How I Played the Game

by Byron Nelson

  Everyone knows about Sarazen’s double eagle at Augusta in 1935, but very few people really saw it happen. Today Gene says he’s been told by at least 25,000 people that they saw it, but we both know there were only about 5000 people total in the gallery that day and not all of them were following him, because Craig Wood was leading and was in the clubhouse. However, I was one of the few who did get to see Gene’s shot. It was my first Masters ever, and I was playing 17 while Gene was on 15 and the two fairways ran parallel to each other. I had driven to the right and had to wait to hit my second shot till Gene hit his and his gallery moved out of the way. Naturally I watched Gene’s shot, because I was excited to have the opportunity to see him play, so I did actually see his ball go in the hole. The unfortunate thing was that Craig Wood thought he had it won, because he was three shots ahead of Gene. But after the fifteenth hole Gene parred in and tied him, and then won the playoff.

  Gene, Sam Snead, and I were invited to be the honorary starters for the Masters a few years ago. We were going along all right the first few holes, though Snead had mentioned his back was bothering him some on the first tee. I really thought he was trying to hit the ball too hard, and then he really flinched on his tee shot at the fourth hole. Finally, when he hit his drive on 5, his back went out completely and he could hardly move. He said, “I’ve got to quit,” got in the cart, and went back to the clubhouse. So Gene and I finished the fifth hole and were walking to the sixth tee when Gene said, “We’re doing pretty well, Byron. We’ve played five holes and only had one casualty.”

  This past spring, 1992, we were on the first tee again. Sam had had an automobile accident and hurt his shoulder so he couldn’t play, and I hadn’t played in two years because of my hip surgery. But Gene, who’s ninety, was in great shape. He warned us, “I’m only going to hit one shot,” stepped up and hit it absolutely perfect 180 yards straight down the center. He turned to us and said, “That’s the best drive I’ve hit this year!”

  Chris Schenkel. Playing golf with Chris was always fun. He never once worked on his game, but had a good grip and was the fastest golfer I ever played with, faster even than Chi Chi Rodriguez, and just about that fat, too. Chris would tee it up and hit it almost before you could get out of his way. If he’d ever had time to work on it, he would have made a pretty good player. He had good coordination, but because he didn’t work on it, he’d hit that old banana ball a lot. Of all the friends I made in golf, Chris is the closest. He likes me a lot and has always done and said so many nice things it almost embarrasses me, but I love it.

  In 1984, Abilene Christian University started a golf endowment fund in my and Louise’s name. They had a huge party at the Anatole in Dallas with over 1200 people, and Chris was the master of ceremonies. I’ll never forget as long as I live when he said, “I have one last, heartfelt wish, and that is this: If the Lord would grant me another brother, I’d want him to be you.” Thank you, Chris.

  Randolph Scott. Besides being one of my favorite actors, Randy Scott loved golf and was a beautiful player with a wonderful putting stroke. One year we played in the Pro-Am at Thunderbird in Palm Springs before it became the Bob Hope tournament, and Randy shot the easiest 68 you could imagine. Randy was always so nice and conducted himself so well; in fact, he was one of the few actors ever allowed to be a member of the Los Angeles Country Club. One day I was playing there on the south course with Randy, Lee Davis, and my good friend J.K. Wadley, and I shot 61—a course record at the time. I must have learned something from watching Randy putt, because I did putt very well that day.

  Lefty Stackhouse. Lefty was in some ways the most unusual golfer that I ever knew. He had an almost uncontrollable temper when he played golf, and the peculiar thing was that he actually was a good player. But as soon as he’d miss a shot or do something he considered stupid, he’d get so mad that he’d actually do himself bodily harm. I was playing with him in the Odessa Pro-Am one year, and Lefty’s partner was Billy Erfurth, the Texas State Amateur Champion. We were playing best-ball and on the eighth hole, Lefty was just short of the green, while Billy was nicely on. Lefty decided to pick his ball up and let Billy play the hole, but Billy three-putted. Then Lefty realized that if he’d continued to play, he could have chipped close and made par. He was so mad he hit himself with his fist on the side of his cheek, which bled considerably; he had to go in and get bandaged up. There were many stories like that and worse about Lefty, and it was a shame because he really was a good player.

  I always wondered what caused him to do this, but after he quit trying to play golf on the tour or compete in any kind of tournament, he became very quiet and good-natured. He went on to do more work for the juniors in his area down around Seguin, Texas, than anyone I ever heard of. Obviously the reason he got so mad was that competition put so much stress on him, because he never did it after he quit playing in tournaments.

  Payne Stewart. One of my favorite golfers because he looks so great in the outfits he wears, and I think that’s really good for the game. I also like Payne because of the way he came back and won my tournament after losing in a playoff several years before that. A few years ago, I played with Payne, D.A. Weibring, and Bruce Lietzke in Quincy, Illinois. It was a fun exhibition and I was holding my own all right, which was kind of a surprise. On the last hole, Payne was twenty feet away and I was fifteen. He nonchalantly knocked his in for birdie, then smiled at me and said, “That just made yours longer, Byron.” As luck would have it, I made mine right on top of his, so we both got a kick out of that.

  Ed Sullivan. Ed loved to play golf but he was extremely slow, slower than Roone Arledge ever thought of being. He was bad about taking several practice swings, getting over the ball, then moving away from it and starting over. What’s more, he was always talking; he never acted like he was thinking about golf at all. Everybody playing with him would say, “Come on, Ed, it’s your turn,” but he never seemed to get much better. He was such a good guy, though, that you couldn’t help but like him.

  Ken Venturi. One of the reasons Kenny’s short game is so good is his bunker play, and he and I both learned that from Eddie Lowery. We were at Palm Springs, where I was working with Kenny one time, and back of Eddie’s house was a green and a sand bunker which he and three neighbors had paid to have built there. Guess they played a little golf, too. Anyway, one evening after dinner Eddie, who was about an 8-handicapper, challenged us, “I’ll play your best ball out of the bunker, twenty-five cents a shot.” We did this three evenings in a row and lost a lot of quarters, but from then on we both became excellent bunker players, thanks to Eddie. He really was phenomenal out of the sand, and when we asked him how he got so good at it he said, “I had to learn how to play out of bunkers because I used to be in so many of them.”

  Johnny Weissmuller. Johnny was almost as much fun on a golf course as he was in his Tarzan movies, because he was always getting in trouble. Johnny could hit the ball a long ways, but a lot of times it went the wrong direction. When he hit a good one, though, he’d do his Tarzan yell and you could hear it all across the golf course. The first time I played with him was in the 1938 Crosby at Rancho Santa Fe; it was a big thrill for me after seeing him in the movies. Also, in case I haven’t mentioned it already, Johnny joined Bing and Bob and me on many of those Red Cross and war bond exhibitions during the war. It was a lot of hard travel and hard work, but we had a great time doing it together.

  Lawrence Welk. The most amazing thing about playing golf with Lawrence Welk was that he never started playing golf till he was sixty-two, but still did remarkably well for having started that late in life. You remember that when leading his orchestra he’d always go “a-one and a-two,” and he did the same thing on the golf course. He’d take one quick little practice swing, then another quick little practice swing, and then he’d hit, using the same rhythm as he did in his music. Years ago, we played a charity tournament in Nashville, Tennessee. It was me, Lawrence, and Minnie Pearl, and it was really fun. Minnie played a pre
tty fair game, but what I liked was that she was just as funny on the golf course as she is on stage. My brother Charles was living in Nashville then and came out to watch us play. Lawrence really got a kick out of meeting him and was impressed enough by his voice to invite Charles on his show to sing a little while after that. Another time I played with Lawrence at Bel Air in Los Angeles, along with the comedy team Shipstad and Johnson, and you couldn’t hardly play golf for laughing. They didn’t care whether they had a four or an eight on a hole, and it was mostly somewhere in between.

  Kathy Whitworth. The first time I saw Kathy play was when I was working for ABC. I was impressed first of all by the fact that all of her fundamentals were excellent—grip, stance, swing, the way she stayed down to the ball, everything. You couldn’t win eighty-eight tournaments as she has without having all those things right. The second thing that impresses me about Kathy, though, is that she has always been a real lady. I’ve never heard anyone say a single thing against her. She now lives two miles east of me at Trophy Club, Texas, and I see her at the local grocery store or the post office every now and then. It’s always good to see her and realize what she has done for women’s golf.

  Craig Wood. Craig, who by the way was pro at Winged Foot when he played on the tour, was called the “Blond Bomber.” He was a very natty dresser, and always drove a fancy car, but he did a lot more than just look good. I played with and against Craig in many tournaments, and I always knew that if I were to beat him I really had to play my absolute best. Because of the ’35 Masters and the ’39 Open, it seemed for a while that something unlucky always happened to him, kind of like Greg Norman today. But in 1941 Craig won both the Masters and the U.S. Open at Colonial in Fort Worth, so it apparently didn’t bother him too much.

  People used to feel sorry for Craig because of what happened to him in the ’35 Masters. He was already in the clubhouse and they had taken him into the so-called “Champion’s Room” with Gene Sarazen and I and a few others still out on the course. Sarazen was the closest to Craig, but he was still three shots back and no one thought there was any chance he could catch up, when he made that wonderful double eagle on the fifteenth hole. Sarazen went three under right there and tied Craig, then beat him in the playoff the next day. But Craig never grumbled. Then in the ’39 U.S. Open, when I had that eagle two on the fourth hole, he just said to me, “That was a fine shot, Byron,” and kept on playing his best, trying to win. He was a fine player and a gentleman, and it was a shame he died at a relatively young age.

  Mickey Wright. Mickey was one of the best ball strikers and had the best golf swing of anyone I ever saw, man or woman. She played so well and won so often she got kind of bored with it and left the tour early. Besides, just like on the men’s tour when I quit, the ladies weren’t making much money in the sixties, so Mickey decided to do something else and became a stockbroker.

  When Chris and I were broadcasting the Women’s Open at Pensacola, I rode out to the course with Mickey and some other ladies during one of the practice rounds. I was going out to study the course for the broadcast, and during the ride I asked Mickey how she was playing. She said, “Byron, I’m playing terrible.” I said, “I can’t believe that, Mickey,” and she said, “How much time do you have?” So I watched her play the first nine, and she hit it dead solid, the middle of every fairway and every green except for the last hole, when she pushed her 4-iron about four feet to the right of the green and almost chipped it in. When she finished I went over to her and said, “Yes, Mickey, I see how badly you’re playing.” She smiled then and protested, “But I only made one birdie, Byron!” That’s how much of a perfectionist she was.

  One time, during the ladies’ tournament at Glen Lakes in Dallas, Mickey arranged an exhibition with her coach Earl Stewart, Marilynn Smith, and me, playing an 18-hole match for charity. The ladies played from their tees and Earl and I from the men’s, and Mickey put her ball inside of Earl and me all day long. Marilynn played very well also, but fortunately I made a couple of putts at the end and we eked it out, two up. It was a close thing, and I said to Earl when we were done, “Earl, don’t you ever get me in a trap like this again!”

  Babe Zaharias. In Texas we call someone like Babe Zaharias “a piece of work,” but as brash as she could be at times, she sure did have the talent to back it up. I first heard about her when she was fourteen and was running in a track-and-field event in Fort Worth. Babe ran in all the girls’ events and won every one, then started competing in the boys’ events, but the officials wouldn’t allow it. If they had, I’m sure she would have won at least a few of those events too, because she was one of the greatest athletes the world has ever known.

  When she took up golf, people said, “This is one game the Babe won’t be so good at.” But they didn’t know her. She practiced till her hands bled and goodness alive, she could play—and she had such perfect balance. In the late thirties I saw her play against Leonard Dotson at St. Augustine, Florida. They had a bet going and set up this kind of crazy match where they had to play each shot standing on just one foot. Try it sometime. Anyway, Babe shot 75 and won easily, and if that doesn’t prove something, I don’t know what does.

  ELEVEN

  Today

  AS I SAID AT THE BEGINNING OF THIS BOOK, I AM A blessed man. I was born into a loving family, married a wonderful woman, and was very fortunate to do all I did in golf—playing, teaching, broadcasting, and even helping build golf courses. You would think that as I got older my life would have slowed down, but it seemed to get still busier. By the time I turned seventy, I was still running a few cattle on the ranch, being involved in my own tournament, playing in an occasional charity or celebrity event around the country, giving clinics, traveling to the majors and a few other tournaments, and even doing a little woodworking.

  Louise was happy, too. She’d continued to fix up our home till she’d gotten it about where she wanted it, and finally was getting to spend a lot of time with her family, who by now all lived in Fort Worth. We weren’t doing a lot of traveling, but most of what we did do we did together, and we enjoyed it. One of our favorite trips always was to the Masters, and on April 1, 1983, that was where we were planning to go next.

  It was Good Friday; we were to leave for Augusta the following Monday. Louise had already laid out all the clothes we would need, and we were both looking forward to seeing our many friends there. A month before, Louise had been feeling a little tired and had a checkup, but the doctors hadn’t found anything, and for all the past week she’d been feeling fine. Late that afternoon, both of us were doing chores and running errands so we’d be ready for our trip. Louise had gone to the post office in town just a mile away, and I was working at my desk. About the time I expected her back, something made me look out the window, and that’s when I saw Louise’s car in the ditch in the front of our house. The wind was blowing very hard that day, as much as sixty miles per hour, and at first I thought maybe the wind had blown her car off the road. I jumped up and ran out the door—it seemed like my feet only hit the ground twice getting to her. The car was kind of sideways up against the fence, and Louise’s door was still closed when I came up. I yanked the door open and said, “What’s wrong, honey?” But as soon as I saw her face I knew something was very wrong. She never moved or looked at me. The only thing moving was her left foot and left hand, and I knew she’d had a stroke. Apparently, it had happened just as she started to turn into the driveway. I yelled next door to my sister and brother-in-law to call an ambulance, then went with her to the hospital and stayed that night.

  Our family physician, Dr. Jim Murphy, called in a neurosurgeon right away, and the two of them told me Louise’s condition was very serious and they might have to operate. At first they thought she’d had an aneurysm, but after they’d taken X-rays, they determined it was a very serious stroke and she would probably not live more than two weeks. Well, Louise did live, but after a few weeks the doctors said she’d probably never know me or anything else. She
continued to improve, though, and then they told me, “She’ll know you, Byron, but her disposition will change—she’ll never be like she was.” By this time, Louise had survived a month and four days, and they were amazed, because the damage to the left side of her brain was so severe. Once it was clear she was going to live, they moved her to the rehabilitation unit of Harris Hospital, which was the best rehab area for stroke victims in Fort Worth, and she was there four months. During all that time and throughout her therapy, she never was able to speak again, except to say, over and over, “Home, home, home.” The head of the unit, Dr. Bickel, finally told me they’d keep her another six weeks and after that they wouldn’t be able to help her any more.

  When it was time for Louise to come home, her primary nurse, Linda Buchanan, and Dr. Bickel, head of the rehab unit, came to our house and determined what changes I would need to make to take care of Louise properly. We had to have ramps built so her wheelchair could navigate the several floor levels we had, we made our master bedroom into a room just for Louise, complete with a hospital bed and so forth, and I hired two nurses who worked alternating week-long 24-hour shifts. Fortunately, we had just added a wonderful garden room to our home the year before, and it was there that my beautiful Louise spent most of her time after she came home from the hospital.

  When she did come home, it was very hard for her to adjust to the realization that she was always going to be paralyzed and unable to talk. She had loved to cook so much and was such a good cook, but she never went back into her kitchen again, and one day, shortly after I brought her home, I found her crying and pushing her wheelchair in circles all around our dining room table. She did it for the longest time, until she just plain wore herself out. After that, she gradually got to where she accepted things as they were, but it was so sad to see her that way.