How sad to read much of the commentary trying to navigate through the news of the latest revelations. Writers and broadcasters and fellow golfers stumble over themselves trying to find a way to make sense of what happened without appearing to condemn. Much effort is made to separate the public life of the golfer from the private life of the husband/father. Let's briefly consider another way - let's look at a man who saw no separation between his public and private life. In fact, it was his goal to live a life which was consistent on and off the course. Let's consider Byron Nelson.
Nelson competed against, to name two, Sam Snead and Ben Hogan, some of the best. He knew well what it takes to be a champion golfer - concentration and consistency. It requires a singular focus. Even more when playing with clubs that were small with sweet spots smaller still and with balls needing to be checked hole by hole for roundness. Contemporaries Snead and Hogan were known for their focus and competitive fire. Neither man was know for his graciousness. Snead, when asked by a guest at the Homestead Resort in Snead's hometown of Hot Springs, VA, for a quick look at his grip in the lobby, billed the man's room for a golf lesson. Hogan, whose playing partner one day made a hole-in-one on a par three, told the man as they left the green, "You know, that was the first time I ever birdied that hole." No mention was ever made of the ace. Nelson was different.
Was he good? He won 11 straight tournaments - a record most think will never be broken (Tom Watson calls it "the 40' pole vault) - and 18 total in 1945. His career victory count stands at 54, sixth all-time, and five majors. He never won the British because he did not like boats and there was no air service to the U.K. during his playing days. His ball striking still captures the respect of the entire golf world and his 68.33 scoring record which stood for 55 years. He retired at age 34 to be with his wife and purchase the ranch that was to be their home. He died at 94, at home.
What made him really stand out, despite being a recognized golfing great, was his gentlemanly demeanor. "I think the thing people will always talk about me is my degree of consistency on the golf course, winning money in 113 [straight] tournaments, but I want to be remembered as a good man and a Christian man. That's all that really matters," Nelson said in 2001 interview with Sports Illustrated.
"Not many golfers live as long as I have," Nelson said. "I have a young wife [his first wife, Louise, died of a stroke in the 1980s] and I don't smoke or drink or run around. In 2000, when the United States Golf Association had all the former champions back at Pebble Beach for the 100th anniversary of the tournament, there were 31 former champions there (Nelson won in 1939), but I was the only one from 1954 back to the beginning of the event. I was the only one still alive."
"I don't know very much," Nelson said in a 1997 interview with The Associated Press. "I know a little bit about golf. I know how to make a stew. And I know how to be a decent man."
Consider the words of his peers.
Ken Venturi, who played on the PGA Tour with Nelson for years and remained one of his closest friends, offered this final summation, which would have most pleased his mentor."Byron is golf's greatest gentleman," he said.
Arnold Palmer said, "I don't think that anyone will ever exceed the things that Byron did by winning 11 tournaments in a row in one year, but I suppose that is not the most admirable thing that he did, although it was certainly tremendous. He was a fantastic person whom I admired from the time I was a boy."
PGA.com's Grant Boone wrote, "Byron Nelson wasn't randomly respectable, not generically good. He was a follower of Christ, and his discipleship dictated his decency, demeanor, decision-making, and the way he dealt with people. ... But Nelson never brandished his faith as a weapon, choosing instead to extend an empty and open hand in friendship to all comers. And did they ever come. Wherever the debate over which golfer is the best of all time ends, Byron Nelson was the game's finest man, hands down."
Cleveland Golf put together a tribute piece you can see.
A man is a man. He is not separate pieces - what he is as an athlete or a business man, or any other walk of life, does not tell the whole story. Success as a whole man is success. One must view the whole man. Check out more of Byron Nelson's story.
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