Remembering Kevin Brennan: teenage master of Bondi's waves but a drug-fuelled disaster on land
12/27/2024 09:00 AM
'Kev the Head' won two state surfing titles on the same day in 1965 at the tender age of 15. But fame and drugs dragged him into a maelstrom he never escaped
He was the first lost genius of Australian surfing. The tiny 15-year-old Bondi kid who won the New South Wales junior and senior titles on the same day, beating the incumbent and future world champion. A "little master" whose exploits, good and bad, entered the mythology of 1960s Sin City and whose tragic end – drowned on dry land opposite the beach he loved – went largely unmourned.
The cracked ballad of Kevin Brennan won't rate a mention at Bondi over the 2025 summer. Fifty years after his death, his story, like the beach he made his own, is almost unrecognisable.
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