Interviews

An Interview With: DAVID NELL

MARTY PARKES:  It's my pleasure to welcome Mr. David Nell to the interview area.  David, I thought we'd start off by talking a little bit about the Open qualifying process.  That's something that sets this event apart from many others.  Maybe you could talk about what you went through in sectional qualifying.

DAVID NELL:  Thanks, Marty.  Since I turned 50 last October, this was one of the things I had on my mind at that time that I'd like to try to qualify for, since I tried about 12, 13 times to get in the U.S. Open, never made it, never came close.  But since I turned 50, I just got an application this winter and filled it out, sent in my $125 as a qualifier.  And as an amateur, I think the handicap limit is 3.4.  I'm under a 3.4, I send my money in, they assign me to the Atlanta qualifying site and it turned out we had about 112 players for three spots that were allotted to the Atlanta area.  And we had qualifying back on the 10th of June.  And I just showed up and lo and behold I got lucky and made it through.  That's how I'm here.  One 18 hole round, and if you're lucky enough to make it in, and that's me.

MARTY PARKES:  We noticed that you make your own clubs that you play with.

DAVID NELL:  Right.  And I used to be an assistant pro back in the mid to late 70s, and I kind of got introduced to club-making.  One of the jobs I was working at had a full custom club repair and custom club operation.  On slow days, it was in the Chicago area, and we had some cold, rainy days, on a slow day I'd regrip, reshaft a few clubs, make a few custom clubs, and I got my introduction to it then.  It's just a hobby, and nothing happened to it until we moved about 8 years or so, and got in a house, and my lovely wife, Sandy, and I got a work bench in the basement there.  And I got myself a vice and kind of go back to making a few clubs.  It's fun, I enjoy it.  And I just get all the components from the Golf Smith supply company, Golf Smith, get the heads, shafts, grips, and tape and whatnot and put them together, and test them out.  Some work, and some don't.  The ones that don't, I try something else.  She can attest, I got about two golf bags at home with a bunch of clubs for whatever reason, I put them together, tried them out, I didn't like the way they looked or played, and I put them away and tried something else.  It's a trial and error thing.  I have a lot of fun.

MARTY PARKES:  How long have you been reinstated as an amateur?

DAVID NELL:  Back in  '81 or  '82, it's been a long time, about 20 years.

Q.  I think one of the things we noticed on your biographical sheet is that you work the night shift.  I'm wondering how much time you do get a chance to play?

DAVID NELL:  My typical week or day, whatever, I do work nights and sleep days.  I work at Nestle Purina dog food company, they make dog food, Cat Chow, Dog Chow, Meow Mix.  And I work nights, sleep days, and as long as I work around a sleep schedule, it allows me to get out a couple of times a week.  Typically, I get home in the morning about 8:00 o'clock, quarter to 8, catch some sleep, and get up around 3, 3:30, run errands or practice a little bit.

As far as playing, we usually play -- I usually play once a week on Sunday afternoons, Brian and I -- I have two or three or 4 other guys that we put together a group that go out and play on my local golf course there.  We usually play once a week on Sunday afternoons.  If I get out on the golf course to practice once or twice a week during the season, that's pretty typical.

Q.  What is it that you do at your job?

DAVID NELL:  They call me a warehouse clerk.  It's like a shipping, receiving clerk.  I'm in the command central of the warehouse.  We coordinate the loading of trucks, of the dog food, and trucks come in and go out, it's a 24 hour operation, very busy.  I'm in this command central of this thing.

Q.  Let me shift gears, here for a second.  Nell, N, O, P, your locker may not be that far away from Mr. Palmer's, I wondered when you qualified if you thought I'm going to meet Tom Watson, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus?

DAVID NELL:  Certainly that entered my mind.  And I walked in the locker room.  I'm right next to Larry Nelson, and Bob Murphy over here.  I didn't notice Arnold Palmer's locker, but now that you mention it I'll check that out.  And I get out there -- I got here Sunday night late and played yesterday, I'm on the practice putting green, and here is Raymond Floyd, and he starts putting down here, and I conveniently hit a couple of putts up to the hole he was putting at.  I introduced myself, so I got Ray Floyd.  And today I did the same thing and got Tom Watson and Larry Nelson.  These guys are my heroes.  And if I get a chance to I'll -- I saw Hale Irwin from a distance, I haven't seen Arnie, but I'll do the same thing to them, I've got to shake these guys hands.  Given an opportunity I'm going to get them.

Q.  The clubs that you qualified with, are those clubs that you made?  Then, do you play with the clubs that you usually make?

DAVID NELL:  Right.  I currently -- the clubs that I'm currently playing with, that I made, are the 3, the pitching wedge.  For varying times back home depending on the course I play, and sometimes the mood that I'm in, I'll play anywhere from 8 to 10 or 11, out of the 14 clubs in my bag are the ones that I made.  I bought a driver and a putter and a couple of wedges, but anywhere from 8 to 10 or 11 clubs that are in my bag at any given time are ones that I made myself.  And I didn't do it to be anything special.  I have a lot of fun doing it.

And I put them together to save me a little money, honestly up front, and plus, I can make the clubs -- I have a little bit of knowledge making the clubs, I can make them up the way I want them, with the length, the grip flex, the shaft, graphite shafts, you put some graphite shafts, and I bend them two degrees up right, I have a lot of fun doing it.  Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't.  But right now, this week I've going to have the 3 to the pitching wedge, except the lob wedge and the sand wedge are ones that I made.  8 out of 14 I put together in my basement, and here I am.

Q.  What time did you tee off yesterday?

DAVID NELL:  Yesterday we teed -- what time did we tee off yesterday?  9:05.

Q.  How was playing in this heat?

DAVID NELL:  Well, it was hot.  Honestly, I think the guys that I played with, we had one guy from Reno, Nevada, one guy from California and another guy from Hilton Head, and they were having a tough time.  I'm Metro Atlanta area, and to us it was a good, hot summer day in Atlanta.  It wasn't that big a deal.  This is not that unusual really, on a hot day.  It was even hotter than a normal day in the summer.  But for a hot day in Atlanta, this is nothing.

Q.  Big names or not so big names aside, you've got guys out here that play 300, 320 rounds of golf a year, it's their business.  You sound like you get a very limited amount of playing and practice time.  How do you keep your game sharp to contend at the level that these guys do?

DAVID NELL:  That's a good question, I don't know.  In a year I'll play 55 or 60 rounds.  I do play a few tournaments where I might play three or four days in a row.  But over the course of the year I'll play 55 to 60, 18 hole rounds a year.  Once a week or twice a week, if I play tournaments and that sort of thing.  I try to get out and practice once or twice a week.  Sometimes it works -- I got  lucky during the qualifying.  I was on.  I hit a lot of fairways and greens, which is kind of my game.

And fortunately, the course we qualified at was fairly short and tight, and that's perfect for me.  I got lucky and qualified.  I could have gone out and shot 85 as easy as 70, maybe not 85, maybe 80 -- but we got done, and it was just amazing, just to think that I actually made it and I was going it to the U.S. senior Open.  And play shoulder-to-shoulder with these guys.  It's unbelievable.  This golf course and this whole facility -- someone asked me what was the most number of people I've ever played in front of.  And I was thinking back, and I think it was 1972 or 1973, back in Illinois, I played for the city championship, and we had maybe 75 or a hundred people, and that was it.  So, this is unbelievable.

Q.  Was it Peoria, Illinois?

DAVID NELL:  That's where I was from, where I grew up.  But this is unbelievable.

Q.  What did you shoot in the qualifier to get in?

DAVID NELL:  2-under par, 70.  We had three spots, one guy shot 66, and we had two 70's.  Fortunately, I played in the afternoon, because we had to wait around until every player got in.  If somebody came in under 70, we had to go to a playoff.  And if somebody, some guy shot a 71, and someone shot 72, I dodged a couple of bullets, and lo and behold I'm in.

Q.  Tell me about the conversation when you called home from that golf course, to tell your wife, honey, we're going to the Senior Open, let's go out to dinner or something?

DAVID NELL:  That's pretty close to it.  I was driving home, and Brian was in the passenger seat.  And he said call home.  I can't drive and call at the same time, you call.  He calls home and talks to my daughter who was home, and told her what was going on.  So she eventually got ahold of my wife who was at work, she called her at work, and we got home and went out to get something to eat, and I was numb then, and I'm still kind of numb about the whole deal now.  I still can't even believe that I'm here, especially right here, here (laughter.)

Q.  What else do you have planned for the week besides golf?  Obviously it's an experience you've been looking for and shooting for, but are you going to allow yourself some fun time, as well?

DAVID NELL:  I play this afternoon about 2 o'clock.  And we're playing tomorrow about 12:25 or 12:30, I think.  And Thursday and Friday, hopefully sat and Sunday, that is my goal to make the cut.  That is my No. 1 goal.  But as far as any fun time, we talked about going to an Orioles game since we're so close.  They have the Yankees here in town.  This golf course takes so much out of us.  We came back last night and I crashed, we were so tired.  If we do anything, we might check out an Orioles game.  But the Yankees are in town, I hate the Yankees.

Q.  Just along those same lines, how many times have you thought where that first tee ball is going to go in your thoughts and dreams?

DAVID NELL:  Well, yesterday I was kind of okay with it, I got to the first tee on my practice round, and here's the starter, and gets on the microphone, and I wasn't expecting that.  I was expecting it Thursday, but not yesterday for the practice rounds.  I get up there, "Oh, my God, how am I going to get this off the ground?"  I hit a pretty good tee shot.  It didn't turn out quite so good.  I don't know, typically pretty common in tournaments on the first tee, when I get to the greens I'm shaky, but that caught me by surprise, when he asked my name.  There were a few people in the stands that started clapping.  Then I got a little shaky.  But I got it out there somewhere and found it and hit it again, and made par on the first hole, so it was better.

MARTY PARKES:  I notice on your bio sheet you played the U.S. public Links in 1973, it's been almost 30 years.

DAVID NELL:  That was my one and only other USGA championship, I qualified for the Public Links Championship.  We had two or three shots and I got through on my local course, and we went out to Phoenix, Scottsdale, Arizona area, and played in the USGA Public Links Championship.  I bombed out.  But I had fun.  That was really the first time I've been out of Illinois, except to go to St. Louis.  The first time I've been over 250 miles from home.  We had a great time.  I came back with some rock marks on all my clubs, and cactus, it was a mess.  But we had a great time.  But that was it, almost 30 years ago.  So that and this is it.

Q.  How did you pick up the game as a kid, is it something your father, parents did?

DAVID NELL:  How I started playing the game?  I plate baseball as a kid.  I started little league, pony league, played high school ball.  I played baseball from the time I was 10 until about 15.  And a couple of the guys on one of the baseball teams I was playing on, they got me into it.  They played golf every now and then.  So they started talking about golf, and I never really thought about it.  And they dragged me off to the golf course a couple of times, and I got hooked, I got the bug, stopped playing baseball when I was 15 and played golf all the time.  And that was it.

Q.  Have you ever thought in the past couple weeks, if I can qualify for a U.S. Open, maybe -- what if I dedicated myself to this more, could I play, could I hang in there in regular tournaments and whatnot?  Have you allowed yourself to dream at all?

DAVID NELL:  Not seriously.  I know these guys are just -- I kind of -- I play a nice game, but these guys are the cream of the crop.  And just watching these guys hit balls on the range, and watching them on TV, and we used to go to The Masters, in fact whenever we can get tickets, and watch them on the practice rounds, and granted those are the regular Tour, but my game is -- I could practice until the cows come home, and my game is not going to be to the level of these guys.  I'm going to share one week with them anyhow.  And hopefully there's going to be more.

I'm just 50, so I hope to be here a few more times before I hang it up.  I've got a few more tries in me, I'm going to try next year and the year after that and the year after that and the year after that.  As far as day-in and day-out, I don't have the game these guys have.  I might be able to hang with them one day, but week in, week out, day-in and day-out, they're the cream of the crop, they're here for a reason.

Q.  What are your friends and neighbors doing back home this week, in terms of how much are you checking back in with them, are they planning any festivities around watching this?

DAVID NELL:  I don't know about festivities, I called my mom back home in Peoria, and she got excited.  I called friends back in North Carolina, I used to live there.  They're going to check it out, check the TV, and check the Internet.  And some folks back in Sharpsburg, they're going to follow it, and see how I'm doing.  My mom had a funny story, she said -- because she got all excited, by mom and dad back in Peoria.  They made up, my mom, dad and sister, she had made up bright yellow, pink, fuschia, I don't know what they were, tee shirts, My Son Played In The 2002 U.S. senior Open.  They went out to play bridge the other night, and went out to dinner with friends.

Q.  What's your mom's name?

DAVID NELL:  Catherine Nell.  Ronald P. and Catherine Nell.  She's all excited.  And my sister is going to tune into the Internet -- I guess they have hole-by-hole scoring, I'm not exactly sure how that goes.  They're going to track my progress and see how I'm doing.

Q.  David, tell me about your co-workers, and maybe the conversation you had with your boss to tell him what you were going to do this week?

DAVID NELL:  Well, honestly driving back from the golf course, all I was thinking is I hope I can get this week off work.  As crazy as it sounds, but true story, because we're kind of gearing up right now, they've had a few business things going on, and it's kind of hitting in this week right now.  So -- if fact they put out a memo, my boss's boss put out a memo about two weeks ago, saying no vacation days from now until July 8.  If you don't already have it booked, you can't take it.

And all I could think about driving home, here I can play in this tournament and I can't get off work to do it.  Fortunately, even though none of them were golfers, so they really didn't understand, just the enormity of this thing, but fortunately they're able to let me get off work this week to play.  But most of them aren't golfers, but they've all heard of Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson, those guys, even though they're not golfers, themselves.  I think they're excited for me, and all wished me the best.

MARTY PARKES:  Thank you very much, and best of luck this week.

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