Sport: Goodbye Byron, Hello Ben

The man who dominated wartime competition so completely that he came to be called "Mr. Golf" was sick & tired of the game. Last week Byron Nelson, nervous, greying and ailing at 34, turned up in Portland, Ore. to defend his national pro championship. Before the tournament got under way he announced that it was his farewell to year-round golfing.

All season, Nelson had talked wistfully of his 1,500-acre Texas ranch. He would go home, he said, turn up only for the Masters and one or two other tourneys a year, as onetime greats like Bobby Jones and Gene Sarazen do. Nelson, winner of every major U.S. tournament (some of them four times) had lost the sustained mechanical precision with which he stroked out a fantastic average 18-hole score of 68.3 throughout 1945.

Last week, Nelson burned up the course in his first two matches. In the third he polished off Herman Barren with a nine under par net for 34 holes. But Nelson could not hold the pace. He battled Ed ("Porky") Oliver down to the last green in the quarterfinals, then conceded the decisive 8-inch putt. Newsmen expected to hear him complain of his aching back. Instead he said simply: "My back never bothered me at all. I lost to a man who shot better golf."

Bulky (207 lb.), easygoing Ed Oliver went on to the finals, against Ben Hogan, had his drives booming down the fairways in the morning round, was 3 up at lunch time. But 135-lb. little Ben Hogan, a man with steel in his wrists and ice in his veins, steadied down to win going away, 6 and 4. The $3,500 prize made Ben's season earnings $33,377, and put him $12,000 ahead of his nearest rival—Nelson.