Byron Nelson

Was the Honorary starter at the Masters between 1981 and 2001. Winner 1939 Vardon Trophy. Member of 1937 and 1946 Ryder Cup teams. Captain of 1965 Ryder Cup team.
John Byron Nelson Jr. was born in 1912 at Fort Worth and started his golf career as a caddie. As a teenager, he caddied at Glen Garden C.C., where he met and began a rivalry with another local boy, Ben Hogan. Nelson turned professional in 1932 and his early efforts in tournament golf were highly unsuccessful. He won just over $100 in his first two years of competition.
In 1935, Nelson took a club job at the Ridgewood C.C. in Ridgewood, N.J., found a new driver and developed a new method of striking the ball that eliminated his chronic hook. All at once his game improved. The new technique allowed him to win his first tournament, the 1935 New Jersey Open.
Before World War II, Nelson won the 1937 and 1942 Masters, along with the 1939 U.S. Open and the 1940 PGA Championship. Despite his achievement in these major championships, Nelson will be best remembered for his play in regular tournaments between 1944 and 1945.
Having been rejected from military service due to a blood disorder, the tall Texan found himself in a torrid streak in 1944, Nelson won seven tournaments and was leading money winner. That was nothing compared to the following year, when in 31 tournaments entered Nelson was able to win no fewer than 19 of them, including an amazing run of 11 victories in succession. Byron Nelson was, obviously, the leading money winner that year, collecting $63,336 in War Bonds.
That year over the course of 120 competitive rounds, his scoring average was 68.33. According to the records that Nelson kept, he was 312 strokes under par for the year and was runner-up seven times, his worst finish being a tie for ninth.
The strains of competitive golf took its toll on Nelson in 1946. Even though he won three of his first four tournaments, and lost in a playoff at the U.S. Open, Nelson was being bothered by chronic stomach problems and was tugged by the desire to take up a quiet life in his native area. He bought a ranch just north of Ft. Worth and, like Bobby Jones before him, retired at the age of 34.
Even though he became a full-time farmer, Nelson did not give up golf completely. He won the 1948 Texas PGA, the 1951 Bing Crosby and the 1955 French Open. Nelson had a third career as a successful television golf analyst, wrote several instruction books on the game, helped many a PGA tour player with his game, most notably Tom Watson and Ken Venturi. Today Nelson has a tournament named after him, the Byron Nelson Classic, which was at one time the Dallas Open.