How I Played the Game

by Byron Nelson

  I guess the most exciting single shot I saw during my broadcasting years happened the next year. It was Jack Nicklaus’s 1-iron on the 17th at Pebble Beach in the 1972 U.S. Open. He had to hit against a strong wind, and the ball just ticked the flag and dropped right down by the edge of the hole—as close to a hole-in-one as I’ve ever seen in a major tournament.

  Chris and I also covered some of the men’s amateur championships, and one in particular I recall vividly was the next year, 1973, at Inverness. Having been pro there in the forties, I was really looking forward to working on that tournament. I was also interested to see how we would broadcast it, because the format had gone back to match play that year, which is far more difficult to televise and keep interesting. What they did was to film some of the earlier matches, such as the quarterfinals and semifinals, and show some of that as we waited for the two players in the final to get to each shot. I felt it worked very well, and Chris did a good job with it.

  I really enjoyed doing the broadcast, especially because it was the first time I ever saw Craig Stadler play. He beat David Strong 6 and 5 in the final, and he behaved just the same then when he missed a shot as he does now, getting all disgusted with himself. The only thing different now is that he’s a little older and a little heavier, but he still hits that nice, high fade. Fortunately, he didn’t have to get very upset with himself then, because he sure wasn’t missing many shots that day.

  Another great memory from those years was the fifteen-pound salmon I caught during the 1970 U.S. Amateur in Portland. I brought it back to the hotel for the chef to prepare for dinner that night, then invited Chris and quite a few other friends for the feast. The chef did a marvelous job and I believe it was the greatest salmon dinner any of us ever had. Chris kidded me when I told him I’d caught our dinner myself, because he knew I wasn’t much of a sailor, but it was true. In case you’re wondering, a fellow named Lanny Wadkins won the tournament, and the runner-up was another promising youngster, Thomas O. Kite, Jr.

  One other thing I owe to television is that it was responsible for my meeting Tom Watson. It happened in 1973 when I was doing the telecast at Doral, where they play the infamous “Blue Monster,” which is what they call the Blue Course because it’s so tough and has so much water. I was walking the course during the pro-am to familiarize myself with it. I was outside the ropes, so I didn’t walk with people who had a lot of gallery because I wouldn’t be able to see enough. Walking the back nine on about the 14th hole, I was minding my own business when a pretty brunette walked up to me and said, “Aren’t you Mr. Nelson?” I said “Yes,” and she said, “I’m Mrs. Tom Watson.” I’d never met Tom though I’d heard a little bit about him from Bob Willits, a good amateur player from Kansas City I’d met at various tournaments. I watched Tom play from there on in, and Linda introduced him to me when he finished his round. I was very impressed by his demeanor and I liked the quick, aggressive way he played, so I began to watch for him on the tour each week. He had just finished playing well in the Hawaiian Open, and then won his first tournament, the Western Open, the following spring. In 1975 he won something called the Byron Nelson Golf Classic—his second victory—and gave the Salesmanship Club who sponsored the tournament a $1000 check, which was a kind and very generous thing to do when he was really still just becoming successful on the tour. After that, I kept even closer track of how he was doing, but I never worked with him until after he lost the Open at Winged Foot to Hale Irwin in 1975.

  I was doing the telecast, and Tom was leading after the third round. He wasn’t a real well-known player at the time, and the press was all over him, trying to find out more about him. I wondered how well he’d handle it, because I knew he hadn’t had much experience in that situation. The next day he had a bad last nine, but not because he was choking. It was just that he’d not had that kind of pressure before and didn’t quite know how to handle it. Having been in golf so many years, I knew Tom would be very discouraged, so after he left the press room I went to see him. He was in the players’ locker room upstairs, sitting with John Mahaffey and having a Coke. I sat down and told him, “Tom, I’m sorry you had such a bad day. I’ve seen quite a few people who’ve been in the lead but not played good the last round until they had a few tries at it.” He was still pretty down, which was natural, but he was nice and very polite to me and thanked me for what I’d said. When I left, I told him, “I’m not working with anyone right now, and if any time you’d like me to work with you, I give you permission to call me. No one else has that privilege.” Well, of course he went out and won the first of his five British Opens at Carnoustie the next month, so that proved he had a winning attitude despite losing the month before.

  After I’d offered to work with Tom, I became even more interested in his progress. I could see he had the makings of a great player, and that’s why I especially enjoyed doing the telecast of that British Open at Carnoustie in 1975, when Tom won in a playoff against Jack Newton. Of course, Tom and I were good friends by then, and the first day, he stopped by to say hello as Chris and I were having some tea and Scottish shortbread in the press tent. It just so happened that Tom played well that first round, so he took his visit as a sign of good luck or something, and continued to stop and see us every day. The last round, however, proved what Scotland is famous for. It was a typical horrible Scottish day, windy, rainy, and cold. I knew Tom had never played there in that type of weather, so I said, “Tom, I played this same course under these same conditions in 1937. Now, even if you make three bogeys in a row, don’t think anything about it, because everybody will be making bogeys. You’ll be amazed at how different the course will play today.” At one stretch he did make three bogeys in a row, but he remembered what I’d said, didn’t let it bother him, wound up tying Newton and then beat him in the playoff. Nice man that he is, Tom then gave me a lot of credit for his victory—more than I deserved—just because of what I’d told him before that last round.

  The next fall, 1976, he did come to see me and we began working together three or four times a year. We’d also have conversations at the tournaments I was working on, and when he came to the Nelson each year I’d work with him every day. Not that I would tell him what to do, but it encouraged him to know I was there and he could call on me if he needed me. It was mainly a confidence-builder for him.

  The U.S. Open that year, when Jerry Pate won, was when I did my last television commentary, just a few months before Tom and I began working together. After nearly twenty years of traveling almost as much as I had on the tour, I was beginning to look for a good reason to retire. As it happened, the people at ABC had decided to change what they were doing and begin using player-commentators on the course, like Bob Rosburg, Ed Sneed, Judy Rankin, and Gary McCord today. They also wanted whoever was at the 18th to do diagrams like the football coach-commentators were doing. I tried that once, but I was very poor at it, so I told Roone Arledge and Chuck Howard that I really didn’t think I’d enjoy making all those changes—I was sixty-four at the time, after all—so we ended our relationship by mutual agreement on a quite friendly note.

  Every so often during my television career, someone would say to me, “Byron, don’t you wish you were out here playing today, with the money so great?” It was considerably more money than what I had played for, though nothing like it is today. But I never once felt, “Boy, if I were still playing I could have some of that.” I still had no desire to be in that situation again, even though the money was better and tournaments bigger. I was glad to be doing just what I was doing, glad to be in golf and participating, and especially glad not to have the pressure.

  One of the things I was happiest about as far as my television work was concerned was how the players reacted to what I said. They seemed to accept it quite favorably, because I was never very critical. I called the shot and when they missed it I said so, but I didn’t jump all over a player or talk negative about anyone. I knew exactly how hard it was out there, and I couldn’t see any rea
son to talk that way about anyone, particularly someone having a difficult time playing this most difficult game.

  My years in television were great, really, but I never dreamed in my wildest imagination when I started doing broadcasting that it would do for my name what it did. People even today recognize me and speak to me who never saw me play, and tell me how much they enjoyed the work I did with Chris on ABC. Many people have recognized me in a restaurant or other public place just by my voice. They say, “Aren’t you Byron Nelson?” And when I say, “Yes,” they say, “I recognized your voice.” I’m always amazed by that. And it makes me feel good.

  There is something that makes me feel lots better than having people recognize me because of my television work, though. It has to do with a group of men called the Salesmanship Club, a couple of golf courses, and children who need a lot of help. But I’ll need to start at the beginning.

  In 1962, I was asked to help build a golf course in North Dallas at a place the owners had decided to call Preston Trail. I worked with golf course architect Ralph Plummer, who was from Texas and had caddied at Glen Garden about ten years before me. At that time Preston Trail was so far from the heart of Dallas—seventeen miles, actually—that everyone thought we were crazy for doing it. But Pollard Simon, Jim Chambers, John Murchison, and Stuart Hunt, who owned the property, felt the natural direction for Dallas to grow was north—and time has proved them right. The course opened in 1965, but because of its distance from the city, selling memberships wasn’t too easy. I had a lot of kidding from my friends about it. The first fifty members were the toughest to get, though after that people figured it was safe and began signing up. Preston Trail was designed from the beginning as a men-only course, which might have been part of the reason it was slow getting started, because the men also continued their memberships at other clubs where their wives could play.

  About the time Preston Trail opened, I began doing radio commentary for the Dallas Open, a tournament that never had done real well. I had won the first one in ’44, Snead in ’45, and Hogan in ’46, but then it was discontinued and didn’t start up again till 1955 when Jim Ling of Ling-Temco-Voight (LTV) got it going. It still wasn’t what you would call a real strong event on the tour, though. Even after ’55 there were a couple more years when it wasn’t held at all.

  But things began to change in the early part of 1967. I was slated to do the Dallas Open on radio that year at Oak Cliff Country Club, and the tournament this time was sponsored by the Salesmanship Club of Dallas, an organization that sponsored a highly successful, year-round outdoor camp for troubled boys. Quite a few days before the tournament started, I was talking to several of the Salesmanship Club’s top members who were concerned because ticket sales had been very slow. At this point, Arnold Palmer hadn’t yet entered the event, and they asked if I would be willing to call him. They told me if he would agree to play, they’d have a plane come pick him up wherever he wanted. I liked these fellows and I knew their camp program was a very good cause, so I called Arnold. He agreed to come, and I went along when they picked him up. The next two days, after it was announced that Palmer would play, they sold 5000 tickets. It showed what a difference a big name like Palmer’s could make—and I felt good that I was in a position to help bring it about.

  Maybe that was what gave those Salesmanship Club guys their next big idea. Because it wasn’t too long after the Dallas Open that they came and talked to me again. Felix McKnight, a newspaperman I’d known since my amateur days, talked to me first and told me the Salesmanship Club knew they could make money for their camp program by sponsoring a tour event, but felt they needed to have a well-known golfer connected with it. They were thinking of changing the name of the tournament to reflect that, and were also considering moving the tournament to Preston Trail. Felix asked if I would entertain the idea of having my name used instead of calling it the Dallas Open. I said I would, and he said, “I’ll be back in touch with you soon.”

  A few days later, Felix called and said the whole tournament committee wanted to talk to me as soon as possible. I said, “That’s fine, Felix, I’ll be coming to Dallas in a couple of days,” and Felix interrupted me with, “No, we’d like to come out to the ranch and talk to you right now.” Well, that was okay with me, and forty-five minutes later Felix, W.L. Todd, Frank Anglim, and Jim Chambers pulled in the driveway and proceeded to give their whole presentation. They wanted to call the tournament the “Byron Nelson Golf Classic,” and Preston Trail had already agreed to host the tournament. Before that call from Felix, though, I had done my own homework on the Salesmanship Club and found them to be a dedicated group of men with the most successful children’s rehabilitation program that I’d ever heard of. So I agreed to do it, and it’s become the best thing that’s ever happened to me in golf, better than winning the Masters or the U.S. Open or eleven in a row. Because it helps people.

  The committee also told me they’d already started to plan a big kickoff party for the tournament the next spring, and were going to invite all the dignitaries and celebrities they could think of. Well, they did just what they said they would, and the next April, 1968, at the Southland Center Hotel, there was a terrific party, over 1300 people. Chris Schenkel was the master of ceremonies, my mother and Louise’s father were there, Governor John Connally, Bob Hope, Glen Campbell, Sammy Davis, Jimmy Demaret, Ben Hogan—the list went on and on. It really was a very wonderful occasion and a great way to start the tournament. To top it all off, the final event of the evening was when Gar Laux, the head of Lincoln-Mercury, presented me the keys to a beautiful red Lincoln Mark II, right there at the party. That really put the icing on the cake.

  One interesting thing about the evening was seeing how nervous Sammy Davis was before he sang. He really was a wreck. I’d never imagined that such an accomplished performer and someone so accustomed to being in front of people would be that way. He told me it was because there were so many important people there. But when he started on stage, you would never have known that he was nervous, and of course he performed beautifully.

  That first year, Louise and I got to visit the Salesmanship Club’s outdoor camp a couple of times, which was an eye-opening experience for us. These boys weren’t just from poor families—they came from all sorts of backgrounds, but had somehow gotten off the track and into trouble, first at home, then school, and often with the law. While it was sad to learn how troubled they had been, it was also a good feeling to see the great progress they were making in the camp program. Several years later, they started a separate camp for girls, and one year at the Christmas party, I told one girl camper that I had recently given Louise a fur coat. She said, “What did you expect to get for that?” I was amazed at her question. I answered, “Nothing. I just wanted to make her happy.” That told me a lot about how sad the lives of these children were—not because their parents might not have money for fur coats or other luxuries, but because they didn’t know what loving and caring for people really meant, until they came to the camp and learned it firsthand.

  Right away, the Salesmanship Club fellows and I started having a lot of meetings about the Dallas Open. We talked about its pluses and minuses, and how to make it better. Having been a pro and around tournaments all my life, I told them, “The only way you’re going to have a successful tournament is for the pros’ wives to be happy.” Because Preston Trail was a men-only club, there were no facilities for women, so we had to do something about that. I also suggested to them, “No event on the tour has a nursery, and a lot of the pros have little children they need to bring along, so we need to start one—that’ll help a lot.” They got going immediately on those ideas, and when it came time for the tournament to start, they had moved in trailers and set up one for the pros’ wives and another for the nursery, both of them staffed by wives of Salesmanship Club members. This arrangement worked very well, and the pros and their wives really did appreciate it.

  It was amazing to me to see how the club members, several hund
red of them, threw themselves into putting on this tournament. One of their traditions is to “Never say no” when asked to do something for the club, the tournament, or the kids, and they really do abide by it. It was very inspiring to me to realize my name was connected with such a great group of people, and over the years, that feeling has grown. Overall, I feel the Salesmanship Club and the tournament have done far more for me than I have for them, because they really have kept my name alive.

  Another wonderful thing about being part of this bunch and having my name on the tournament was that I got to work with Chris for ABC on the telecast, from 1968 until I retired from television work in ’76. For those first eight years, I worked full time as a color commentator up in the booth for the entire broadcast, and that was a special kind of fun for me, doing the broadcast for my own tournament.

  As it happened, that first tournament in ’68 was won by Miller Barber, which really made me feel good since he’d started as a caddie at Texarkana where I had been pro so many years before. What with the big kickoff party we had and Miller winning, it was a very good beginning year. We even got all four rounds in, and since the Nelson has been plagued with rain nearly every year of its existence, that was another fortunate happening for our inaugural year. In fact, in the past twenty-five years we’ve only had one or two that didn’t have rain interruptions or cancellation of a round.

  The tournament had immediate and full acceptance by everyone in the area. Despite the fact that the course was still quite a ways away, people really wanted to come and see the pros play, and fortunately, we drew nearly all the big names right away. In fact, the third year we had an unusually exciting finish. Arnold Palmer—the crowd favorite still—had finished his last round and shot 274. Right behind him, Jack Nicklaus came to the 18th green needing a four for a score of 273 to beat Arnie by one shot. Jack hit a good drive but his approach shot was a little strong and went over the green. His ball was on a downslope and in a slight little bit of rough, making for a very difficult little chip. The people loved Arnie so much that they were afraid Jack would chip close, make his par and win. They didn’t want to see the tournament end just yet, so when Jack chipped short, the gallery applauded, figuring he would make five and tie and they would get to watch a playoff, which is exactly what happened.