Sadly Australian golfing great Kel Nagle and golf’s oldest living Major winner had died just weeks after celebrating his 94th birthday.
Nagle, winner of the 1960 Centenary British Open, was with his family when he died early Thursday morning in Sydney’s Mona Vale hospital.
“It’s a sad day for golf, we’ve lost a champion of our game,” chief executive of the Australian PGA, Brian Thorburn, said.
Nagle, born in North Sydney in 1920, secured a record 61 wins on the Australasian PGA tour after turning professional in 1946.
Kel Nagle the 1960 Open Champion seen here with the Claret Jug he won at St. Andrews.
As well as beating American legend Arnold Palmer to win the Open at St. Andrews in 1960, Nagle was runner-up in the US Open in 1965 after a losing a play-off with Gary Player.
He had the incredible record of winning a tournament every year from 1949 to 1975.
Nagle remained in Sydney early in his career combining playing on the Australasian tour with working as club professional at the Pymble Golf Club.
His first big win came at the 1949 Australian PGA championship, which he went on to win a further five times – a record for the tournament.
Nagle’s long list of tournament wins includes an Australian Open title and seven victories in the New Zealand Open.
Kel Nagle with fellow Open Champion and life-long friend Peter Thomson.
He also teamed up with Peter Thomson to win for Australia the World Cup in 1954 in Montreal, and again in 1959 in Sydney. The pair also won the Canada Cup, as it was then known before being renamed the World Cup, in 1964.
Nagle’s Old Course success in 1960, was only his third appearance in a major having previously played in the 1951 and 1955 Opens.
Following his breakthrough victory at St Andrews, Nagle left behind his Sydney professional career and toured more regularly. He achieved five more top-five finishes in the British Open.
Nagle played in 145 events on the PGA tour, and later competed in 102 events on the PGA Senior Tour in the US.
Thorburn said Nagle’s playing record is extraordinary.
Kel Nagle at a luncheon in June last year.
“He’s one of only four Australians to win the Open and one of only five Australians to have been inducted in the World Golf Hall of Fame,” he said.
“He has 81 victories and remarkably won a tournament every year for 26 years, just extraordinary achievements.”
He was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (AM) in 1980 for service to the sport of golf.
In 1990, he contested the New South Wales at the Bathurst Golf Club west of Sydney and made the cut at then age 70.
Four years earlier in 1986 Nagle was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame and then into World Golf Hall of Fame in 2007, and at the annual Golf Writers of Australia annual dinner at the Concord GC in Sydney.
His legacy to Australian golf lives on through the Kel Nagle Plate, awarded to the best performing rookie at the Australian PGA Championship.
