Cook county birth certificate

Both Sam and Ben were gone now, and if Byron was feeling a little left behind, it was understandable. All three were born in 1912, the year the Titanic went down. Nelson arrived first, on Feb. 4; Snead next, on May 27; and Hogan last, on Aug. 13. So, only Byron was alive on April 14, the night John Jacob Astor went into the water.

Golfers often come in threes. Harry Vardon, James Braid, J.H. Taylor ("The Great Triumvirate"). Bobby Jones, Walter Hagen, Gene Sarazen. Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player ("The Big Three"). Seve Ballesteros, Greg Norman, Nick Faldo. If Tiger Woods is largely by himself these days, as The Big Three have made such a point of proclaiming, remember, Tom Watson was essentially by himself for at least half a decade.

"By yourself," incidentally, isn't the same as "alone." Byron was by himself at a Dallas golf club a few weeks ago, sitting on a bench, talking.

But he was far from alone. "Come Monday," he said, "Peggy and I will be married 188 months. We celebrate on the 15th of every month."

Byron was keeping time by months not just because he was 90 but also because he was in love. He and Louise were married for 50 years and four months. The last 38 months--the awful ones--she was paralyzed. But Nelson came out of the fog to win the daily double. He found Peggy. "You see, she's younger than I am. The first month after we were married, she said, `I'm going to fix you a nice dinner.' She's a fine cook. Later, I said, `This is great. But I'm not going to have enough months with you, Peggy. So I'm going to celebrate every month as our anniversary.' And we haven't missed one yet."

His legs act like they're 100 years old. His heart feels about 60. His eyes, the silver lights in them, are barely 25. And his memory is 13. "I never knew there was a game of golf until I was 13," Nelson said. "I didn't know the name even. Do you know what it says on my birth certificate? `Rural Area, Ellis County, Texas.'"

At 10, Byron moved to the big city, Fort Worth. By 15, caddieing at Glen Garden, he encountered Hogan. "For all the stories, I never once caddied in a group with Ben. He worked mainly for a young man named Ed Stewart. I had a regular, too, a judge. At the time I thought he was old. He was probably 50. The first time I was ever conscious of Ben was at the Christmas party Glen Garden threw for the caddies--turkey with all the trimmings--followed by the big caddie tournament, where our regulars caddied for us." Byron beat Ben by a stroke, just as he would in their classic playoff at the 1942 Masters.

"I remember going to see the PGA Championship in Dallas at Cedar Crest. Was that 1927? I believe so [the year Lindbergh flew the Atlantic]. I followed Walter Hagen as he beat Al Espinosa. They had quite a battle. I remember, on the last hole, Hagen walked all the way over from his ball in the fairway to look at Espinosa's lie in the rough. Hagen beat Joe Turnesa in the finals, but I wasn't there."

Around 1930, everyone who had learned how to play golf with hickory shafts was starting all over with steel. "That's right, Billy Burke won the Open with steel in '31. Ben turned pro about then. I stayed amateur for a couple of more years. Ben would go off to a few tournaments, run out of money, come back. Go off again, run out of money again, come back again." (Hogan rammed that brick wall for almost 10 years before he broke through.) "Ben was more determined to be great than any man I ever saw."

Circumstantially, Byron played more golf with Snead, "maybe twice as much," he said. "Not in practice rounds, though, because Sam liked to play for $5 or $10, and I didn't do that. In '44, he was playing well, and I was playing well, and Fred Corcoran decided to match us up [for "The World Championship"]. We played a two-day exhibition. The first day, medal play, Sam shot 69 and I shot 70. The next day, match play, I beat him 4 and 3. He won one. I won one. So there we were.

"I remember playing with Sam in Washington one day. A man with a camera hanging around his neck followed us the whole way. Sam hated cameras, you know. I don't think the man ever made a picture. But Sam wasn't so hard to beat that day. I wonder if that man was betting on me. Once, Sam told me with his own mouth that he had shot his age every year since 60. He was about 75 then."

Like everyone else, Nelson is dazzled by Tiger. But, unlike others, he doesn't search for Snead or Hogan in the crowd. "I think Tiger's competition is excellent," Byron said. "I think it's great. Look at the scores today. Twenty-one under is the lowest I ever did. That wouldn't do much in Milwaukee. [The third round of the Greater Milwaukee Open was in progress.] It's going to take 22 under to win." It took 23.

"Obviously Tiger is the best. My goodness, how he handles the attention. In my '45 streak, when I won, fortunately, 11 in a row, I wasn't even asked a question about it until I'd won five straight. Interest didn't start perking up until it was nine. At the PGA Championship, I was interviewed by six people total. Can you believe that? When I won the '37 Masters, O.B. Keeler was the only writer I talked to. He was the one who tacked `Lord Byron' on me.

"Tiger walks like a champion, doesn't he? You can watch the champions and see something happen to them during a round--a different look in their eye, a different walk. At that '37 Masters, I was playing with Wiffy Cox and we went through Henry Picard's group. `I knew you were the winner,' Henry told me later. `Man, you should have seen yourself walking.'"

If Byron hadn't been a golfer, he might have been a baseball player. "If I hadn't loved golf so well," he said, "I might have tried. I played with the Toledo Mud Hens one day when I was a pro there in the '40s. The Hens were a farm team of the St. Louis Brownies. Fred Haney was the manager. He told me the Browns were coming in for a game and, if I played, some golfers might buy tickets. So I played 4 11/42 innings in right field. I handled all my fielding chances but struck out in my only at-bat. Somebody in the other dugout yelled, `Stick to golf!'"

He did.