A good surprise is always nice, and I learned something recently that took me by surprise.
Frank Brame Jr., Frank III’s father who died at age 73 in 1992, was a fine golfer in his day. I knew that. For years covering the Deep South Four Ball, I was reminded that he and Bill Furlow, who was in the sporting goods business in Alexandria, won the inaugural Four Ball in 1948.
What I was surprised to find out last week – and which Frank Brame Jr.’s nephew, Jack Brame, didn’t find out until a day or two before – was another terrific feat Frank Brame Jr. and Bill Furlow accomplished a few weeks after their triumph at the inaugural Deep South Four Ball.
You can look it up. In a September 1948 Exchange Club sponsored exhibition match at the Alexandria Golf and Country Club, Brame and Furlow stunned legendary pro golfer Byron Nelson and AGCC club pro Morton Braswell. And it wasn’t even close. They won the 18-hole match-play competition by four holes, even with Nelson shooting a 4-under-par 68.
Understand, Byron Nelson compiled 52 PGA Tour wins in his career, including five majors – two Masters, two PGA Championships and one U.S. Open. At the time of this local match, he was just three years out from a record-breaking season in 1945 in which he had 18 victories, including an unprecedented 11 in a row.
Granted, he had retired as a full-time pro golfer at just age 37 after the 1946 season, but in 1947 he helped the U.S. win the Ryder Cup. Undoubtedly, it was impressive how Brame, a local stockbroker, and Furlow took down the heavy favorites. Brame and Furlow each shot 1-under, but the beauty of match play is it’s about winning more holes than your opponent rather than having the best score overall.
“It was Furlow’s drives and steady playing, and the approaches, drives and just about everything of Brame’s which had the center of attention,” a story in The Town Talk without a byline reported.
The story also reported that Nelson, before making his putt on the 18th, said, “It looks like the local Four-Ball champs are still the champs.”
The locals were impressive from the start. They had Nelson and Braswell down three on the first five holes and were 5-up after nine.
The amateurs didn’t lose a hole until No. 11.
After the competition, Nelson reportedly complimented the condition of the course and said the entire club was one of the nicest he had ever seen for the city the size of Alexandria. He also complimented Brame and Furlow for the game they played.
Incidentally, exhibition matches of this sort happened more than once at Alexandria Golf and Country Club in that era. In 1950, Furlow and former LSU Southeastern Conference champ Henry Castillo took on PGA Tour stars Jimmy Demaret and Freddie Haas Jr., and lost by six holes.
Demaret, one of the top money winners in pro golf at the time, earlier that season became the first person to win three Masters titles (1940, ’47 and ’50). He had 31 PGA Tour wins during his career, and he and Jack Burke Jr. started the 36-hole Champions Club course in Houston in the late 1950s.
Haas’s part in the lopsided exhibition win in Alexandria in 1950 atoned somewhat for the Nelson-Braswell setback to Brame and Furlow in ’48. A bit ironic, too, since Haas, as an amateur, snapped Nelson’s streak of 11 consecutive PGA victories in 1945 at the Memphis Invitational. With that triumph, he decided to become a professional golfer. He went on to win five PGA Tour events and played a pivotal role in helping the U.S. win the 1953 Ryder Cup.
It’s too bad the big names of today’s PGA Tour don’t engage in such exhibition matches with local amateurs. Back then, though, there wasn’t the kind of chasm between amateurs and pros that exists today.