D.A. Weibring
On Tuesday Byron Nelson passed away at age 94. After I heard the report I called one of my former partners who had talked with Peggy Nelson. She said she had run an errand and returned home to find Byron on the back porch. Hopefully, he passed very peacefully.
A lot has been reported over the years about Byron Nelson's career and how he became such a great player, but that was never his goal. He simply wanted to make enough money to buy a ranch and have a few cattle. It would be a place he could settle in at the ripe old age of 34 when he retired from competitive golf. Although he played a few exhibitions after his retirement, he always returned to that ranch in Roanoke, his home for sixty years, the place where he passed away on Tuesday.
Everyone involved in golf has a Byron Nelson story, and every story ended with how humble he was and how generous he was with his time. He was a man of very strong faith and was incredibly thoughtful. Everyone talks about what a gentleman he was, but he was also a gentle man that reached out to everyone he met.
My experience with Byron Nelson started in 1978 when I moved to the Dallas area. I went to the Byron Nelson Championship tournament just introducing myself. They were very kind and welcomed me to the area. The next year, I was out of the top 60 and didn't automatically qualify for the Tournament, so I called up to get a tee time for the Monday qualifying round. That's when I was told I'd been given a sponsor's exemption. They had taken care of all the former champions and past supporters of the event and had a spot left over and gave it to a young guy who had just moved into the area. I'll never forget it.
Well, in turn I decided to get involved with the tournament. The more I learned about how Byron Nelson and the Salesmanship Club's charitable efforts supported troubled kids the more I wanted to be a part of that team. I offered to put on a junior clinic. I figured that was something I knew how to do. We established a junior day and invited youngsters to learn about the game.
My friend Peter Jacobsen was there on the first day, as was former Nelson Champion Lanny Watkins who was living in Dallas. Curtis Strange also joined us that first day as well. As the clinic got started, I looked up in the bleachers and saw the hat. There he was; Byron Nelson had walked up and was sitting in the bleachers with all the kids, and really seemed to be enjoying what we were doing. He came up later and thanked us, and that's when I really started to get to know him.
I got to know Mr. Nelson better over the next couple of years and finally got the courage to ask him if he would maybe watch my golf swing and give me a tip or two, and that's when I really saw the kind, thoughtful, encouraging man he was. He met me one morning, sat me down, and spent over an hour encouraging me. I needed to make a little adjustment here and there, but he reassured me that my golf game was in good shape and my fundamentals were sound. Then we went down to the practice tee and he sat behind me for almost an hour. I hit balls and worked on a couple of very small things, but they were so fundamentally sound and so simple; that was the true genius of Byron Nelson, one of the best swingers of a golf club ever. Byron Nelson invented the modern golf swing. When a company goes out and builds a mechanical golf device, and they shape it to the man's swing, as they did Byron Nelson's, then hire him to test their equipment, that's a true testimony.
Byron Nelson was already a legend when he sat there hour after hour and encouraged me. We became better friends and he used to call me when Tom Watson was coming into town; he had done the same thing for Tom back in 1974.
Later we became even better friends. One day he called me up; he was with a couple of gentlemen, Steve Barley and Don Armstrong, who were both former superintendents at Colonial. Don was current superintendent and Steve had moved over to the new Las Colinas TPC. He thought we might get together with my partner Sam Swanson and form a company. That was 20 years ago and Byron Nelson was one of our original investors. Obviously, he really made an impact on my life. But just getting to know him and observing the way he encouraged people, it was very unique, and very inspiring.
I've been fortunate enough to play on the PGA Tour 26 years and now on the Champions Tour for three years. When I look at the model for the success of the PGA Tour I don't have to look any further than Byron Nelson and the Salesmanship Club of Dallas. It was incredible the way they pulled together their energies to raise millions of dollars and created a better product every year. And, without question, he was the person that all professional golfers should look towards - for the great champion he was, the competitor, but more importantly for the person he was. No one gave more back to the game than Byron Nelson.
Byron Nelson, through The Byron Nelson Championship, raised more than $94 million for charity, ten percent of the total money raised in the history of the PGA. It is the number one charity event on the PGA Tour, raising more than the number two and three events combined. Like Byron Nelson himself, The Byron Nelson Championship is the charity model that all other tournaments strive for.
Some old timers used to think that young players had to learn it on their own, but I always thought that their way was the better way, and so did Byron Nelson. He was a man of the past, present and future and he respected all of them. I'll never forget the encouraging personal notes he wrote to me and to other players, and how he personally recruited players to come and play in the Tournament. That will never be forgotten. I really hope that over time players will come back and pay tribute to the contributions that Byron Nelson has made not only to his event, but to the game of golf.
