hot the next week at Seattle, when I shot the easiest 259 you ever saw, 62-68-63-66. Jug McSpaden was again second, tied with Harry Givan at 272. I liked the Broadmoor Golf Club’s course, and I drove well and played my irons exceptionally well. Didn’t have to hit many putts of any length at all, and in the first round I had two eagles. The last round, I was leading by so many shots that someone said, “All he has to do is make it to the clubhouse and he’ll win.” But I knew by the middle of the last round I had a chance to go for the record, and I was able to keep focused and do it. I really was pleased, especially after the drubbing I’d taken from Ben at Portland. In fact, I was so embarrassed by having Hogan beat me by 14 that I might not have played as well at Seattle if I’d only been two or three shots back at Portland. That 259 held up for ten years, till Mike Souchak shot 257 at Brackenridge in the Texas Open.
The tour was still going on, but I was pretty tired at that point and needed a good, long break. After all, by this time I’d won seventeen official tournaments and the pressure from the press was constant. After we got back from the hunting trip, I worked quite a bit at the farm in Denton and kept busy with first one thing and another, but my only other tournament that year was the Fort Worth Open at Glen Garden, my old stomping ground, and I was fortunate enough to win it.
It was in December of ’45, just a week before Christmas. We were on our way to Glen Garden from our place in Denton. On the way there was a bridge with some ice on it, and a car was stopped on the bridge. As I started to go around the other car, mine skidded off the road into the ditch and turned over. We weren’t hurt, but in the back seat we’d had a box of about 140 eggs we were taking to Louise’s family and some friends. When the car rolled over, it threw all those eggs into the front seat on Louise. She was a mess, with eggs dripping off her hair and everywhere. Fortunately, a man with a wrecker was coming down the road to help the car that was stuck on the bridge, so first he turned ours over and fortunately, it was driveable. Another man came along then, and he kindly took Louise back to Denton and straight to her beauty shop. Her hairdresser said, “This is one time you’ve really gotten an egg shampoo.” But we never could get the smell of those eggs out of that car, so we didn’t keep it for very long. Guess that’s why I played so well in the tournament—I knew we’d have to be getting another car soon.
It was actually the worst golf I’d played to win that whole year. The sub-freezing weather was terrible, and the greens were frozen each morning and hard as rock. The first round, you
absolutely had to run the ball up because if you landed it on the green it would bounce as high as if you’d hit the sidewalk. There was a cold wind that blew nearly all the time, and it never did get very warm. I did have a 65 in the second round, though, with a 30 on the back nine. I finished with five straight 3’s—remember, there are four long, tough par 3’s the last five holes—by birdieing the par-4 16th and parring all the par 3’s, so it made an interesting finish to that round. Jimmy Demaret, in his first tournament since his discharge from the Navy, was second with 281, and Harold was third at 282. The local paper the next morning called me “the Man O’ War of golf,” one I’d never heard before.
Really, it was a remarkable year. My scoring average was 68.3, I had eighteen official wins, eleven in a row, finished second seven times, and had nearly 100 official sub-par rounds, my best being 62. I set new records for most wins in a row, most in one year, lowest tournament score, and lowest scoring average. Not too many “careless shots”—in fact, my New Year’s resolution had knocked off 1⅓ strokes per round. Looking back, I realized that even though I had all those goals in mind, I never expected to do so well, especially against the competition I had. And despite the fact that some of the boys were still in uniform for part of the year, most of them were playing at least part of the time. Snead played in twenty-six events, Hogan eighteen, Dutch Harrison at least thirteen, and so forth. But beyond the fields I played against most of the time, I think that 68.3 speaks for itself.
Louise was very happy about what I had done and very happy for me, though she was realizing one thing about our situation that didn’t especially please her. Because I had become something of a celebrity, Louise became simply “Byron Nelson’s wife” to a lot of people, rather than Louise Shofner Nelson, and at times that was a little awkward for her. It’s a shame the way the world can be about such things, though on the other hand, when she wasn’t with me, she could go wherever she wished anonymously, while I no longer had that option very much—and that’s become even more true today.