Golf’s oldest living major champion Kel Nagle will, as always for years now, be watching the telecast of The Masters later this week but it will be in unfamiliar surroundings.
He won’t be sitting in his lounge-room that overlooks both sides of the head to the Sydney Harbour where the walls of the room are surrounded by the memories of a lifetime in golf but rather in a nursing home in Sydney’s northern suburbs where the view out the window is far less spectacular.
Kel, now in his 93rd year, hasn’t been in good health for some years now but while the body may be weak, his spirit is oh so willing.
I visited him today and he was watching the Inglis sale of horses at Newmarket where Black Cavier’s half brother was due to be auctioned. He’s always had a interest in horses particularly of the trotting/pacing variety and owned many that were in training on a property north of Sydney.
“All the horses are gone now,” he lamented.
Kel has been in the nursing home for two weeks now and it’s on a trial basis for a couple of months. His family insisted, because of his health, that he should be in a place where, if need be, he could be under constant care. He is not particularly enamoured by the idea.
“Best not misbehave then, they might toss you out,” I suggested.
He smiled at the comment. Though it might be an appealing thought for he would rather be in another place like the home he shared with his wife since 1965 until her death in 1980, Kel has never misbehaved. He is golf’s original gentleman, a man who drinks tea and not a drop of the deadener.
Strange that. One of his problems right now is a decreased functioning of the kidneys that causes a build-up of body fluids. I’d always thought doctors warned of excessive alcohol intake might cause kidney malfunction – not the consumption of tea.
There are also problems with his heart – he had bypass surgery in 1992 – and he is dodgy on his legs but inside that body beats the heart of a determined man.
“I’m going to have $10 on Scotty,” the old bloke volunteers. “He has the game for Augusta as long as his putting holds up.”
“Tiger is too short (in the betting market).” He’s right there. With TAB Sportsbet, Tiger Woods is $3.75, the shortest price he’s been since 2009 pre the altercation with a fire hydrant and all the lurid details of flooded out about his private sex life.
Kel and I don’t discuss that – he’s too much of a gentleman. I’m not, and my dislike of Woods is well known. It was in place well before the sex scandal.
Nagle played The Masters nine times but he and Augusta National weren’t compatible. His best finish was tied 15th in 1965, but he will be forever remembered for his victory in the Centenary British Open at St Andrews in 1960 when he beat Arnold Palmer by a shot.
He was invited to the 150th anniversary of The Open at St Andrews in 2010 but, of the 32 surviving champions, he was just one of four who declined his invitation to be there for the celebrations – and nostalgia.
“No tears, just nice memories,” he told me of his intended absence from the party before I departed to cover the 2010 Open, the championship that became a walk in the park for South African Louis Oosthuizen.
I’ll chat again with Kel next week – about what we’ve both seen via the TV from Augusta – and if an Australian wins I’ll raise celebratory cup of tea, a beverage I haven’t touched since I was a teenager picking fruit in Victoria’s Goulburn Valley on my school holidays to pick up some extra pocket money.