And in those days, Giants strode the Earth…
We’d see them occasionally on TV, cherubic old men with perpetual smiles watching the game being played, knowing that those smiles were hiding the fact that there was nothing more they wanted than to be out there with a club in their hand and a ball on the ground. Their names were only expressed in whispers, and their accomplishments chanted like a mantra so that the new among us would know and learn, accompanied by grainy, aging black-and-white footage that didn’t fully survive the ravages of time and telecine. There was Sarazen, the man who made the most famous shot in the history of the game. Snead, who won more than anyone else (nowadays, of course, it’s expressed as “the man who won more than anyone else”, giving full recognition to the accomplishments of Kathy Whitworth, Mickey Wright, and the recently-deceased Patty Berg). The Giant Who Was Missing, Hogan, he of the swing that Thomas Aquinas could have used to prove the existence of God and who came back from near death to win the US Open. There was Hagen, the first of the Giants. Ouimet, who made the game accessible to the common man. The almost-legends of a father and son named Morris and men named Vardon and Anderson, who played the game in its birthplace and were never seen on these shores. And Jones, the blessed Jones, who never took money to play but who gave us a cathedral in northern Georgia to cherish.
Then there was the one who some said was the greatest of the Giants, an extant but reclusive Gogmagog. “Eleven in a row. Eighteen in one year.” And before that could sink in fully came the whammy: “He’s the only golfer with a tournament named after him.” It only seemed appropriate that George Gordon cede his historic name to the Giant, despite the completely opposite personalities they had. If Byron Nelson had been as extrovertive as that first Lord Byron, the history of the Truly Beautiful Game might have been vastly different.
Byron Nelson was an unusual fusion of the two separate breeds of men that Texas tends to produce. There’s the larger-than-life kind exemplified in golf by Lee Trevino, and there’s the aw-shucks mild-mannered sort exemplified in golf by Tom Kite. Nelson was the latter who ended up becoming the former, all while retaining his down-to-earth personality. He was generally embarassed that the yearly tournament outside Dallas bore his name, preferring to keep a low profile on his beloved ranch, but he approached his hosting duties there with all of the verve and sparkle he brought to his game. He coped with his success, never desiring to cash in on endorsements, only wanting what was good for golf.
He never thought himself above the game, not for one instant. Golf was bigger than him, bigger than any one player, and always would be. In light of his attitude, his death seems to be timed remarkably. It was like he had waited for Tigger to pass his victory total, just to see if the kid could do it, like he watched in the past as other Greatest Evers did so. Tigger had to prove to the Lord that he belonged, and when that was accomplished, maybe Byron saw that the prophecies were truly fulfilled and that he could rest in peace. Heck, he even waited for the Ryder Cup to end before moving on (and given the US team’s abysmal performance, jokes about the Ryder Cup killing Byron can be justified as black humor). He always respected the game, and in return, the game respected him.
Golf, more than any other sport, including baseball, is reliant on its Old Gray Line. The history of the game truly matters to everyone who plays, unlike those baseball players today who have no clue what the Negro Leagues were and who Jackie Robinson was. That feeling is passed on to the next generation by obligation. It’s part of what the game expects of us. Anywhere that a young man takes a club in his hands, there will be some grizzled old man near him who will speak to him. The old man will say, “Son, if you get good enough with that thing to start making money with it, and you start receiving invitations to tournaments, there are three that you do not turn down under any circumstance short of death. You always say yes to Bay Hill, the Memorial, and the Byron Nelson. You pay homage to those who came before. That’s what golf is about. If you don’t, you shame the game and you shame yourself.”
Even among those three tournaments, though, the Byron Nelson is special. It’s because of Byron Nelson the person that Arnold Palmer resisted putting his name on Bay Hill for so long, despite entreaties from MasterCard and the tour. It’s because of Nelson that Jack Nicklaus will never put his name on the Memorial. If anyone deserved a tournament named after them, the two felt, it was Lord Byron. And considering who those two guys are, that’s really saying something. And as proper, everyone came to Dallas to pay homage, year after year. The emblematic result was in 1970, as Jack won and Arnie took second as Lord Byron watched. Since the former Dallas Open was renamed for him in 1968, the list of winners reads like an exhibit at the World Golf Hall Of Fame. Four-time winner Tom Watson is a good place to start. Ray Floyd, Ben Crenshaw, Craig Stadler, Fred Couples, Payne Stewart, Nick Price, Ernie Els, Phil Mickleson, Vijay Singh, Sergio Garcia, and You Know Who have all won. Even the guys who finished second here and never won it would have beaten the US Ryder Cup team: Billy Casper, Curtis Strange, Lee Trevino, Mark Calcavecchia, Corey Pavin, Billy Mayfair, Davis Love, Scott Verplank…hold it, can you play on both teams? Nevertheless, they come to the Metroplex, and despite the loss of the host, they will still come, because it’s part of the obligation to the game. You keep the memory alive. And the name will be kept alive as well. If EDS or their successors as sponsors try to pull Nelson’s name off the tournament, the outcry from the participants will be so great, and the threat of boycott so real, that they’ll back down.
Byron Nelson never had the world’s greatest swing. It certainly wasn’t up to the standards of his good friend Ben Hogan. However, you can see echoes of Lord Byron every time you watch Jim Furyk take a shot, just like you see a little bit of Hogan in the metronome perfection of Ernie Els. The swing didn’t matter. It was what he did with it that counted, and his record speaks for itself. One of Nelson’s greatest regrets in his career, though, was that he didn’t win a British Open (and there may be something to the swing thing; after all, Furyk’s never done well at the Open, but Hogan and Els have a claret jug to their credit). That was more timing than anything else, though. He didn’t want to deal with sailing across the Atlantic in the days before transcontinental air travel (something that didn’t stop Walter Hagen and Bobby Jones, who ended up winning seven of the nine Opens between 1922 and 1930, and they led the way for Americans to win the next three after that, including a win by Gene Sarazen). And when he was at his peak, no one was playing golf in the British Isles. They were a little busy being bombed every night. By the time the war ended and flying became more commonplace, even across the Atlantic, Lord Byron’s peak had passed and it was Snead’s turn. But if the worst thing you can say about a guy’s career is that he never got a career Grand Slam because he hated boats, that’s stretching for something negative.
Texas has been a hotbed for golfers for a long time now. Ask every Texan on tour who their influences were, and the first two names out of everyone’s mouths will be “Ben Hogan” and “Byron Nelson”. That’s changing a bit thanks to the influx of new youth on tour, but every young Texan will cite Tom Kite or Lee Trevino as an influence, and their connection to Nelson is direct. He has been and will continue to be an influence and inspiration.
There was a time when the Giants left the land, and eventually, their successors were to emerge. A man from Pennsylvania with a killer smile and an army of acolytes. A California Mormon who could do nothing but win. A brash, bold kid from Ohio who could hit a ball farther and straighter than anyone, and who played a game the Giants didn’t know. A dark-haired dynamo from, of all places, South Africa who ended up becoming the game’s greatest ambassador and an inspiration to anyone not from a traditional golfing nation. A Houston hustler who brought a pinch of Tex-Mex spice to a white bread game. The All-American boy who ended up becoming the uncrowned King of Scotland. A firebrand Spaniard who sparked an interest in the game where there hadn’t been very much interest before. An impossibly blond Aussie who demonstrated that chicks, and everyone else, love the long ball. A steady German who seemingly found the secret to the aging process. A laconic Englishman who courted controversy as he racked up wins. A loveable loser who charmed the world while he destroyed himself and his game. A left-handed wildman who, for a long time, just couldn’t seem to win the big one. And, of course, a human apotheosis, golf as godhead. But no matter how hard they step on the ground, the footsteps of the giants cannot be erased, or even obscured. They remain as clear as when they made them.
The last of the Giants is gone. But his mark shall remain upon the fairways and greens forever.
