September, 2015 | Peter Stone Golf

Craig Perry

Craig Parry sits in the family room of his split-level home high on a cliff in Sydney’s inner-west and gazes across a massive expanse of the Parramatta River.

It’s 200-metres, and then some more, across to land. Look down and see his swimming pool, then his tennis court and tied up at his private wharf is his 40-foot cruising boat – appropriately named Off Course – that takes him anywhere that takes his fancy.

Not so long ago it was Hamilton Island in the Whitsundays, a distance of 1000 nautical miles and travelling at 21 knots. It took five days, sailing between 5am and 4pm each day before docking to refuel and spend the night.

No tears, just nice memories

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 93^rd year, hasn’t been in good health for some years now but while the body may be weak, his spirit is oh so willing.

Prodigy

It was at The Grove course in Hertfordshire just outside London in the final round WGC American Express Championship in 2006 when I saw Tiger Woods up close and personal from the privileged position inside the ropes for the first time since he came to Australia a decade earlier as quite agreeable 21-year-old with a massive future ahead of him for our open championship at The Australian Golf Club.

What I saw that day in England as he went head-to-head with Adam Scott in the final grouping – with Woods winning the tournament by eight shots – appalled me. His cursing with foul language that would have made a sheep shearer blush, his spitting and his club throwing were not the stuff of a world No 1 golfer, and idol and role model to so many kids.