Peter Oosterhuis Reveals He Has Early-Onset Alzheimer's
/The golf commentary world has missed his solid presence on broadcasts since the start of the year, and as Jaime Diaz wrote in Monday's Golf World that longtime CBS and Golf Channel commentator Peter Oosterhuis has admitted to stepping away due to early-onset Alzheimer's disease.
Diaz writes:
Oosterhuis is revealing his story publicly because he wants to do what he can to help Alzheimer’s treatment and research. That means joining the major fundraising efforts of Nantz, who in 2011 founded Nantz National Alzheimer Center at Houston Methodist Neurological Center. Nantz’s father, Jim Jr., was afflicted with Alzheimer’s for 13 years before he died in 2008, an ordeal his son chronicled in his 2009 tribute book, Always By My Side.
Since December, Oosterhuis has been treated by specialists at the center and has been in a program for an experimental drug in its third trial that is designed to break down the formations of plaque in the brain that cause Alzheimer’s, and which has given scientists hope that a breakthrough might be near. Last month, at a fundraiser for the center played at Pebble Beach, the Oosterhuises each took the microphone during a Saturday-night gathering of 140 invitees and revealed that Peter was suffering from the very disease they were all there to fight. (Click here to watch a video of their announcement.) They received a standing ovation, and Nantz was later told that the money raised represented the most ever by a private fundraiser at Pebble Beach.
Here is the video of the Oosterhuis' revealing Peter's condition.