How I Played the Game

by Byron Nelson

  Tony Lema. When I first met Tony, he was the assistant caddiemaster at California Golf Club when I played in tournaments there and many other times when I played with my friend Eddie Lowery. Tony then became caddiemaster before he turned pro. He would watch me every time I played or practiced, and I always felt that of all the golfers out there, Tony used his feet and legs more like I did than anyone else. When Tony was a member of the Ryder Cup team I captained in 1965, that was a real bonus for me, and he did very well. After we’d won the Cup, our team was in the locker room waiting for the official award ceremony, and Tony opened up a case of champagne. He loved champagne and had been nicknamed “Champagne Tony” by the press because he bought it for everyone when he won a tournament. I let them all have a glass, but then had them put it away for later, because I wanted to be sure we’d behave all right during the ceremony, with Prime Minister Wilson there and all.

  Tony was very well liked by the other players and very outgoing, but kind of shy around me. Before the Ryder Cup, he had decided he wanted to live in Texas and asked to use my name as a reference when he applied for an apartment in Dallas over on Turtle Creek, which is a pretty nice area. They called me about it, and I had to tell them everything I knew about Tony, nearly. He was approved, fortunately, and once he’d moved in, he would bring his mother out to the ranch quite often to visit Louise and me. In fact, he was living in Texas when he was killed in that terrible plane crash.

  Lawson Little. Lawson was a fine player who won the American and British amateurs and many other amateur tournaments before he turned pro. While he was still an amateur he got a job writing for King Features Syndicate, and that was how he could afford to travel to tournaments and play. In 1936, the year after I beat him in the San Francisco Match Play tournament when I was just starting, I was heading out to play the Pacific Northwest tour, the one where I really got going good. I was riding the train from Seattle to Portland, and on the way to the dining car I heard a typewriter clicking away in the drawing room. I saw Lawson in there working, and when I said hello, he said, “Byron, come here a minute and guess what I’m writing about.” I said I had no idea, and he said, “I’m writing about how you trounced me good last year in San Francisco!”

  Bobby Locke. Not only was Bobby a fine player, but he was also considered one of the great putters of all time. In six exhibitions I played with him one long week in Michigan in the early forties, he never missed one putt under five feet. It was when we got off the course that the trouble started. I was acting as his host and after each round we’d talk to the people awhile, then go get changed and go out to eat. Now I wasn’t particularly rushing, but I’d have my shower and be all dressed and ready to go and Bobby would still be about half-dressed and not showered, sitting there having a beer. I’d say, “Bobby, c’mon, let’s go.” “All right, laddie,” he’d say, “I’ll be ready in a few minutes.” Happened every time. Bobby had a certain speed he moved, and he never varied, never rushed, just always moved at that same tempo. He was very deliberate in everything he did, particularly in the way he played golf. He even walked with a very deliberate gait. When he played, though, he played very well. He’d hit a little draw hook every shot, exactly the same every time. When Sam Snead went over to South Africa to play him in the late thirties, Bobby beat Sam fifteen out of sixteen matches. Made me glad I didn’t go.

  Jim McKay. One time when Jim and I were on a plane going to the British Open, we got to talking about golf, and he complained he wasn’t putting very well. I didn’t think I’d be able to help him right then and there, but sure enough, someone on the plane had a putter and I gave Jim a lesson right in the aisle. What was wrong was he wasn’t looking straight at the ball, which made it impossible to keep the putter on line going back and through. So I showed him how to correct that, and everyone on the plane got a kick out of it. Of course, planes then were not as crowded as they are now, and fortunately we had a smooth flight. Once we landed and he got out to play, he did putt quite well and told me later that was the best putting lesson he’d ever had.

  Harold McSpaden. Harold and I played a lot of golf together and played well as a team, though we had very different personalities. I was easygoing and kind of shy, but there was nothing shy or easygoing about Harold. He wasn’t mean at all, but kind of rough and gruff and he would tell you how he felt right quick, so you never had to wonder what he was thinking. I had a number of players ask me, “Doesn’t McSpaden bother you?” and I said, “No, I like to play with him.” Besides having a strong personality and being honest and forthright, Harold was a better player than anyone ever gave him credit for. Another difference between us was that he had exceptionally long arms. Though he was one and a half inches shorter than me, he wore a 36-inch sleeve while I took a 33. I believe the reason we were such a good team was because I played a different type of game from Harold. I was very steady—in the fairway, on the green, and no more than two putts—while he might get into trouble on a few holes but could also make a lot of birdies, so we “brother-in-lawed” it pretty good most of the time.

  Harold was very strong, with a kind of loose-jointed walk. With his long arms, for most of his career he used only a 42-inch driver. He was barrel-chested and had hazel eyes and dark hair he combed straight back, sort of in the style the young folks are bringing back now. For sure, he certainly was a better player than most people know. He once said to me, “Byron, if you hadn’t been born, I would have been known as a wonderful player!” In fact, during my wonderful year of 1945, Harold finished second thirteen times, which has to be a record.

  Eddie Merrins. Quiet and easy but always getting the job done, Eddie is one of the absolute top club professionals ever. He’s called “The Little Pro” because he is so small, but he’s a wonderful teacher and was recently named club pro of the year for his work at Bel Air in Los Angeles, where he’s been pro for thirty years. There are a lot of movie stars and bigwigs at Bel Air, so you know it’s not the easiest place in the world to work. Besides running the golf program at his club, Eddie served as the golf coach for UCLA, which has graduated such fine players as Steve Pate, Corey Pavin, and quite a few others. He’s also a great organizer. Some years ago he began the Friends of Golf (FOG) tournament to raise money for golf scholarships for UCLA. The tournament has been very successful and has expanded to benefit other college and junior golf programs around the country.

  Francis Ouimet. I first met Francis through Eddie Lowery, who caddied for him when Francis won the Open in 1913. Francis lived in Massachusetts and I played with him and Eddie a few times at the Charles River Country Club when Francis was in his fifties. Quiet though not shy, he was a beautiful player and a wonderful long-iron player. Francis had what today would be called an abbreviated swing—the club never even quite reached horizontal. But he was effective because he had a very smooth, flowing action and his rhythm was excellent. It was pretty to watch and I was very impressed with his game. He was impressed with mine also, so we had sort of a mutual admiration society. He was on the USGA committee in 1939 when I won the International Match Play Championship in Boston. That was the first time I actually met him, though he had such a strong New England accent I could hardly understand anything he said. Besides winning the Open in 1913, Francis won the Amateur in 1914 and again in 1931, and was also Captain of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews, which meant our friends across the ocean appreciated him too.

  Arnold Palmer. Arnold is the most popular golf professional that’s ever been and he deserves it. I’ve never seen anyone sign as many autographs or be as nice to the public as he is. But besides being so popular and the most exciting golfer I ever saw, Arnie is an excellent pilot and flies his own plane, which impresses me. I flew with him a number of times and always felt completely at ease. One time, though, I was visiting him at his home in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, in the late fifties when he called President Eisenhower at Gettysburg to see if he would come play golf with us if Arnie would go pick him up. There was a predi
ction of rain, but Arnie said, “Yes, the weather looks a little bad but I think it’ll be all right.” Both of us got in Arnie’s plane and headed towards Gettysburg, but about halfway there the weather got terrible, with lots of rain and fog. To be honest, I was getting a little scared—not about Arnie’s flying, but because the weather really was pretty bad. Arnie called the airport we were to land at and they told him we could come in, so he had them call Eisenhower, but Ike told them, “I’m not going up in this—I don’t want to and Mamie wouldn’t let me anyway!” Well, you couldn’t argue with either one of them, so we just had to turn around and go back.

  At his home in Latrobe, Arnie has a good-sized basement, with pigeonholes all along the walls for the golf clubs he loves to fool with—and he’s got hundreds of them. He always liked to take clubs, put them in a vise, take them apart, and work them over. He put some of the strangest facings I’d ever seen on his clubs. Sometimes they’d be real straight and other times he’d have the face cut back almost even with the hosel. And he liked to bend iron clubs around some, experimenting. He never played with any of them that I know of but he loved to fool with them; it was sort of therapy for him. I’ve seen Arnold go to the practice tee with three drivers, trying to make up his mind which one to use, and he’d do the same thing on the putting green. That was so foreign to what most other players did, but it didn’t make much difference what he used. The way he played and scored, he always did great.

  Judy Rankin. Johnny Revolta was a fine player on the tour who became an excellent teacher and was pro at Evanston Country Club in Illinois for many years. A number of years ago, Johnny and I were discussing the golf swing and teaching and he said, “Have you ever seen Judy Torluemke?” That was Judy’s maiden name. I said, “Yes, I’ve seen her play but only from a distance.” He told me, “I want you to look at her grip and tell me if you ever want to teach anybody again.” The next chance I got, I did get a closer look and I was quite surprised, to say the least. Judy’s left hand position was so strong that the back of it almost faced up at the sky. Her right hand was quite good, but her left was far too strong for anyone to say she could ever be a good player. But her success—she won at least twenty-five tournaments—shows that if you practice and repeat the same motion you can overcome anything, because she played very well despite her unorthodox grip. Very probably she developed it to gain extra distance, because she was quite small. Judy also understands the game very well and does a good job today as an on-course commentator for ABC.

  Clifford Roberts. Cliff and I had become friends from the time I’d won the Masters in 1937. I had made a little money in ’38 and the first part of ’39, and I’d bought a few shares of five or ten different stocks. Cliff was one of the top officials in Reynolds Securities, so I asked him some questions about the stocks I’d bought, but he just kind of grunted and didn’t say much. Then one day I was at Augusta in ’39 and he called and said, “Byron, I want you to come down to my office at nine a.m.” When I arrived, he had just finished his breakfast and was drinking some tea. He said, “You asked me some questions about stocks, so I want to talk to you about it.” He added, “I like you, Byron, but you’re never going to make any money in golf. And if you keep fooling around buying stocks on your own, you’re going to lose what you do make.”

  Then he said, “I don’t handle any account under a million dollars, but because you’ve been good to us here at Augusta, I would like to handle your account, under the condition that I have power of attorney, so I can buy and sell what and when I want to. But I assure you I will handle your account very much like it was a bank. You won’t make an awful lot of money, but you will make a little. Also, whenever you have a thousand dollars or five thousand saved up, you send that to me and I’ll continue to invest it. I’ll also take the stocks you have now and sell them—I don’t know where you got those dogs anyway.” Financially, it was the best thing that ever happened to me.

  Cliff was from New York, was a great friend of Bob Jones, and was also the best executive that I ever heard of. He really knew how to get things done, but he talked very slowly and thought things out before he said anything at all. After Bob Jones became somewhat incapacitated because of his illness, Cliff did an excellent job of conducting the tournament and seeing to it that things gradually improved. One year, they had put out the gallery ropes—this was when they first started roping the golf course off like they do now—and the ropes were all white. I was out on the course with Cliff, and he looked around at the white ropes and said, “That doesn’t go in this place at all. The ropes should be green.” This was just before the tournament was to start, but in a couple of days, the ropes were changed to a twist of white and green. That was a big improvement; you could see them all right, but they didn’t stand out so much. Cliff was always alert to seeing that everything was done right.

  I also recall one time during the early years when admission to the Masters was very cheap—three dollars—and there had been a big discussion about it. Cliff wanted to raise the fee to five dollars, but the others on the tournament improvements committee said that was too much. Then Cliff said, “We went to New York recently and saw Beau Jack fight. [Beau Jack was a shoeshine boy in the locker room at Augusta who some of the members had backed financially to further his boxing career.] We had ringside seats to watch just two men in a prize fight. Here, you’ve got a field of the best golfers in the world, and the people are paying just three dollars while we paid fifty dollars for those ringside seats. That’s ridiculous.” They agreed with him then and raised the ticket price to five dollars.

  In those days the Masters was still small enough that everyone drove down Magnolia Lane to the clubhouse and then to the parking lots. One morning during that year’s tournament, I happened to walk out on to the porch and folks were coming in, just streaming down Magnolia Lane. Cliff was standing there, and he smiled at me as he watched the people driving by and said, “five dollars, five dollars, five dollars. . . .”

  Quite a few years later, Cliff spent a night at our ranch on his way back to Augusta from California. We had dinner and talked until late in the evening. He asked me quite a few questions about my ranch, what I’d paid for it and other things, and the next day I took him to the airport and didn’t think any more about it.

  Well, some time after that I got a call from Cliff at 10:30 at night. He was in Freeport in the Bahamas, so it was 11:30 where he was. He said, “I understand that Mr. Hogan is building a golf course about three miles from you.” I said, “Yes, that’s right.” And he said, “I understand they have 2500 acres and they paid $3500 an acre for it.” I replied, “That’s right, too, Cliff.” Then he said, “I remember you telling me you paid $82 an acre for your ranch in ’46.” And I said, “Your memory’s very good, Cliff.” Then there was a long pause. Finally, he said, “Remind me to treat you with more respect.”

  Barbara Romack. Back in the mid-fifties I was in Sacramento visiting my friend Tommy Lopresti who was pro at Hagen Oaks. He said, “Byron, I have a little fourteen-year-old towheaded girl out on the course playing with a bunch of boys. I’ve been trying to get her to change her grip a little and she won’t listen to me, but I think she’ll listen to you.” I said okay, so we got in his car, went out, and found her. She had on blue jeans rolled up above her knees and a shirt with the sleeves rolled up. She looked like a real tomboy, but she also had a good-looking swing. We watched her play a couple of holes and when she came in, Tommy and I talked to her about her grip. I liked Barbara right away, she had a very warm, pleasing personality, and fortunately she did listen to what I had to say. A few years went by and I didn’t see anything more of her until she turned pro, and then one day I saw an article in the paper where she’d won an award for being the best-dressed lady on the LPGA tour, so she apparently wasn’t such a tomboy anymore.

  One year, the LPGA began playing a tournament in Dallas at Glen Lakes Country Club and Barbara contacted me. I helped her a little then, and the next year I worked wit
h her quite a lot over at Brookhollow Golf Club in Dallas. After we’d practiced, she and I would play with some of my men friends. We’d play from the men’s tees, she’d shoot 75, and since she liked to bet a little bit, she’d always take some of their money. Then she’d turn around, go play in the ladies’ tournament from the white tees and shoot in the high 70’s or low 80’s. I’d say, “Barbara, how can you shoot 75 from the men’s tees at Brookhollow and then not do nearly as well when you play with the ladies?” She told me, “I learned to play with men most of the time, and it’s so different playing with women that I just haven’t gotten used to it. They talk so much it drives me crazy sometimes!” I still get a card from her every Christmas, and she’s doing a lot of teaching at Atlantis, Florida, so I’m sure she’s doing well and still dressing great.

  Gene Sarazen. When I first started on the tour, Gene was very active in golf and very outspoken. I had come on the tour with a new style of play where I used my feet and legs a lot. He said then, “Byron will never make a good player because he has too much movement in his knees and legs.” I never resented it because he hadn’t learned to play the way I did and no one else was doing it besides me, so I understood why he said it. I’ve played a lot of golf with Gene, and always respected his ability, since he’s one of only four players in the history of the game who have won the modern or professional “Grand Slam”—the Masters, the PGA, and the U.S. and British Opens.

  For quite some time after I first knew Gene, I never saw him wearing anything except knickers, which of course look quite good on him. But I began to wonder why he never wore slacks at all, and then one time I did see him in a suit and I figured it out. Gene is quite short, but somehow knickers make him look taller, while a suit seems to emphasize his small stature. But he was always plenty big enough to beat just about anybody when he wanted to.