Top Golfer from Every State: Alabama and Larry Nelson

We start a new series here at Pro Golf Now looking at the top golfer from each state. We start alphabetically, heading to Alabama while looking at the career of Larry Nelson.

There isn’t a much better way to go about this than by going alphabetically. That’s why we are starting down south with Alabama. Some states are going to be a bit more difficult to figure out who holds the title of best golfer, which is exactly what happened with Alabama. It came down to two players, both of which are Hall of Famers. The honor goes to Larry Nelson.

Some of the states, it’s not likely to be a contest. There are going to be clear winners for some of them, which is what you expect. There are 50 states after all. However, with so much history in the game of golf, we are going to run into some states where it can be a difficult decision.

At first glance, especially for someone who didn’t pay a ton of attention to golf, other than Tiger Woods, until 2006, the decision at first seemed easy. Stewart Cink it a name that a lot of people know, and the one-time major winner has had a great career.

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However, he doesn’t even make it into the top two.

After much thought, Larry Nelson is the best golfer to come from the state of Alabama.

It came down to Larry Nelson and Hubert Green. Both are multiple major winners. Green won the U.S. Open in 1977 and the PGA Championship in 1985. He finished with 19 career PGA Tour wins, and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2007. When all was said and done, he finished with 29 career wins.

The number of wins he had on the PGA Tour was actually greater than Larry Nelson. Nelson still had quite the career though, obtaining a lot of impressive accomplishments.

Most notably were in the majors. He took the U.S. Open title in 1983 and won the PGA Championship in both 1981 and 1987. Although he only won 10 times on the PGA Tour, he had 41 professional victories, 19 of which came on the Champions Tour.

He would be inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2006, only two years after his final Champions Tour win in 2004.

From Fort Payne, Alabama, Nelson was not an imposing figure. He tipped the scales at just 150 pounds, and stood around 5’9″. That wasn’t enough to stop him from winning tournaments in four different decades, all across the world. His first came in 1979 as he won the Jackie Gleason Classic (Bang… Zoom… to the moon Alice!) by three strokes.

It should also be mentioned that Nelson dominated his first two entries into the Ryder Cup. He was an astounding 9-0-0 in 1979 and 1981. He struggled in his last entry in 1987 going 0-3-1 but still goes down with one of the best all-time records at 9-3-1.

Special mentions should be given to Karen Bahnsen, who although she didn’t play a lot on the LPGA, coached the LSU Women’s team from 1985-2018. Also, Sammy Byrd, who actually played for the New York Yankees and Cincinnati Reds for eight years before heading to the PGA Tour. He would win six times. This included a 3rd and 4th place finish in 1941 and 1942 at The Masters, as well as a 2nd place finish at the PGA Championship in 1945.

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When all is said and done, the honor for the best golfer to come out of Alabama goes to Larry Nelson. Make sure to check back at Pro Golf now for the next entry in the series, when we move as far away from Alabama as possible and head to Alaska.

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