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***BPC*** · #1 (**permalink**) September 13th, 2006, 11:31 AM

Just a couple quick notes regarding the Miami Four-Ball Invitational, which folks with no historical perspective would wish to denegrate:

The tournament was an official PGA Tour event
It was a full field invitational that attracted all of the top players on tour.
The competition was 7 rounds of match play over four days, meaning the finalists might have to play up to 126 holes
The prize money was $1,500 per man, or $3K to the winning team. That put it right around the mean for purses in 1945.
As with most events at the time, top 20 got paid. Everyone else slammed their trunk.
It was one of two official events which were team events yet attracted a world class field. The other was the Inverness Four Ball. Both events last more than 3 decades. It is difficult to fathom today, but at the time Match Play, Four-Ball and Foursomes were more popular formats than individual stroke play.

Quote:

Lord Byron's Lucky 13

My math has Nelson winning 13 in a row (not 11) 60 years ago

By Dan Jenkins
Golf Digest

July 2005

Here we are in the 60-year anniversary of one of the great years in golf--1945--and that's all the excuse I need to clack out another piece on Lord Byron Nelson, whose name, I fear, is becoming unknown to today's youth because history doesn't make enough noise for youth to care about it.

Today's youth only likes things that are loud, which means if it's loud they must be having fun. So my guess is that today's youth has bothered to know only two things about golf: One, Tiger Woods is rich and the greatest player since a bunch of dead guys, and two, Arnold Palmer invented the game 200 years ago when he was dating Mary Britney Beyoncé Queen of Scots.

As for Lord Byron Nelson, today's youth might well think he's the younger brother of Lord Horatio Nelson, the man who stood on a London street corner and shouted, "Never take Trafalgar in college. It's harder than algebra."

Today's youth learns most things from watching the "mainstream" TV networks. They know that CBS forced Dan Rather to resign as President of the United States, they know from NBC that Rather was succeeded by Donald Trump, and they've learned from ABC that the U.S. Supreme Court consists of nine desperate housewives.

But back to His Lordship. You might wonder how it's possible after all these years to say anything new about Byron and all the stuff he did back in '45, when he was known in all the leads in all the papers in all the world as "golf's mechanical man." To wonder such a thing, of course, is to underestimate this bureau's talent for fondling stats and taking curled-up naps with his memory and research material.

Here's what might be new to you but is sort of old to me. It wasn't 11 wins in a row--the streak--and 18 on the year for Byron in 1945. It was 13 in a row and 20 for the year.

The win streak started in early March, and right when it seemed to be Sam Snead's year, not Byron's. Snead had won four tournaments by the time they reached the Miami Four Ball, but Nelson teamed with Jug McSpaden to grab this partnership deal, whipping Denny Shute and Sam Byrd, 8 and 6, in the final.

The next week Byron topped Snead by four strokes in a 36-hole playoff for the Charlotte Open, which was the closest he came to having the streak end before it got started. He then won the Opens of Greensboro, Durham and Atlanta, making it five in a row on April 8, and that's when the tour, for a lack of sponsors or courses, took a two-month leave of absence.

Enter something billed as the "World Championship." It matched Nelson against Snead over 72 holes on May 26 and 27. Supposedly, it was 36 holes of stroke play at Fresh Meadow on Long Island--old Fresh Meadow, near the World's Fair site, where Gene Sarazen won the '32 U. S. Open--and 36 holes of match play at Essex County Country Club in West Orange, N.J. Although Sam led by one shot after the first 36, the overall result after 72 holes showed Nelson with a total of 272 to Snead's 276, so most sportswriters at the time declared Lord Byron the "winner"--and so do I. Now, today.

This made it a half-dozen. After which Byron reeled off six more victories at the Montreal Open, the Philadelphia Invitational, the Chicago Victory Open, the PGA Championship at Moraine Country Club in Ohio, the Tam O'Shanter back in Chicago--winning by 11 over Lt. Ben Hogan, who was a month away from getting out of the Army Air Corps--and finally the Canadian Open.

But wait. Lord Byron wasn't done. The following week in a 36-hole event in Spring Lake, N.J.--record books list it as the Spring Lake Pro-Member--in a full field of touring pros he fired 69-71 to win by a stroke over Snead and Herman Barron.

When the streak ended in Memphis a week later it was either 11, 12 or 13 in a row. Byron played in nine more tournaments the rest of the year, and won four of them. His last win was in the Glen Garden Invitational back in Fort Worth, his hometown and the place where he and Hogan had caddied as kids. That chilly December a teenager--me--watched him win by eight over Jimmy Demaret, the runner-up, in a tournament where Snead trailed by 13 and Hogan by 14.

It was Byron's 18th, 19th or 20th win of the year.

I know what my math says.

tigeroverjack · #2 (**permalink**) September 13th, 2006, 01:24 PM

I read Byron's recent book and saw the Miami fourball as the start of the streak. My post wasnt out to change the world or records but it is of my opinion any INDIVIDUAL streak would not count a tournament played with a partner no matter what the formats may or may not have been. If its matchplay and Tiger is playing in it and its a PGA tour sanctioned event and he is playing alone then it counts. Same for Byron. I wont count in my mind more than 10 in a row because he did so with a playing partner. Now are we going to change it to 10 because of me.NO. Are we going to change it to 13 because of Dan Jenkins.NO....its simply an opinion i have about that streak just like Dan Jenkins and anyone elses opinion. Anymore than 10 in a row i will respectively disagree.

***shaderunner*** · #3 (**permalink**) September 13th, 2006, 01:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tigeroverjack

its simply an opinion i have about that streak just like Dan Jenkins and anyone elses opinion. Anymore than 10 in a row i will respectively disagree.

You're certainly entitled to that...I'm sure your opinion won't change. But consider this for a moment...even though they were team events and, certainly, Byron's partners contributed (although I don't know this to be a fact), what percentage of the total score could be attributed to Nelson's contribution? Probably not 100% (maybe, I don't know for sure) but definitely far more than 50%, wouldn't you say? If Tiger were to play in a team event and win he might not contribute 100% toward the win, either, but chances are he'll be packin' his partner around most of the time. So, technically, it was a team win but surely we could agree as to who had the most to do with the outcome, no? Just some food for thought.

Shade

tigeroverjack · #4 (**permalink**) September 13th, 2006, 01:52 PM

Well Jud and Byron were well known teammates back in their day and actually feared because those two were virtually unbeatable and even had a nickname for them which i cannot remember. Jud McSpaden was a great player in his own right but Byron no doubt was better than him. Im honestly not trying to change any record book or be a guy to argue differently for fun. Like i said i read the book and have great admiration for that season and Lord Byron. In fact he may be the greatest gentleman golf has ever seen but counting a 2 man team as part of a streak for an individual is a bit much even if they played alot like that back then. They still played the majority of tourneys at stroke play i believe. You know any number is cool by me i read the book and brought it up as a topic to chew on and we have done just that which is good stuff and i would change my opinion in a heartbeat if i really felt it was worthy of part of the streak. Still the stuff i have read do not change my mind simply because he did this with a teammate and we count this as a part of a individual streak. Like i said earlier if Tiger keeps it up and plays with Furyk in the World Cup(with the streak still ongoing) no way would i consider this a part of the streak.

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