BOB NAGEL and BOB TETTLEBACK 
Longtime members of the Yale Golf Club and of the Eli Club
Interviewed on September 7, 2004

Interview (46 mins)

Bob Nagel (Yale class of 1938) first learned golf as a caddy in Walpole, MA from 1929 to 1933. He first played the Yale course as a guest of hockey coach Murray Murdock in 1952, and he has been an official member since 1954. According to Bob, no college team has won more national championships in any sport than Yale in golf (21). He has also seen Grantland Rice, Gene Tunney, Red Rolf and Greasy Neale all play at Yale.

Bob Tettleback lived in Westville, and with his brother Dick as a child of 10-12 in 1937, he snuck onto the course and played until they were thrown off by Mr. Perkins. He later worked as caddy for 50 cents a “loop,” and thus knows that the caddy shack was located where one can now find the cart barn. He joined the club in 1950, thanks to his brother and Widdy Neale, and enjoyed a club within the club (i.e. Eli Club) started by Abe Weissman and run for most of 1940-90 by his brother Dick for tournaments and club championships. Once Dick even played the course with Joe Dimaggio. He describes the greatest change to the course to be that the cliff across the seventeenth pond now is now a dirt slope instead of a rock cliff.