The facet of Byron Nelson's character that most fascinates and mystifies me is that such a gentle, lovable man of such refreshingly simple tastes and Christian attitude can have turned himself at will into such a ruthless, record-setting golf machine, a veritable cold-eyed Texan killer of the links.

Nelson dominated the PGA Tour to such an extent in 1944 and 1945 that his records will probably remain the most elusive in the history of golf. So much for that old adage, now comprehensively disproved, that “nice guys finish second,” or was that last?

Nelson's 18 victories in 1945, 11 of them coming consecutively, tend to obscure the stifling domination of his rivals that Nelson had started to exhibit in 1944. In his excellent autobiography How I Played the Game, written with his second wife Peggy, he says, “So much has been written about 1945 and what I did then that my performance in 1944 has been kind of overlooked. I played in 21 of the 23 tournaments and won eight of them. I was second five times, third five times, fourth once and sixth twice. My winning margin was from one to 10 strokes, and I was also runner-up in the PGA (Championship). So 1944 was a good year for me also.”

In 1946 Nelson won only six of the 21 events he entered and promptly withdrew from regular competition in 1947, retiring to his newly purchased ranch at Roanoke, Texas. He had nothing more to prove. And he made sure he would remain retired by sending his clubs to the MacGregor Company rather than taking them home to present himself with a constantly visible temptation.

Nelson was born on February 4, 1912, on his parent's cotton farm near Waxahachie, Texas. As a schoolboy, his family moved to Fort Worth where Byron's school chums were earning small change caddying at Glen Garden Country Club. He eventually joined the caddie gang, which is how he first met Ben Hogan. Nelson and Hogan competed in the nine-hole caddies' Christmas tournament, and tied at 40 over a par-37 layout. The members made the pair play off over another nine holes, and this time Nelson prevailed by a single shot.

By spring 1927 Nelson, who had studied the game from Harry Vardon's book, was working for Ted Robinson, a good player and professional at Glen Garden. Nelson's first brush with big-time tournament golf came about at the end of that summer, when Robinson took him to watch the PGA Championship at Cedar Crest Country Club in Dallas.

Walter Hagen was playing Al Espinosa in the semi-final, and the former was having a problem squinting into the sunlight at one hole. Nelson calmly offered the great man his schoolboy baseball cap, and Hagen took it, played his shot eight feet from the hole and returned the headgear. Hagen went on to win the championship, but Nelson didn't bother to keep the cap. Throughout his illustrious career, Nelson never hung on to any equipment for sentimental reasons.Nelson's first professional winter tour of California was, at best, a learning experience. He lost his backer's money and had to hitch a ride back to Fort Worth. On his return he heard from the professional at Texarkana, Ted Longworth, that he was leaving to take up a similar position at Waverly Country Club in Portland, Ore., and that Byron might like to apply for the vacancy. He did, got the job and was able to spend a lot of time honing his game. Eventually Nelson was able to afford to pay a young caddie to shag balls for him, one Miller Barber, barely into his teens at the time.

He was hardly more successful on his second sponsored California venture, but Nelson salvaged a little for the wreck by finishing second to Wiffy Cox in the Texas Open at Breckenridge, and to Craig Wood in Galveston en route home. These late successes enabled him to pay back his father-in-law to be and buy an engagement ring for his first wife of 50 years, Louise.

Shortly before the Masters of 1937, Nelson secured his first job as a head professional at Reading Country Club in Pennsylvania. He was fired up about his new job when he went to the Masters for the third time, but he also needed to make some money in order to be able to stock his shop after the tournament. Nelson opened with a fabulous round of 66.

Nelson followed with 72 and then 75, and after taking 38 shots to the turn on the final day was three strokes behind Ralph Guldahl. On the back, Nelson shot 32 to win by two shots. “Lord” Byron, as golf writer O.B. Keeler christened him that fateful day, had finally arrived in world-class circles with the most important of all of his 61 victories.

The year 1939 was a spectacular one for Nelson. He secured the head professional's post at Iverness, being preferred over Ben Hogan. But most importantly, Nelson won the U.S. Open at Spring Mill on the outskirts of Philadelphia after two 18-hole playoffs, and by courtesy of Sam Snead, who finished with a notorious triple bogey when par would have won the only major title to have eluded him.

Nelson went on to win three more major titles, beating Snead for his first PGA Championship victory in 1940, Hogan in an historic playoff in the 1942 Masters, and Sam Byrd in the final of the 1945 PGA Championship. He was a member of the victorious American Ryder Club team when the matches were resumed after World War II in 1947 in Portland, and captained the team to victory at Royal Birkdale in 1965.

When Nelson passed away in 2006, he was the game's elder statesman and foremost gentleman, and his shadow continues to loom over golf, never more so than at his namesake PGA Tour stop at the recently refurbished TPC Four Seasons Las Colinas outside Dallas.

But it is the Streak of 1945 that will be Nelson's most enduring legacy, in that it was so improbable. It all started in the second week of March at the Miami Fourball, at which stage Nelson trailed Snead 4-3 that year in tournament victories. Nelson and Jug McSpaden, his best friend on tour and longtime sparring partner, had never previously done well in the tournament. But after winning their four matches they were no less than 21 holes up.

The end came anticlimactically when top-class international amateur Freddie Haas put together an 18-under-par total of 270 to win the Memphis Open, with a very weary, now mistake-prone Nelson only tied for fourth place at 276.