On fifth attempt, 64-year-old swimmer makes it from Cuba to Florida. Wowser!!!
http://main.aol.com/2013/09/02/diana-nyad-sets-record_0_n_3855931.html?1378156141&icid=maing-grid7|main5|dl3|sec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D367383
And, while I'm on the subject of older athletes:
James Castagnera: To an Athlete Dying Old
SOURCE: Lehighton (PA) Times-News (10-7-06)
The poet A.E. Housman penned a famous poem “To an Athlete Dying Young.”
Says Housman, “Smart lad, to slip betimes away from fields where glory
does not stay. And early though the laurel grows, it withers quicker
than the rose.” John Byron Nelson, who died on September 26th at 94,
was perhaps the exception that proves the rule.
When it comes to golf, I’m with Mark Twain: “A good walk
ruined.” So “Lord Byron,” as Nelson was sometimes known, was unknown
to me. Only from obits and eulogies have I learned that he held a
legitimate claim to being the greatest golfer of all time. In 1945
Nelson, who was 4-F and thus unable to serve in the war, won 18
tournaments, including 11 in a row. Some have said that the competition
was soft, due to the global conflict. This criticism overlooks the
simple fact that golfers compete, first and foremost, against the
course. Guys who actually get this stuff say Nelson’s score cards
matched Tiger’s.
Fine… but that’s not why I’ve come belatedly to admire Byron Nelson.
The really cool thing, I think, is that in 1946 he quit. How come? He
had enjoyed 113 consecutive “cuts,” meaning he was among the
competitors for whom the sponsors cut a paycheck at the end of play.
(Only Tiger’s 142 successive paydays surpass this record.) Even
though pro golf 60 years ago paid nothing like it does today, Nelson
had enough to fulfill his real dream. He went home to Texas and bought
himself a ranch.
Defying Housman’s dire warning that “the name died before the man,” Nelson’s real life as a champion began after he gave up competition
at age 34. Besides becoming a rancher, Nelson became golf’s greatest
gentleman. His Byron Nelson Championship, which will outlive the man
himself, has already raised $94 million dollars for charity. A
full-page ad in the Dallas Morning News eulogized Nelson as, “A hero
whose vision went beyond 18 holes.”
One of the game’s first TV announcers, Nelson encouraged his
professional progeny in all sorts of ways. According to one obit, among
the final products of his wood-working shop “were a dozen slivers
branded with a psalm for each member of the U.S. Ryder Cup team, which
competed last week.” Lest you cynics out there think that those young
golfers considered Nelson’s gestures silly or eccentric, note that Tom
Lehman, the team captain, withdrew from the American Express Champion in
England to fly to the funeral.
Reputedly a great family man, too, Nelson remained married to his first
wife until widowed in 1985. He and his second spouse had only recently
celebrated their 238th month together when on the day of his death he
told her “I’m so proud of you,” as she strutted off to church. When
she came home he was gone.
I don’t know what the great poet A.E. Housman would make of Lord Byron’s
life; Housman himself died way back in 1936. This humble columnist
draws two lessons from Nelson’s long saga.
First, his decision to give up the game in his prime proved that money
is only as good as the happiness it gets you. Apparently, Nelson’s
paychecks bought him enough happiness and contentment to last six
decades. Not bad for an era when seven-figure bonanzas were undreamed.
Second, his later years bring to my mind another poem… of which I seem
to grow fonder with each passing year: “Grow old along with me. The
best is yet to be.”
The finest eulogy that I’ve read about Byron Nelson didn’t come from one
of his many golfer-proteges. His minister put it best. “We can
debate over which man was the greatest golfer, but we can never debate
which golfer was the greatest man.”
Let it be noted that I have not gone down to the furnace room to dust
off the bag of clubs shoved into a corner down there. But I wish I’d
known Byron Nelson.
More on Byron Nelson:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byron_Nelson
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