Guyyyssss, it's almost camp time!
Alfredsson's caddy has a bag of tricks
Allan Maki
Globe & Mail
It was a glare you could see from 50 yards away. Helen Alfredsson's approach shot on the 10th hole was short of the green and right away she eyeballed her caddy with a look that would have melted a polar bear.
We're talking serious heat. Death rays from Planet X.
And that's when Kent Nilsson, the former NHL star known as The Magic Man, calmly reached into the golf bag he'd been shouldering all day and handed his wife her putter.
“She's got a temper,” Nilsson said later about Alfredsson, his CN Canadian Open-playing wife. “She gets mad and says things she shouldn't say.”
In Swedish?
“Yeah, in Swedish.”
Alfredsson's ire spiked again when she missed a two-foot putt to post a two-round score of one over. Had she parred her last hole yesterday, she would have assuredly made the cut for the $2.75-million Canadian championship at Priddis Greens. She would have got to see her stepson Robert, who was planning to come down from Edmonton before the start of the Oilers' training camp.
Instead, she had to go back to the practice greens and fret through the possibility she'd blown her weekend on two bad shots. Not what she'd been hoping for, her caddy explained.
“Golf is a tough game. It's very tough and the girls are so good,” Nilsson offered. “Does the public know how good they are? No, they don't have a clue.”
At 53, his hair slightly greying, the former Calgary Flame and Stanley Cup winner with the Edmonton Oilers is every bit as mellow as he was in his athletic prime. He's not his wife's full-time caddy, which may be a good thing, but he has worked with her over the years at various LPGA events. Asked what happened to Alfredsson's regular club carrier, Nilsson replied with a smirk: “He got fired.”
Known for his effortless abilities on ice, Nilsson was equally renowned for driving Calgary head coach Bob Johnson batty with his laid-back nature. Of all the Nilsson stories, and there are dozens to be told, the best involved the night he had four goals after the first period of an NHL game and was being exhorted by Johnson to keep going.
“You're going to break the [single-game] record!” shouted Johnson.
“No, coach,” stammered an apologetic Nilsson. “I'm not.” He didn't.
Mind you, Nilsson's tranquility seems ideally suited for his caddying gig. Alfredsson, 44, has seven Tour wins and has more than $5.5-million (U.S.) in career earnings. She plays to win, not worry about missing the cut, which makes you wonder: how did these two end up together, the unflappable hockey player and the ultra-competitive golf star?
It happened 11 years ago. They met at the wedding of former NHLer Ulf Nilsson and something clicked. Kent Nilsson was a year into his retirement and playing a lot of golf. He and his wife will sometimes play against one another, although Nilsson noted it's never much of a contest.
“She wins all the time.”
On a day when Korean Song-Hee Kim set a tournament record with nine-under 62, Alfredsson and Nilsson did their best to stay in the hunt. Alfredsson managed three birdies but countered them with three bogeys, including the two-putt on her final hole. It wasn't a poor showing overall, but it wasn't what Alfredsson was expecting.
When things turned sour, Nilsson said he got what he was expecting.
“All the girls take it out on their caddies. You're crap for four hours if you read the greens wrong.”
Criticism bounces off Nilsson like Nerf darts. It always did when he played. For him, the game was about artistry and skill, not bashing the other guy or hanging onto his jersey as he raced up and down the wing.
In time, Nilsson learned to like golf and appreciate its difficulty. A scratch player, he whittled his handicap down to a respectable two, although that's not what people want to talk to about when they recognize him working with his wife.
“So who gets asked for more autographs out here?” a reporter asked Nilsson.
“She does. It's her stage. My stage was gone 24 years ago.”
And yet, there's still a little speck of the limelight left for him as a pro hockey scout, the father of Oiler Robert Nilsson and the guy hauling his wife's clubs around a golf course while trying to make the right call and not lag too far behind. The pack mule, he called himself.
At least the pay's good, right?
“It won't feed a cat,” he said.
Happily for Mr. Nilsson and Ms. Alfredsson, it turned out for the best. She made the cut; he didn't get fired. Works for them.