NYT article on Marv Nickolson - Obama's golf buddy and formerly Kerry's 2004 body man

Very nice article on a very nice man. Interesting article that makes it very clear why Obama has played more rounds of golf with him than anyone else. Front page of today's times.


As this is the JK group, here is part of what was written:

At age 4, Marvin Nicholson hit his first golf ball on the nine-hole course his father had mowed into the front of the family’s farm in Ontario. By 7, he had won a Canada Dry Ginger Ale trophy for sinking a hole in one at the local public course. He caddied through college, carried Senator John Kerry’s clubs in Nantucket and then lugged so many of Mr. Kerry’s bags during the 2004 presidential campaign that he distributed business cards stamped with “Chief of Stuff.”

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David Wade, Mr. Kerry’s chief of staff and Mr. Nicholson’s traveling roommate for two years during the 2004 presidential campaign, also owns a flag made by Mr. Nicholson, which hangs in the executive suites of the State Department. Mr. Wade and others describe Mr. Nicholson as an easy conversationalist and conscientious friend who slips out to the drugstore to pick up cough medicine while you sleep or shows up to assemble a grill in the backyard while you work.

While Mr. Nicholson has a close friendship with Mr. Obama, Mr. Kerry is considered a father figure. “Kerry always joked it was a brotherly relationship,” Mr. Wade said. “Other people always said it was more father-son. Probably Kerry called it brotherly because he didn’t want to acknowledge he was in his 60s. Just very, very close.”

Mr. Kerry was especially close when Mr. Nicholson’s younger brother, Peter, died in 2009 from a pulmonary embolism. He and Mr. Nicholson recently dined together at the Washington restaurant Cafe Milano before dropping by Ms. Mastromonaco’s place.