G0LF 1986

As a child, I never understood golf. Seemed like a game with a hole in Lit so to speak; and, it took me awhile to appreciate the subtle beauty of walking around after a small white ball for roughly two miles.

While growing up, I thought golf was a game for grown men whose closets were filled with plaid pants, white belts and plastic tees Nearest I could figure, these men would pull on their plaids early in the morning and drive to a course, where they would pay good money to walk around in pursuit of the same ball they had just walloped, over the river and through the woods and onto the green, until that ball or one taking its place finally falls, by luck or design, into a hole. Whereupon somebody in the group politely says. “Damn nice shot.” and the hero bends over and takes the ball out of the hole so that he can do it all over again further on down the mowed lawn.

Ah, but time, as it so often does, passes quickly. I grew wiser-and played a half-dozen rounds of clumsy golf along the way. I understand it much better now. Golf is a game for men and women who get up early in the morning and wear those same loud plaids to a course, where they pay good money and spend considerable time trying to master the art of putting that white ball into those tiny holes. While attempting to accomplish this often frustrating act. blood pressures rise and fell like a kite in the spring wind. And people sometimes open their wallets, offer an embarrassed “Damn nice shot” and pay off a friendly wager.

One can learn a great deal about the inner makeup of a friend or business partner with a single four-hour, 18-hole adventure on the golf course. One can also learn much of himself/herself.

The real hole in golf is in the swing. That’s because every golfer has a flaw or two in his swing, and that’s what he spends his entire life trying to hide or overcome. A great round of golf demands almost impossible discipline and coordination from the feet, the legs, the shoulders, the arms, the hands, the eyes, the head and-the real demon in disguise-the mind. It can be mentally taxing if, while leaning over a putt, the hands are saying yes when the mind is saying no; and, it can be just as annoying when the body doesn’t do what the brain knows is best.

Then you wake up one day and you go out there and your drives are long and true, your irons bite just right on every green and your putts disappear with surprising ease. You take a deep breath and smell the trees and realize how sweet life can be. You praise the Scots for inventing this beautiful game. And after 18 holes, you drop by the clubhouse, you tell Joe to set ’em up, and to put ’em all on your tab. Not only that, but just because your swing was so smooth, just because the golf club felt like a mere extension of your own left arm. you set up a game for the next morning.

The ones who experience the most good days are fortunate enough to become pros. The great ones play on the Professional Golf Association (PGA) men’s tour, the LPGA tour for women and the fast-growing Seniors (Legends) PGA Tour.

During the month of May, almost anyone who has ever replaced a divot in the entire Dallas-Fort Worth area will keep abreast of activities at the Byron Nelson Classic (May 5-11) at Las Colinas Sports Club and the tradition-filled Colonial Invitational (May 12-18) in Fort Worth. Only three weeks following that seige of the metroplex, the fast-growing Senior Players ReUnion Pro-Am will take the spotlight at Bent Tree Country Club June 5-8.

Six years ago the Senior PGA Tour was virtually non-existent. But in a relatively short period of time it has grown from only two official events with a total of $250,000 in prize money to 30 events with a total purse of over $6 million in 1986.

This is the second year the ReUnion Pro-Am has been held in Dallas. And once again it is the only senior event on the tour where each professional is paired with an amateur player for the entire tournament. Because of this format it has become one of the most popular local golf events.

Within a five-week period in the Dallas-Fort Worth area alone, $5-$6 million worth of golf tickets will be purchased; and, more than a quarter of a million viewers will have watched pro golf. Those plaids will be out in full view. So will the halter-tops, the sun tan lotion, and some amazing golfers.

But there is more, much more, to these local stops on the professional tour than the pro participating for lucrative purses. There are hundreds of behind-the-scenes stories surrounding both the Byron Nelson and Colonial tournaments.

Here, briefly, are three:

THE LEGEND-Byron Nelson wakes up every morning long before 8 o’clock on the same 750-acre ranch he’s known as home for the past 40 years.

Just outside of Grapeview in a town called Roanoke, he lives in a house filled with so much memorabilia it classifies as a national museum. If it is true that a man’s home is his castle, Byron Nelson’s home serves as a witness to the king who lives there.

Descendants of the Scots brought this game of high etiquette to America long ago, but it wasn’t until the turn of the 20th century that golf really got its start in this country. And, it wasn’t until 1913 that an American-born player, Francis Ouimet, won a U.S. Open. Ten years later, a wisp-of-a-kid named Byron Nelson was a caddie at Fort Worth’s Glen Garden Country Club.

This Nelson boy loved the game, so much so that he quit high school and took a job as a clerk for the Fort Worth & Denver City Railroad, just so he would have more opportunity to play. He turned pro in late November of 1932, while a teenager, and won $75 by finishing third at the Texarkana Open in his first event. Three years later, he raked in $2,708 on the tour and was on his way.

As the oldtimers tell it, and as sports history attests, Byron Nelson went on to become one of the first great names in American golf. Based on sheer performance, there may have never been anyone like him.

In 1945 alone, he won 18 tournaments, including 11 in a row. That record is tainted only because World War II took some of the game’s best golfers, including Ben Hogan, another former teenage caddie at Glen Garden.

For a two-year stretch. Nelson won 10 percent of pro golfs total gate. That unbelievable feat, when measured by today’s prize money, is equivalent to $2.5 million in one year, Even after World War II, he and Hogan dominated the pro tour.

“Back then.” Nelson says, “about a half-dozen golfers could beat you. Now, at least 30 can win at any tournament. That’s the major difference between then and now.”

There are reasons to believe Nelson would have held up well against today’s players. In his prime, he recorded some of the most consistently sub-par rounds ever in a sport that has changed very little in the past century. His earnings, of course, are meager by today’s standards. In 16 years as a pro, he captured 54 golf titles; but, only once did he earn $50,000 in a season. This year, the Dallas tournament named in his honor will award the champion atone a cool $108,000.

“The tour was nothing then like it is now,” Nelson says. “We had to get places by train, bus, car, anyway we could. When the DC-3 came along, we still had to buy an extra ticket for carrying more than 40 pounds per person. We had to find our own places to stay, we had no courtesy cars, no television and very little radio.

“The money golfers play for now, and the way people support the tournaments, are amazing. When I was playing, I received one endorsement, It was from Wheaties for $200. Today’s caddies make more than I used to as a pro.”

These are not sour grapes from Nelson. They are words spoken by a golf pioneer, one who has seen his sport grow enormously as a social happening on each stop of the PGA tour. Golfs popularity picked up during the presidency of avid duffer Dwight Eisenhower, then gained incredible momentum behind Arnold Palmer and his massive army of followers. Palmer’s magnetism caused television to upgrade golf coverage.

During those days, the Dallas Open began at the Oak Cliff Country Club. Nelson, by then retired, was writing golf columns for the Dallas Times Herald and also had a radio show. He watched as the Dallas Open struggled in its early attempts to draw nationwide respect.

Then along came the Salesmanship Club, which was looking for innovative ways to raise the money it needed to care for emotionally disturbed children. Felix McKnight, editor of the Times Herald, asked Nelson if he would allow the Salesmanship Club to rename the tournament in his honor. Nelson gave his okay, not to mention considerable time, and the tournament was moved to Preston Trail in far north Dallas. In 1968, the first Byron Nelson teed off. This year’s will be the 19th, and the fourth at Las Colinas Sports Club.

Despite all of the tournaments and all of the great names in the sport. Byron Nelson is still the only pro golfer in history to have an annual PGA event named after him.

THE PERMANENT CHAIRMAN-Mike Massad, grew up in Drumright, Okda., an oil town with no golf course. When he was 28, while president of the Oklahoma City Junior Chamber of Commerce, Massad was taken aback at a benefit when informed he had won a golf club membership.

He didn’t know what to make of it. What good is a membership if you don’t play golf? A friend, with a philosophical bend, suggested, “You can hire anybody to cut your grass, but you can’t get anybody to play your golf shots for you. Why not give it a try. You might like it.”

So, Massad figured what the heck, purchased a set of used clubs and took six lessons from a country club pro. By the time he moved to Dallas in 1958 and became involved with the Salesmanship Club, he had golf in his veins and consistently scored in the high 70’s.

“I’m not a real good golfer,” says Massad, 67, owner of a Dallas insurance agency, “but I’ve been kind of a golf nut for a long time.”

Five years ago, he was named permanent chairman of the Golf Executive Committee for the Byron Nelson tournament. He spends hours of free lime each year coordinating the Byron Nelson. In an effort to lend continuity to the event, he coordinates the week’s festivities with the PGA tour officials, with the touring pros and with Las Colinas.

Byron Nelson proudly says, “Our tournament is the only one on the tour that is 100 percent charitable. Nobody working the tournament, other than a couple of paid secretaries, gets a dime.” That’s because of people like Mike Massad.

“The real story about this event is what it does for people.” Massad says. “The Salesmanship Program takes 50 emotionally disturbed boys and keeps them in the woods for a year at a camp near Hawkins. Texas. They live on 1,100 acres, and they make their own tents, go to school and learn to take care of themselves. We also have a camp for 50 girls in Palestine, Texas, and another 40 kids are involved in an in-town program. Our success rate with these kids is 85 percent. The budget for the camps is about S3 million, and that money is raised every year from the Byron Nelson.”

It is fitting that Massad enjoyed his finest moment of golf during a Byron Nelson tournament. Playing in the Nelson’s Pro-Am in 1978, he was placed in a foursome that included Pres. Gerald Ford, comedian Bob Hope and defending champion Raymond Floyd. At Preston Trails” three-par No. 4 hole, with 5,000 spectators following the group and with ABC taping highlights to show that weekend. Massad stepped to the tee.

“I was a little nervous, to tell you the truth.” he recalls. “I hadn’t hit the ball very well for three holes. But then I hit a fairly good shot off the tee on that three-par.”

That “fairly good shot” flew off the tee, dribbled a few times on the green and-incredibly-dropped for a hole in one. The gallery went nuts, whooping and cheering. Bob Hope strolled over to Massad and said, “You big show-off. Stop hogging the limelight. I’m the celebrity.”

“It was.” Massad says, “a thrill in a lifetime.”

Not bad tor an old Oklahoma boy who couldn’t hit a straight shot until he was 30.

THE AMATEUR GOLFER-“Golf is my outlet,” says Paul Cato, the 47-year-old chairman of the board of a Fort Worth company named Tersco, Inc. “You can probably learn as much about a person on the golf course as anywhere. Golf takes four or five hours to play, and because it’s a gentleman’s game based on etiquette, you can usually tell someone’s personality in one round. A lot of business is made on the golf course-and a lot of friends are made there.”

Early in the week of most PGA tournaments, an afternoon is set aside for the pros to be grouped with local businessmen, or amateurs, for 18 holes. The Byron Nelson divides its pro-ams into four categories- It costs $3,500 to participate in the Gold group, S1,750 in the Silver group, $1,400 to play in the pro-am for local celebrities and, just so no one is overlooked, there’s a Gold Wait-List pro-am for those who paid $3,000 to get into the Gold group as soon as there’s an opening.

Paul Cato has played in 14 pro-ams at Colonial, which has 850 golfing members with a dues that has soared to $25,000. In order to participate in the Colonial pro-am and rub shoulders with golfs top names, one must either purchase $4,400 worth of tickets or sell that many. Cato grew up in Fort Worth, joined Colonial in 1964, and served the past three years as tournament chairman. He loves the pro-am.

“One of the keys to the PGA Tour is the pro-am,” Cato says. “People in the business world are competitive people. A successful businessman might be a 20-handicapper, and he’ll pay as much as $20,000 to play with a pro.”

The pro-am is one of golfs most interesting quirks. In major league baseball, it would be like the Texas Rangers allowing season ticket holders to take pre-game batting practice with the team. In pro football. it’s somewhat akin to Tom Landry suiting up Texas Stadium box suite owners tor preseason games.

Those that don’t compete in the pro-am can still get involved. John McNaughton, a 36-year-old real estate agent, was taught golf at age 10 by Roland Harper, who is still director of golf at Colonial. His parents joined Colonial in 1954, and McNaughton once recorded a 68 on the course.

When the pros come to town, he helps in some capacity.

“Pro golfers can live a gypsy lifestyle because they are always on the move,” McNaughton says. “But some of them actually have family lives on the road. I can remember seeing Craig Stadler drive up to the front door of Colonial with his wife and kids in the car. He kissed his wife, kissed his baby and walked into the clubhouse as if it were a day at the office.”

“We do everything we can to make their lives on the road as comfortable as possible. There’s a nursery set up for children, and many women escort players’ wives around. Some wives want to get their hair fixed, some want to go shopping. My wife, Sally, was playing tennis with Jim Colbert’s wife Marcia on the day Colbert won Colonial (1983)”

That, too, is part of golfs beauty. Fans enjoy a much closer involvement with the people competing. And, understanding just how difficult the game is to play (you never conquer golf, you just try to) causes the fan to appreciate the pro even more.

That’s what the Byron Nelson, Colonial and ReUnion tournaments are all about. And they’re back with us this month and next.

Golf Notes

By Russ Pate



BEST BOY-WATCHING: Byron Nelson Classic. Implanted somewhere in the plush Las Coiinas Sports Club is a homing device for young entrepreneurs. The clubhouse would make a perfect set for a yupscale beer commercial.

BEST GIRL-WATCHING: Colonial NIT. The grandmomma of the halter-top set. Credit Fort Worth women circa 1960-who realized that sunny May afternoons are meant for tanning-while helping make pro golf as popular as it is.

BEST ENTERTAINMENT: Byron Nelson Classic. Start with the Sunday gala headlined by Mitzi Gaynor. Throw in the Lee Greenwood/Tammy Wynette country-western concert on Tuesday night, Don’t miss the multitalented Floyd Dakil appearing Wednesday through Sunday in the pavilion tent. Four stars.

BEST CONTRIBUTION TO CHARITY: Byron Nelson Classic. The Salesmanship Club of Dallas raised more than $1.5 million last year to support camps for troubled youths in Hawkins and Palestine and an educational center in Dallas. The proceeds could be higher yet in ’86; already the Classic ranks at the top of PGA events in raising funds for charity.

BEST CHANCE TO SEE YOUNG DALLAS PHENOM SCOTT VERPLANK: Byron Nelson Classic. The soon-to-be Oklahoma State grad plans to shuffle a few final exams around in order to make his debut in Dallas, It will be one of the final appearances in his storied amateur career, since Verplank will shortly turn pro. Verplank, who won the Western Open last summer, made his Colonial NIT debut in ’85, missing the 36-hole cut.

BEST BARGAIN OF THE WEEK: Colonial NIT, Tuesday. Admission is free-yes, you read that right-and in addition to seeing the pros play practice rounds in the late afternoon you can catch the “Shootout,’” a sudden-death match-play event in which top names compete.

1985 CHAMPION WITH BEST CHANCE OF REPEATING: Corey Pavin. Pavin scorched the Colonial course with a record 266, 14-under par. Only twenty-six, he’s already one of the tour’s best players. His game is wetl-suited to Colonial. since Pavin prefers a cut (left to right) shot, which is beneficial on most of the holes. Bob Eastwood, the Nelson winner last year, has won but three times in a fourteen-year career.

BEST ALL-TIME WINNER, COLONIAL NIT: Ben Hogan. Hogan won the inaugural NIT in 1946 and added four more titles, the last in 1959. Hogan was a close friend of NIT founder Marvin Leonard.

BEST ALL-TIME WINNER, BYRON NELSON CLASSIC: Tom Watson. Watson has won the Nelson four times, including three consecutive times in 1978-1980. Watson nearly added a fourth straight title in 1981, losing to Bruce Lietzke in a playoff. Watson, a protege and close friend of Byron Nelson, gets revved up the instant he sees the Las Colinas skyline.

BEST 71-H0LE PLAYER: Payne Stewart. The former SMU player with the funny pants was sailing along toward a hugely popular victory at the ’85 Nelson Classic until the 72nd hole, when he double-bogeyed to let Bob Eastwood back into a playoff. Stewart proceeded to bogey the first extra hole to hand Eastwood the $90,000 winner’s check. The year before, Stewart led the Colonial NIT after 71 holes, only to bogey the final hole and fall into a playoff with Peter Jacobson. The luckless Stewart lost that playoff, too.

BEST GERRY (FORE!) FORD STORY: Byron Nelson Classic, 1982. Playing in the ’82 pro-am with tournament chairman Jim Jordan. Ford’s errant tee shot on the 11th hole hit a female spectator in the arm. raising an unsightly welt. The spectator? Jim Jordan’s wife, Pat.

WORST JUDGE OF TALENT: Colonial NIT, 1973. Rirtygoers whooping it up in the clubhouse after play one evening all but ignored a guitar player whose soft background music could barely be heard over the din. The picker looked fairly nondescript with his short haircut and pinstriped suit. The picker’s name was Willie Nelson. Soon after he cut an album called “Red-Headed Stranger.” It became a monster hit, So did he.

BEST MEDIA EVENT: Colonial NIT. The “Wide Open.” in which members of the media play Colonial from the hack tees, has been around since the early Fifties. Now a Florida scramble, the Wide Open was once an individual event. Elston Brooks, longtime entertainment critic and columnist for the Star-Telegram, once traversed the terrain in 183 strokes. Dan Jenkins, who before becoming a sportswriter was captain of the TCU golf team, shot a 75. Other media members who wield a mean three-wood include TV anchors Brad Wright and Dale Hansen, KRLD sportscaster Chuck Cooperstein, and Times Herald columnist Skip Bayless.

HOST PRO’S PICK FOR ’86, NELSON CLASSIC: Tom Watson. Scott Erwin, golf director at Las Colinas Sports Club, sees Tom Terrific as having the edge on the new TPC layout because the smallish greens will put a premium on the short game and that’s Watson’s forte-or had been until his recent slump.

HOST PRO’S PICK FOR ’86 WINNER, COLONIAL NIT: Payne Stewart. Roland Harper, director of golf at Colonial, thinks the knickers-clad Stewart is ready to take care of unfinished business from 1984.

NOVEL IDEA BY TOURNAMENT CHAIRMAN: J. Frank Holt, Byron Nelson Classic, 1971. Holt, miffed by a Dallas sportswriter’s column about how the Colonial NIT attracted pretty women but the Nelson Classic didn”t, had tickets printed up months ahead of the tournament and began passing them out to every attractive woman he met in Big D. After the 71 Nelson Classic, the same Dallas sportswriter wrote a column on how much the scenery at Preston Trail had improved.

MOST THRILLING FINISH: Byron Nelson Classic, 1970. That was the year that Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus, the two greatest names in the modern era of golf, tied for the championship, Arnie sank a putt on the 72nd to tie Jack, and the crowd’s roar carried across the Red River. Nicklaus won the ensuing playoff with a birdie on the first hole.

BEST SENSE OF THE DRAMATIC: Mike Massad, Byron Nelson Classic, 1978. Playing in the featured pro-am pairing that included Bob Hope and former President Gerald R. Ford. Massad pulled out a 4-iron on the par-3 fourth hole and promptly fired a hole-in-one. When the tournament chairman reached the green, Massad’s caddy, son Mike Jr., congratulated his dad by lifting Massad into the air and planting a kiss on his lips.

MOST MAGNANIMOUS GESTURE: Bob Hope, Byron Nelson Classic, 1985. Hope, brought in for $50,000 to headline the Sun-day gala kicking off Nelson week, politely refused the check for his service from tournament chairman Dee Brown. “Add that to the kitty for the kids,” Hope told Salesmanship Club officials, who doubtless replied, thanks for the memory, Bob.

TIPS FROM THE PROS



Bruce Furman

HOLLYTREE Golf Pro



A common error made by players of any caliber is ALIGNMENT. The following mental picture has helped many of my students at HOLLYTREE.

Imagine a baseball field. You are at home plate. Align yourself to left field. Your target is center field. Then, swing to right field.

This visualization encourages positive things. The slightly open stance helps you use proper footwork. Thus, the downswing is initiated by the lower left quadrant of the body. With the proper downswing, an inside club path is encouraged.



Don January

Consultant to

Oakmont Country Club



Golfers are often perplexed as to how to deal with a difficult shot on an uneven lie. The most important key to hitting such a shot well is the position of the ball in relationship to your stance. On a downhill lie, you need to move your position so that the ball is back towards your right foot to insure good contact. On an uphill lie, change your stance so that the ball is slightly forward, playing it more off your left foot.



An easy way to locate the correct ball position is to line up the target, take your normal stance and make a practice swing. The point where the club head brushes the ground is where you should position the ball. Faced with this situation, always remember to swing with the hill, never against it.



Dwight Nevil

PGA Golf Professional Tanglewood on Lake Texoma



Did you ever finish a round of golf and say to yourself or your playing companions, “I really hit the ball well today but for some reason, I just didn’t score?”



If you would go back over those rounds, probably you would find the reason you did not score was because you didn’t get the ball up and down when you were just off the edge of the green.



Most people will blame their putting for this scoring problem, when they really should be taking a hard look at their chipping.

Before starting each round, hit a few chip shots as part of your warm-up routine. This will help your score.