PEOPLE HAVE ASKED ME A LOT OF QUESTIONS ABOUT 1945. What happened? How did you come to play so well? How bad was the pressure? and so forth. There were several reasons for my good play that year. Mainly—and this seems unconnected to my golf, but it’s not—I had thought for quite some time that I wanted to have a ranch someday. It had been my dream for years, really. And since Louise and I had grown up and lived through the Depression, we didn’t want to borrow any money to buy a ranch. We wanted to pay cash for it. Actually, Louise didn’t really like the idea of a ranch at all, because I didn’t know very much about ranching, and she was afraid we couldn’t make a go of it. But it was my dream, and she knew I’d done well in everything else I’d tried, so she decided to go along with me as long as we didn’t have to borrow any money. That meant I had to make enough from my golf, and 1944 was the first year that I made enough to think I could make my dream of a ranch come true within a few years. All I had to do was continue to play well enough to keep winning or at least finishing in the top ten.
The second reason I did so well in ’45 had a lot to do with something I did in ’44, when I won nearly $38,000, played in twenty-one of twenty-three tournaments, won eight, and averaged 69.67 per round. During that year, I kept a record of my rounds and whether I played badly or what club I used, also whether I chipped badly, drove bad, putted terrible, or whatever. When I got through with the year, I went back over that book—which I don’t have anymore, though I wish I did—like a businessman taking inventory.
I found two things that were repeated too often during the year, and they were “poor chipping” and “careless shot.” The word “careless” was written in there quite a few times, which often was due to poor concentration. Or sometimes I would have a short putt and walk up to it and just kind of slap at it and miss it. So I made up my mind, like a New Year’s resolution, that for all of 1945 I would try very hard to avoid a careless shot.
One other thing I should mention. My game had gotten so good and so dependable that there were times when I actually would get bored playing. I’d hit it in the fairway, on the green, make birdie or par, and go to the next hole. The press even said it was monotonous to watch me. I’d tell them, “It may be monotonous, but I sure eat regular.” But having the extra incentive of buying a ranch one day made things a lot more interesting. Each drive, each iron, each chip, each putt was aimed at the goal of getting that ranch. And each win meant another cow, another acre, another ten acres, another part of the down payment.
Finally, I had one other incentive. I wanted to establish some records that would stand for a long time. I wanted to have the lowest scoring average—lower than when I’d won the Vardon Trophy in ’39, when it was 71.02. And though I’d won eight tournaments in ’44, I knew that the way some of these boys played, that number wouldn’t stand up very long. I also wanted the record for the lowest score for an entire tournament. At that time, the record was 264, held by Craig Wood and a few others. I also wanted to be the leading money winner again. So you see, I had a whole collection of goals I wanted to reach, and every good shot I hit supported all of them. I guess I was fortunate to have so many goals, because to focus on just one, like a tournament scoring record, probably wouldn’t have worked for me. But the ranch was my number-one, overriding dream, and that was what kept me going even in tournaments where I didn’t play particularly well or finish where I wanted to.
Actually, I had played so well in ’44 that it gave a great boost to my confidence, and it would have been unusual for me not to have done the same the next year. So I started off very positively in ’45. In January I was second at the L.A. Open by one shot; that just gave me more determination to try and win it next year. At the start of the tournament, Bing Crosby—who by now I considered a good friend—was there on the first tee. I asked him, “You going to go with me some?” And he said, “I’m going to follow you till I feel you’ve made a bad shot.” He was with me the whole first round when I shot 71, which was par, and he showed up again on the first tee the next day. On the 11th hole, I hit a drive and a 6-iron to the green, but pushed the ball to the right, and it landed short in the bunker. I happened to look around then and saw Bing leaving, waving his hand and saying, “I’ll be seeing you!”
The next week I won the Phoenix Open by two, then was second—again by one shot—at both the Tucson and Texas Opens. My second win of the year was by four shots in the Corpus Christi Open in early February, where I also tied the low tournament scoring record of 264. While it was nice to have played so well and tied Craig and the others, I couldn’t help but feel it would be even nicer to set a new record, so that remained one of my goals. Then I won my third tournament of ’45 the next week at the New Orleans Open, this time by five shots in an 18-hole playoff with Harold McSpaden. Actually, Jug had a chance to beat me. In the last round, he had to birdie the 18th to win, but he hit a bad drive and we ended up tied. By the way, a lot of people don’t know this, but McSpaden set a record that year himself—he finished second thirteen times.
I dropped back to second the next week, losing at Gulfport, Mississippi, by one shot in a sudden death playoff—one of the few times sudden death had been used on the tour at that point. I had tied with Sam Snead, who was just back on the tour. (Both he and Ben Hogan were released from the military early in the year and played quite a few tournaments. Hogan played in at least eighteen, and Snead twenty-six.) The playoff was to begin on the first hole, which had a creek running across the fairway at just about driver range. All through the tournament, we’d all been laying up in front of the creek with 3-woods. Well, I didn’t realize that my adrenalin was up, and I hit that 3-wood absolutely perfect and it rolled into the creek. When Snead saw my ball go in, he put his 3-wood back in his bag and laid up with a 1-iron. I made bogey to his par and that was that.
I slacked off a little more the next week at Pensacola, finishing second to Snead by seven shots, though I played pretty well, shooting 69-69-71-65. Then at Jacksonville I played just plain terrible—for me—and tied for sixth, nine shots back, mostly because of a bad third round of 72, which was par there. Well, that must have gotten me a little steamed up, because it was the next week that I got started on what everyone today calls my streak, though of course I didn’t have any idea at the time it was going to happen or keep my name alive in golf for so long.
It began with the Miami International Four-Ball the second week of March. I was paired with McSpaden again in what had never been a good tournament for either one of us. But it must have been our turn, because we finally did win. We beat Willie Klein and Neil Christman 6 and 5, Hogan and Ed Dudley 4 and 3, Henry Picard and Johnny Revolta 3 and 2. Then to finish it off, we walloped Sammy Byrd and Denny Shute 8 and 6. Harold and I were 21 up in our four matches, so we weren’t exactly squeaking by.
Next was the Charlotte Open at Myers Park a week later. Snead and I had tied after 72 holes. This time it meant an 18-hole playoff, and on the 18th hole of that playoff, a long par 3, Sam was leading me one stroke. He put a 1-iron just on the front edge of the green, which was two-tiered and quite long. So he was a long way from the hole. Now, I was getting a little tired of having Sam beat me, and I thought, “There’s a chance he just might three-putt from there.” So I reversed what had happened at Gulfport. I changed from a 1-iron to a 3-wood and knocked the ball onto the upper level of the green about twenty feet from the hole. Sure enough, Sam three-putted and I parred, so we were tied and went into another 18-hole playoff the next day. This time I really concentrated and played better than Sam, shooting a 69 to his 73; I knocked in a thirty-foot putt for a birdie 2 on the final hole. That gave me a lot of confidence and made me feel my game was in tiptop shape. I was driving very well and putting even better than I had the year before. From there on, I just kept going and playing well and it seemed everything was going my way.
Of course, it wasn’t going as well for some of the other players, and it was common knowledge that some of them were unhappy that McSpaden and I were winning so many of the tournaments and so much money. During the Charlotte Open, in fact, Willie Goggin, one of the older pros, suggested that the PGA redistribute prize money in the tournaments so that there would be more money available for players who finished farther down the list. I could see his point, but I have to admit I sort of liked things the way they were.
The next tournament was the Greensboro Open, which the press would one day call “Snead’s Alley,” after he won it a record eight times. Sam had a wonderful following, and there were times that if it looked as if his ball was going over the green, the gallery would just stand there and let it drop right in the middle of them, which often made the ball end up closer—though sometimes his lie might not be as good where the grass was all trampled. However, I felt real good that week, and managed to win by eight shots to go three in a row. That particular year the tournament was played completely at Starmount, which was nice for the players, because the other course, Sedgefield, was clear across town, so it saved us all a lot of driving.
The following week we were at the Durham Open playing the Hope Valley course, which was a very good one. We played two rounds the last day, and the 18th hole was a slightly uphill par 3 of about 210 yards. In the morning round, I used a 1-iron, put the ball four feet from the pin, and made birdie. In the afternoon, I started out one shot behind but shot 65 to win by 5. Toney Penna finished five strokes behind me at 270. The icing on the cake was when I reached 18, got out my 1-iron and made another birdie.
Talking about that tournament reminds me that in 1990, the 45th anniversary of my streak, I was greatly honored by a party at Durham. My good friend Buddy Langley, then head of GTE Southwest, got together with the folks at Hope Valley, who in turn contacted the other nine clubs still in existence (Tam O’Shanter was gone, unfortunately—it had been sold and made into a development), and invited them all to come and celebrate. They had a beautiful plaque made to commemorate the event and installed it at the 18th tee. There was a little scramble tournament and a party that night, and everyone had a very pleasant day. I’m always amazed that people think so much even today of what I did so long ago. I guess it’s a good thing they do, or I might think I dreamed it all up.
By now, having won four tournaments in a row and tying the record set by Johnny Farrell, I of course wanted to break that record, too. My concentration had gotten so good that I was in sort of a trance much of the time. That’s about the only way I can really explain it. When I did hit a bad shot, I never thought anything about it, just went ahead and played the next one and it never bothered me or upset my ability to focus. I wasn’t hooking at all, just had a good, normal flight to the ball that landed it softly on the greens. I was swinging just enough from the inside, and the ball flew straight until its velocity slowed to a certain point and it would fall slightly to the left, though I could go right if I needed to.
Next in line was Atlanta, a par-69 course, where I finally broke the scoring record with a 263. But I could have done better. The last hole was a long par 3, and I put my tee shot on the green, tried too hard to make birdie, and three-putted. That’s a funny thing about golf—even when we play well, we know there are shots we missed. I remember that even Al Geiberger, when he shot his 59, said he missed a couple of short putts or he would have had a 57. Still, I had also broken the record of four consecutive wins and I won pretty decisively—by nine shots—so I didn’t feel like I should complain very much.
After I’d won the fifth tournament in a row, someone from the company that made Wheaties approached me about doing an ad for their cereal, which was of course known as the “Breakfast of Champions.” I never had an agent so I just talked to them myself and they put my picture and some statistics about me on the box and paid me $200 plus a case of Wheaties a month for six months. I had to give most of the cereal away; because although I liked Wheaties fine, you can only eat so much of it. I don’t know if any of those boxes are still around—I sure don’t have any, and back then, people didn’t collect or save such things like they do now. Even during my streak, for instance, I signed very few autographs, though you might find that hard to believe.
To add a little to my story, a few years back I went to WFAA’s studio in Dallas to talk with Bryant Gumbel on the morning news show. We chatted a bit about my record and the Nelson Classic, then Bryant asked if I had done any commercials in those days. I told him about the Wheaties ad and he said, “Pete Rose just signed a contract with Wheaties for $800,000.” Well, we both had a good laugh. But considering where Pete Rose is today, I think I was better off with my $200.
But after Atlanta in early April, pressure from the press and fans was starting to build. Up to that point, there had been only a couple of other players who had won four in a row, so when I passed four, the writers and fans started saying, “He’s got four, can he make it five?”, then “He’s got five, can he make it six?” One way I dealt with the pressure was to simply not play practice rounds, which kept me away from the press and the fans to some extent. That sounds foolish, but many times I played my best golf when I hadn’t even seen the course, just went out and played. I was blessed with wonderful sight for many years and was an excellent judge of distance, which was a great help on an unfamiliar course. I’d just look down the middle of the fairway and try to hit it there, and I wasn’t worried about getting into trouble because I didn’t know where the trouble was. But by this time, too, I was familiar with most of the courses on the tour anyway.
Quite often, I’d play an exhibition at another town on the way to where the next tournament was and make $200–$300 for one round of golf, which was nice and helped a lot. That kept my game going well, besides helping me get closer to my goal of buying a ranch one day. That was another reason why I might not get to some tournaments until it was time to actually start playing.
There was a two-month break on the tour at this time—I have no idea why, just that no one was holding a tournament. So Louise and I went back home, worked on my parents’ farm in Denton some, and visited her folks in Texarkana. That’s where I practiced, hitting a bucket of balls every day or so. I wasn’t working on anything in particular, just keeping my muscles limbered up.
I also did a couple of exhibitions during this time, and even played in something called a “Challenge Match” against Snead. There was a lot of talk going around then because Sam and I were both playing so well. Some folks thought Sam was better, some thought I was, so they had this match to supposedly decide the thing once and for all. It was in Upper Montclair, New Jersey, and it was a 36-hole match, with the first 18 being medal play and the second 18 match play. Sam shot 69 and I had 70 the first day, but the second day I beat him 4 and 3, so they figured I won.
But back to the streak. Next, in June, came the Montreal Open at Islesmere Golf Club in Montreal, where I finished 20 under par and won by 10 shots. Jug came in second with 278. I made just one bogey the entire tournament, on the par-3 14th hole in the last round, when I hit a 1-iron through the green and took three to get down. At that party in Durham in 1990, the nice folks from Islesmere gave me a beautiful silver tray that was engraved, “The greatest display of sub-par golf ever witnessed on a Canadian course.” That made me feel pretty good, even forty-five years later.
Now I had won six in a row, and I was enjoying myself despite the pressure. The next week we were playing in the Philadelphia Inquirer Invitational. McSpaden lived there, and Louise and I were staying with him and Eva. We were both playing well, but starting the last round, McSpaden was leading by two shots. At that time, remember, they always didn’t pair according to who was leading going into the last round. They tried to spread the gallery out among the players. That was why very often the leader might be playing a couple of groups or more ahead of the ones going off last. That was true in this case, because McSpaden was leading the tournament starting the fourth round, but was several groups ahead of me.
Now, Leo Diegel was a club pro who also lived in Philadelphia, and he had always liked me, called me “Kid,” in fact. He came out to see how I was doing that afternoon, and I was getting ready to drive on 13. He said, “How you doin’, kid?” And I said, “Well, I’ve got par in for 68.” And he said, “That’s not good enough.” I said, “Why isn’t it good enough?” He replied, “McSpaden just shot 66.” He was leading me two shots before we started, so standing there on the tee I said, “That means I have to birdie nearly every hole but one to beat him.” He laughed, and I did too, not thinking very much about it.
But as it happened, I did birdie all but one hole on the way in, shot 63, and beat Jug by two. On the last hole, I’ll never forget it, I hit a driver and 6-iron and knocked the ball one foot from the hole, made my birdie, and Jug was right there watching me. He was so mad at me he called me every dirty name you can think of. When he accepted his check, he said, “You not only beat my brains out, but you eat all my food, too!” Still, he’d beat me in that playoff in ’44 at Phoenix, so I couldn’t really understand what he was so upset about. That 63 was the most unusual thing I did that whole year—knowing I had to birdie the last five holes to win, and being fortunate enough to be able to do it.
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.
One thing that helped her feel better happened late that fall. The city of Denton wanted to honor us for all the good publicity we had brought to Texas and especially Denton, so they surprised us one day by presenting us with a pair of beautiful horses on the courthouse steps. They were half Tennesee Walkers, so they made good riding horses for our 54-acre place there in Denton and eventually for the ranch in Roanoke. But Louise definitely got the better part of the deal. Her horse, Linda, was not only beautifully gaited; she had a wonderful disposition. You could do just about anything with her. My horse, Rex, a gelding, never was anything like Linda; he was quite fractious at times and we eventually had to sell him. But Linda was a joy to us for a long time, and it was certainly a wonderful honor from the folks in Denton.
It was now December. I had begun my career with the goal of winning every important tournament in the United States at least once. I already had the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA, the North and South, the Western, and the Tam O’Shanter. The only one left was the L.A. Open, which once again had eluded me in 1945. I ended the year feeling very satisfied in some respects, but I still had at least one goal left in golf—and still had to save up enough money to buy that ranch I’d been dreaming of.
Speaking of money for the ranch. . . . in 1945, I made more than I ever had before, but because so much of it was in war bonds, it’s been reported in the press for years and years that I won much more than it actually turned out to be. You see, Fred Corcoran, who was running the tour at the time, wanted golf to do as much as possible toward the war effort, and we were all glad to help. So he got the various tournament committees to have the prize money in war bonds. In case anyone doesn’t know, they were similar to our savings bonds and CD’s today. You bought, say, a $1000 bond for $750, and if you held on to it for ten years, it would actually be worth $1000. Most of the tournaments paid totally in war bonds, a few paid in a combination of cash and bonds, and once in a while one would pay totally in cash.
Well, none of us were making the kind of money where we could hold on to those bonds for ten years, so we cashed them in immediately, which meant at about 75% of their face value. When you look at the official records and see where I won $1,333.33, for instance, that meant it was actually $1000 in cash. According to the press, I won somewhere between $60,000 and $66,000 in ’45, but according to my black book where I kept records of each tournament played and what I really won, my winnings were closer to $47,600. In fact, my IRS records for that year show that I made $52,511.32 from golf, but that includes such things as exhibitions and pro-ams and sometimes a portion of the gate receipts, which once in a while you would get if you were in a playoff. It’s very confusing for anyone trying to get all those figures to make sense, because the PGA didn’t keep the best records then, and sometimes even the press reported things inaccurately. But that’s about the best I can do at straightening it out as far as my own golf winnings are concerned. I know for sure that Louise and I didn’t hold on to any of those war bonds—we couldn’t afford that luxury!