Athletes - Larry Nelson

Home > Listing Index > Athletes > Larry Nelson

	Athletes - Larry Nelson

Larry (Gene) Nelson (born September 10 1947 in Fort Payne, Alabama) is an American golfer.

Career outline

Unusually for a successful professional golfer Nelson didn't play the game as a child, but only began to do so at the age of 21 after he returned from military service in Vietnam, taking his instruction from Ben Hogan's book The Five Fundamentals of Golf. He soon found he had a talent for golf, breaking 100 the first time he played and 70 within nine months. He went on to graduate from Kennesaw Junior College in 1970 and turned professional the following year. He qualified for the PGA Tour at 27. His breakthrough year came in 1979 when he won twice and finished second in the money list to Tom Watson.

Nelson was to win ten times on the PGA Tour, of which three, a high proportion, were major championships. His major first was the 1981 PGA Championship which he won by four strokes. In 1983 he was victorious at the U.S. Open coming from seven behind at the half-way point, and scoring an outstanding 132 aggregate for the last 36 holes to beat Tom Watson by one. In 1987 he finished tied with Lanny Wadkins after the regulation 72 holes of PGA Championship, and won the title with a par at the first playoff hole.

Nelson played on the U.S. Ryder Cup team in 1979, 1981, 1987. He also won four tournaments in Japan. Since turning fifty in 1997 Nelson has had a successful Champions Tour career, although he has not won a senior major. He is also active in golf course design.

PGA Tour wins

1979 Jackie Gleason-Inverrary Classic, Western Open
1980 Atlanta Classic
1981 Greater Greensboro Open, PGA Championship
1983 U.S. Open
1984 Walt Disney World Golf Classic
1987 PGA Championship, Walt Disney World/Oldsmobile Classic
1988 Georgia-Pacific Atlanta Golf Classic

Nelson's major championship are shown in bold.

Other regular career wins

1980 Tokai Classic (Japan Golf Tour)
1983 Dunlop International Open (Japan)
1988 PGA Grand Slam of Golf (United States - unofficial event)
1989 Suntory Open (Japan)
1991 Dunlop Phoenix (Japan)

Champions Tour wins

1998 American Express Invitational, Pittsburgh Senior Classic, Boone Valley Classic
1999 GTE Classic, Bruno's Memorial Classic
2000 Las Vegas Senior Classic, Boone Valley Classic, FleetBoston Classic, Foremost Insurance Championship, Bank One Senior Championship, Vantage Championship
2001 MasterCard Championship, Royal Caribbean Classic, FleetBoston Classic, Farmers Charity Classic, SBC Championship
2003 Constellation Energy Classic
2004 FedEx Kinko's Classic, Administaff Small Business Classic presented by KBR

Other senior career wins

1999 Chrysler Senior Match Play Challenge

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Larry Nelson ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article Larry Nelson; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Searches on eBay