How I Played the Game

by Byron Nelson

  Henry Cotton. After Cotton came over from England to play in the Masters in 1947 (courtesy of a loan from Eddie Lowery), he then went to San Francisco to do a few exhibitions Eddie had arranged. I was out there also, and one day the three of us went to play at the California Golf Club. He and Eddie got to talking and Henry said, “I understand you’re a pretty good bunker player, Eddie.” Eddie said, “Yes, I guess I am.” So Henry said, “Let’s have a contest.” That was fine with Eddie, so they headed to the bunker by the practice green. Cotton was very confident in his game and thought he could win some easy money from Eddie, who of course was an amateur, though a very good one. They bet $5 a ball for whoever got closest to the pin, and the one who lost got to pick the next spot to hit from. But Eddie was so good out of the bunker that after about fifty shots he was winning most every time, and Henry finally gave up. Eddie really was the best out of a bunker that I ever saw.

  Bing Crosby. Bing loved golf and scored in the mid- to high 70’s a lot. His swing was easy and smooth, with no rushing or jerking ever. Bing always conducted himself very well and was very cordial with the golfers who came to his tournament. But one time during the Crosby, he did get on me a little. He and I were supposed to do a little sketch for television, and though my part was very small I never could get it right. After I’d tried to do it a number of times he finally said, “Byron, if you can’t remember three lines of dialogue, I don’t know how you can ever remember how to hit a golf shot!”

  Another thing that impressed me about Bing was that when I won the Crosby in ’51, he had to leave before the tournament was over and go to Los Angeles to get treatment for kidney stones. Bing didn’t like to fly, so he rode a train, and on that trip, though he was in terrific pain, he wrote a very kind letter congratulating me.

  My last Bing story happened some years ago, when Bing’s wife Kathy played on my team in our Lady Nelson pro-am two weeks before my tournament. Bing couldn’t come because he was still recovering from a fall off a stage, but after we were done, Kathy wanted to call him, so we did. After she’d talked with him for a few minutes she handed the phone to me, and Bing said, “How’d Kathy do?” I told him she’d helped us on both a par five and a par three. Then he asked, “When she was out of the hole did she pick up?” I laughed and said, “No,” and he asked, “When she missed a shot did she want to play another one?” I laughed again and said, “Yes,” and he finally said, “Byron, you are a patient man!”

  Jimmy Demaret. One of the most colorful pros in the history of golf. Jimmy was from Houston, so I got to know him when I was still quite young, and I knew him very well. He had a funny, quick wit about him, which I admired because I don’t feel I have any whatsoever. The people at Augusta named their three bridges for Sarazen, Hogan, and me, and Jimmy used to joke, “Hey, I won it three times and I never even got an outhouse!” Jimmy played a nice, high fade, and he certainly proved you could win at Augusta without hooking, even though people said you couldn’t.

  Jimmy used to use a golf ball with a steel center made by a company in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He called them “Steelies.” One year at the Masters he put two balls in the water, at 12 and 15, and when he came in, before anybody could say anything, Jimmy announced, “I found out one thing today—that old Steelie won’t float!” He used to wear these big old tams that flopped down the side of his head, and the most outlandish colors. He’d often choose colors that clashed on purpose, just to create interest and get attention. He laughed at himself and people laughed with him—everybody kidded him and he really had a lot of fun with it.

  President Eisenhower. Besides loving to play golf, Eisenhower was a fine bridge player, and one time I was asked to fill in for a couple of hands with him, Cliff Roberts, and Bob Woodruff, who was head of Coca-Cola. I was scared to death because I knew what good bridge players they all were, and I was really not much more than a beginner. In one hand, I wound up bidding four hearts but messed up somehow and didn’t make it. When the hand was over, I said to Cliff, “I know I should have been able to make that bid some way,” and Cliff said, “All you had to do was lead the two of hearts, Byron.” I was glad when their fourth arrived. But it certainly was fun to watch them play, which I got to do nearly every evening after we’d played golf. They’d play just three or four cards, then everyone would lay their cards down and that was it. They were so good at knowing exactly where all the cards were. It just amazed me.

  James Garner. Jim Garner is not only a fine actor, but loves to play golf and plays well, though he has back problems from time to time. One time I played an exhibition in Chicago with Jim and we had the oddest combination I’d ever seen. It was the two of us, Doug Sanders, and LPGA pro Laura Baugh. Garner hit the ball a long ways, and he was kidding Doug Sanders especially that day, because he was driving the ball very well. He’d hit a great drive and say, “Okay, Doug, try to catch that one.” He outdrove Doug nearly all day long. Jim is very outgoing, especially when his back isn’t bothering him, and it wasn’t that day. Really, he was the long driver most of the time in our group, though he might go east or west sometimes instead of down the middle. He was about an 8 handicap, so he was definitely a good-caliber player.

  Ralph Guldahl. Though Ralph was one of the slowest players on the tour, from 1936 to 1938 he was also a great player, winning the Western Open three times and the U.S. Open twice. I have to admit that after Ralph beat me so bad when we were both kids in Texas, it was nice to be able to top him at the Masters in ’37, after Ralph had been leading me by three shots going to the last nine. In my own mind, I figured that made us about even. And then when I beat Ralph again during the International Match Play Championship at Belmont Springs that fall, I did kind of smile to myself, “And that makes me one up.”

  I believe the most unusual thing I ever saw a player do was in the U.S. Open in ’37 at Oakland Hills in Birmingham, Michigan. Ralph was on the eighteenth green in the final round. He had the tournament won, all he had to do was hit his putt. He was all lined up and ready when he stopped, backed away, and took a comb out to comb his hair. I think he suddenly realized that they’d be wanting to take pictures and he wanted to make sure he looked good, but it was a little strange for someone to do that during the most important tournament we have. He finished with his hair, two-putted, and that was that. I don’t recall if the press said anything about how nice his hair looked.

  Ralph won exactly $1000 for winning that Open, and the very next week his wife, Laverne, spent every penny of that thousand dollars on a fine riding horse. That was all right, I guess, but the third time she rode it, she fell off, broke her arm—and gave the horse away. I believe that was even more unusual than Ralph combing his hair on that final hole.

  Walter Hagen. He was one of the best showmen I’ve ever seen, and the first pro golfer who really entertained the gallery. Besides entertaining the fans, though, Hagen also had the ability to politely intimidate his opponents. I watched him play in the semifinals against Abe Espinosa in the PGA Championship at Cedar Crest in Dallas in 1927, and Hagen was one down going to the last hole. Espinosa drove into some shallow rough while Hagen was nicely in the fairway. Hagen walked over to Abe’s ball, looked at it, looked up at the green, didn’t say a thing, then walked back to his own ball. So Abe went a little long and his ball ended up on the back of the green with Hagen’s ball inside his. Now Hagen walks over behind Abe’s ball again, lines it up as if he were going to putt it, then moves back out of the way. Of course, all this broke Abe’s concentration and he three-putted; Hagen won on the first extra hole. He would do things like that whenever he needed to. In this day and time that wouldn’t work at all, but back then no one thought much about it.

  Hagen also had a knack of making a big production out of what was really a very easy shot. If he had a simple little chip, say, he would really look it over and make it look like it was very tough. Then he hit it well, of course, but the gallery would all think it was something great. On the other hand, when he had a really d
ifficult shot he would walk up, hardly look at the ball, and just hit it. I guess the other thing people always liked about Hagen was that he always dressed immaculately and drove a handsome new car. That impressed everyone and allowed him to get away with things that the rest of us might not have. I may have said this before, but Hagen was also the first one that I knew of to ever have an agent—Bob Harlow, who started Golf World magazine.

  Ed Haggar. Ed’s father started the Haggar clothing company in Dallas, and he and his wife Patty are very dear friends of ours. A few years ago we were playing golf with them at Castle Pines. Ed and I had a pretty big bet going, a dollar nassau, and I had beaten him one down on the first nine. On the back, we came to the parthree eleventh hole, which is all downhill. I put my tee shot on the green but Ed hit a bad shot to the right, into all this brush and trees. His caddie said, “You’d better hit another one, Mr. Haggar,” but Ed said, “No, we’ll find it.” Well, they went down in there and beat around in the brush awhile but didn’t have any luck—which was a good thing, as it turned out. Because Ed went back to the tee, played another one, and his ball landed twenty feet back of the hole almost at the top of this big ridge that ran across the green. Then his ball started rolling back down and ran straight into the hole for a three. It was the only time I ever saw that happen in all the years I’ve played golf.

  Ben Hogan. Back in our early years when neither one of us had much money at all, Ben and I were playing in the Oakland Open at Sequoia and staying at the Lehman Hotel. I was going to ride to the course with Ben for a practice round, so we went out to the parking lot, got to his car, and found it sitting there jacked up on cement blocks with all four wheels gone. Ben just couldn’t believe it and said, “I sure hope whoever took them needed them worse than I do.” We used my car instead, and I don’t remember where he got the money to buy new wheels, but fortunately he did.

  Ben has never liked being around a lot of people and that’s fine. It’s his business and I respect that. But I always thought it was a shame in a way because he missed so much. People idolized him so and to a certain extent that can be a very good thing. I know the way people feel about me has always made me feel good and made me want to try hard to be a better person. It’s difficult for people to get a chance to interview Ben so they ask me about him a lot, but I just don’t particularly like to talk about him. I feel like that’s invading his privacy, so I don’t say much. We’ve always gotten along fine and we’ve always liked each other very much. We’re simply different personalities, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

  Bob Hope. Bob is and always has been a very funny man. Actually, he was more serious on the golf course than at any other time, and is one of the best goodwill ambassadors that golf ever had. Until his later years, Bob was a pretty steady player and scored in the mid-80’s all the time, though he didn’t start to play till he was older.

  One time in the late thirties or early forties, I was in Los Angeles to play in the L.A. Open, and Bob wanted me to come out and go on his New Year’s Eve show. I was pleased he wanted me to be on the show, so Louise and I flew out. We had a rehearsal and then went to the Rose Bowl game at Pasadena—Bob and Dolores, Louise and I, and Chester Morris and his wife. Bob was driving, and halfway to the Rose Bowl we ran into a terrible traffic jam. Of course, everyone knew Bob, including the policemen. All of a sudden Bob pulled out of line, and began driving on the wrong side of the road, telling policemen, “I’m late for a show!” Fortunately there was no traffic coming the other way, but it was still scary. We finally got to the stadium, and as soon as we got out of the car Louise said, “I don’t care how we get back, I’m not going back with him.” Fortunately, Cliff Roberts was there and sitting right where we were, so we rode back in his car instead.

  When I went on the show that night, I didn’t remember my lines very well. I never was much at memorizing. I was supposed to say something complimentary about Miss America, who was also on the show, but I couldn’t remember my lines at all. Bob said to the audience, “This man’s older than he looks, isn’t he?” And they really laughed. But in case anyone wants to know, that’s why I never became a movie star.

  Bob Jones. Jones had the greatest name in golf in his time, of course, and is still considered great today. He was a wonderful man, with great knowledge about the history of the game and the best way to play. His ability to judge players and know what they needed to do to play good golf was excellent. Very educated and quite articulate, Jones wrote many articles and letters and several books on golf. He also made some instructional films that are selling quite well as videotapes today. I was fortunate to have played with Bob a number of times at Augusta, and always enjoyed it very much. You felt in awe when you played with him, regardless of what kind of game you played yourself. His attitude toward everyone was very friendly, but he was kind of quiet, really, and didn’t have a lot to say most of the time. One time at the Masters Club dinner—the one attended originally just by the Masters winners plus Bob Jones and Clifford Roberts—the players were criticizing the way the pin had been placed on the third hole because it was nearly impossible to make a birdie. All of a sudden Jones said, “You guys make me sick. You think you’ve got to birdie every hole. You birdie a lot of them as it is, and there are going to be some tough pin placements out there that if you want a birdie, you’re really going to have to earn it.”

  One of the great honors of my career was when Jones asked me to play in his place with the Masters tournament leader the last round, which I did until Ken Venturi was the leader in 1956. Since I was Venturi’s mentor, Cliff and Bob decided that it wouldn’t be right for me to play with Kenny, so they put me with someone else and Kenny played with Snead and lost. From then on, they began pairing the players according to their score only, which was really the best way.

  Bobby Knight. Bobby and Chris Schenkel were very good friends, and one time I was playing in a tournament called the Mad Anthony in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, near Chris’s home town. Bobby had played in the morning while Chris and I were scheduled for the afternoon. Before we started off, Bobby asked Chris if I would mind him following me around. What he wanted was for me to tell him what I was trying to do with each shot as I played, which was fine with me. I had a good day, fortunately, and most of the time was able to do exactly what I told him I was going to do. When we came in he said, “Boy, if I could get my basketball team to do that, we could sure win a lot more games!”

  Chuck Kocsis. Chuck is from Michigan and is a fine amateur player who was runner-up to Harvie Ward in the 1956 U.S. Amateur. He’s in his late seventies and still shoots his age or less on a regular basis. One summer in the early forties when I was pro at Inverness, Bobby Locke came over from South Africa to play some exhibitions for five straight days, all through Michigan. One of these exhibitions was at Red Run in Detroit, and I was invited to play with Bob Gaida, the pro there, Chuck, and Locke. Chuck was having a very good day and shot 33 on the front, while I had 34. We were good friends, but as we started the back nine, I said to him, “You’d better get going, because I’m not going to let any amateur beat me.” As luck would have it, I shot 30, so I did manage to get past him.

  Ky Laffoon. Ky was on the tour mostly in the early part of my career and was the most unusual golfer, personality-wise, that I ever knew. He was always doing something interesting. I first became acquainted with him when I was in California that first winter, 1933, because we were both staying at the Sir Launfels apartments in Los Angeles. Ky was part American Indian, and had a brother, Bill, who caddied for him and traveled with him all the time. Bill was the first traveling caddie I ever knew of. One day, Ky and I were playing two brothers, Al and Emery Zimmerman, in a practice round for the Pasadena Open at Brookside Park right by the Rose Bowl. At that time there was no restriction on the number of clubs you could have in your bag, and it was amazing how many people had clubs that were numbered between an 8 and a 9-iron—especially pitching clubs. On the ninth hole, I’d outdriven Ky and was watchin
g as he put his second shot on the green. I hollered, “What club did you use, Ky?” He hollered back, “A three-quarter seven-and-a-half.”

  Ky chewed tobacco and used to squirt the juice between his front teeth. You had to stay out of the way because sometimes it went quite a few feet. But in spite of that unattractive habit, Ky felt he was really good-looking. I’d be in his room sometimes when he was getting dressed, and he’d preen in front of the mirror, slick his hair back, and say, “Boy, you’re the best-looking man in the world. I don’t know how you stand it!” Ky was a good player, but he was never satisfied just to play, no matter what the tournament was. He always had to have some kind of small side bet going about what he’d shoot or whether he’d win. One time he was playing in a tournament in Cleveland, Ohio, and was using a mallet-head putter with a wooden shaft that he usually did very well with. He was on the last hole and winning the tournament, but he had to two-putt to win his own bet on what he said he’d shoot. Now when Ky hit a bad putt, he’d always kick the putter head. Well, he putted past the hole and missed it coming back, which meant he lost his bet. So he got mad and kicked his putter as usual. Unfortunately, this time the head fell right off the putter, but Ky reached over quick, grabbed the putter head, and knocked the ball in the hole—one stroke too late.

  Most of the time, though, he’d win those little old bets. Ky really was the best player for his own money of anyone I ever saw. There were quite a few younger players coming on the tour then, and he would play as many as three at a time, best ball, for a $5 nassau. All in all it was fun, knowing and playing golf with Ky Laffoon.