The Waterbury Democrat., 1937-05-06
ID COOL AND GET HOT ON COURSE-NELsON
COrreCts Hook By Keeping
 Right Elbow Close to
 Body, Starting Club Back With Left Arm, and Freeing Wrists
(This is the third article of an instructive autOgraphical series)
By BYRON NELSON Winner of the 1937 Augusta Masters Tournament

Masters Tournament
 Success in the Glen Garden Country Club caddies' tournament ;purred me on and the follwoing ;pring-March, 1929-I entered my first honest-to-goodness tournament at the Katy Lake course, a public links in Fort Worth.
 The Katy Lake course was short. It measured only 5000 yards, and had sand greens. won the medal with 68, and then lost my first match the next day.
 But that 68 made a bit of an impression at Glen Garden and the members voted me an honorary membership. From caddy to mem Der in two-and-a-half years! I was mighty proud.
 was in high school, but wanted to get out and make living. My folks weren't poor, but they weren't wealthy, and I was one of those young fellow who believes he is drag on his parents. So one of the members got me job as a file clerk in the accounting office of the Fort Worth & Denver Railroad. It made golffing tougher.
 had to work from 8 a. m. until D. m. and that didn't leave much time for golf. It took me a half hour to get home by trolley and another 10 or IS minutes to get out to the golf course. But went out there about four or five afternoons week and practiced until dark. Y
 I'd practice driving first, and putt last because whe nit got dark I could lay 8 handkerchief over the cup and put for the white cloth, but I couldn't drive in the dark. I'd lose all my balls, and a railway clerk can't be losing a dozen golf balls day.
 In that fall of 1929 I played in the club tournament and won 1t. I shot an 81. It was two strokes above my caddy- winning score of the previous winter, but was play ing better. My irons were stronger and straighter. My putting was still steady. Only my drives were of. My left side was collapsing. That was that overswinging again. To stop overswinging, concentrated on keeping the right arm close to the body in the backswing, all the time keeping the left arm straight.
 This prevented the club from go- ing back farther than the hori- zantal position.
 It also stopped me from turning the hands over in a rolling motion which closed the face of the club as it came into the ball.
 I concentrated on starting my club back with the left arm and keeping the wrists free at the top lof the backswing.
 This also helped to correct the lhook which I had developed.
 I tasted my first real competition in August, 193O. I asked oil from work and entered an invitation tournament in Fort Worth. Most of the best golfers in the southwest were entered. won it, beating Hap Massingill, veteran Texan ex-cham- pion, by shooting a 66 in the morn ing and coasting home in the aft ernoon.
 remember this tournament very well because of an incident that occurred in the second round match with Henry Robinson of Oklahoma. | was leading one up on the eighth hole when, in sizing up a putt, walked over to the other sdie of the hole and laid my club down.
 Robinson claimed the hole, point ing to a rule then existing in the southwest which forbade golfer to touch his club on the opposite side of the green from where his ball lay.
 Play the Shot You're Playing
 It was intended for sand green play SO that a golfer couldn't trace the course of his ball on Sloping surfaces. We were playing on grass green and 1t made me furious to think that he would resort to such a technicality.
 I lost thesnext several holes.
 Then I pulled myself together.
 Here I am getting mad at him and hurting nobody but myself" l said to myself.
 So cooled off and immediately got hot on the course. On the last four holes I fired in deuce, a three, another three, and a deuce. could not have done that had remained peeved.
 It's a lesson I learned and one all golfers should learn. Play the shot you're playing, not the last one. Don't moan and groan and curse. If you lost a stroke by tough luck don't throw another one away in anger.
 It took me long time to steady myself and control a bad dispoSi- ton, but I believe that I've finally got 1t in hand.
 I know that two years ago l could not have pulled myself to- gether in the last nine the way I was able to do in the Masters Tournament.
 NEXT: Byron Nelson describes