Nelson Knows These Woods

He got his second consecutive win after an 18-hole playoff.

Two of them, actually.

In the same tournament.

He got his seventh consecutive win after making a string of birdies.

Five on the final six holes.

To beat one of his best friends.

There was a war going on, and some of the best players were somewhere else.

But Sam Snead was there. And Craig Wood was there. And Jimmy Demaret. And sometimes even Ben Hogan was there.

This morning, a kid golfer who wears red shirts and cold stares swaggers across the sports landscape with his fingers curled around an amazing six-pack.

Which makes it a perfect time to remember an old man with a cane.

Before Tiger Woods, there was Byron Nelson.

Before there was the worldwide celebrity from Cypress, there was the man from Texas.

Nelson didn’t win six consecutive PGA tournaments, as Woods has done.

He won 11.

He didn’t do it over two years, as Woods has done.

He did it in one.

There was only one thing Byron Nelson didn’t do in 1945 that Tiger Woods is doing in 1999-2000.

He didn’t win one tournament on television.

“I don’t think I’ve ever played on television, come to think of it,” Nelson said Monday afternoon with a laugh.

“In fact, I’ve already gotten more publicity now, because of Tiger Woods, than I got the whole time back then.”

He laughed again, and why not?

He turned 88 last week. He spends his days on a spread called Fairway Ranch in a small town outside his beloved Fort Worth. Nearby, there’s a street named after him.

Not that he was driving around on it Monday afternoon.

He was inside, in front of his TV, doing what many other Americans are doing these days.

Chasing Tiger.

“Man, when he gets started, he just don’t stop, does he?” Nelson asked.

On the screen in front of him, Tiger had already finished his final-round 64 in the AT&T; Pebble Beach National Pro-Am.

His remaining challenger, Matt Gogel, was teeing off on No. 17.

“I don’t know if this kid can catch Tiger,” Nelson said. “He doesn’t have much experience, and he bogeys, and Tiger birdies, and it’s just tough.”

Nelson paused. You could have sworn you heard the sudden creaking of an old chair.

“You have to be amazed by Tiger, you just have to be,” Nelson said. “Nobody does it like he does it.”

Nobody?

Nelson was silent for a moment.

“I won’t compare myself to him,” he said. “Nope.”

In some ways, there is no comparison.

Woods’ competition is much tougher. Even though it doesn’t seem like it, each week on today’s PGA Tour, there are two dozen players who can conceivably beat him.

Nelson was challenged by far fewer players in an era when the sport was not available to everyone.

How would Woods have fared against Nelson in 1945? We can’t even wonder, because African Americans were not allowed on the tour then.

Woods also faces considerably more pressure.

“There were only a few people talking to me about it back then,” Nelson said. “Very little publicity, not even a 10th of what Tiger gets now.”

Some of that pressure comes from the sort of travel that athletes could not even imagine in 1945.

Although two of Nelson’s victories were in Canada, none occurred west of Chicago.

Woods has won from Spain to Florida to California to Hawaii.

What Nelson still has is the number.

He still has 11, a legendary figure approached only by Joe DiMaggio’s 56, which means Woods must take his current eye-popping feat and double it.

Nelson also still has a 67.86 scoring average during those wins, which tops Woods’ current average of 68.21.

“That’s probably what I’m most proud of,” Nelson said. “To win 11 in a row, you have to make great scores almost every day, and that’s what I did.”

He has noticed that Tiger is doing exactly that, but with pumped fists.

“It is so unusual to come from that far behind to win a tournament in his situation,” he said of Woods’ seven-shot comeback in the final seven holes Monday. “For Tiger to do that, it just proves he doesn’t slack off.”

And if he keeps charging, through La Jolla, through Riviera, through Carlsbad, on to Orlando, then Jacksonville, then Augusta?

If the kid has the audacity to break the old master’s record at the Masters?

The master will cheer.

“Everybody says my record is unbreakable, but I’ll tell you what . . . “ Nelson said.

“Woods goes hard, he doesn’t back off, and he makes his putts. You have to like somebody like that.”

That’s another reason it’s a good day to remember the old man with the cane.

He reminds not just of where Tiger is headed, but from where he came, a world filled with the sort of sportsmanship that still exists in golf today.

As admirable with his manner as with his putter, Woods is worthy of our cheers.

So too is Nelson.

Gogel was on the 18th fairway, awaiting his third shot, desperately trying to get close enough for a birdie that he would not get.

“Gotta go,” said Byron Nelson, hanging up the phone, coming splendidly back into view.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at his e-mail address: bill.plaschke@latimes.com.