How I Played the Game

Byron Nelson was one of golf's greatest legends. He was one of the finest golfers ever to pick up a putter and the man who had the most magnificent year any golfer has ever had—1945 when he won an incredible eighteen PGA tournaments including eleven in a row and finished second in seven others.<BR /><br>How I Played the Game is the beautifully told tale in his own words of a man determined to be the best ever: his hardscrabble rural Texas upbringing and his near-death experience with typhoid fever; his early years as a caddie at Fort Worth's Glen Garden Country Club (where as a 15-year-old he beat another young caddie named Ben Hogan in the Caddie Championship); the lean years as an amateur and as a young pro during the Depression; and the golden years of the 1940s when he invented the modern golf swing and forged the legend of "Lord Byron."<BR /><br>Even after his sudden retirement (the real reason for which is finally revealed here) his impact on the game never lessened. Besides his many years as an insightful TV golf commentator he was mentor to several future golf champions Ken Venturi and Tom Watson among them. And he continued to play top-caliber golf with the greats of the game like Hogan Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer and some who were less than great—President Eisenhower Bing Crosby Bob Hope and a host of others.<BR /><br>Laced throughout with scores of priceless stories anecdotes opinions and even golf tips and with an in-depth event-by-event recreation of his golden year 1945 How I Played the Game is golf writing and remembrance of the highest order—irresistible reading for every golfer and fan.