A Life Well Played

by Arnold Palmer

  Two years later, in 1997, the city of Augusta inducted me into the Georgia Golf Hall of Fame at a ceremony in downtown Augusta. They commissioned a life-sized bronze statue, and I was given a key to the city.

  All of these wonderful things that have come my way since my first Masters, to me, are quite staggering. The honor has always been mine simply to be a part of Augusta and to play in the Masters and to be a part of their history. It’s been an honor to be a member of the club. It’s been an honor to have won the Masters four times. Whatever contributions folks think I have made to the club and the tournament pale in comparison to what I have gotten out of it.

  In the balance it’s been nothing short of magical. It’s been one of the true pillars in my life and career. It’s been a lifetime all its own.

  MY VERY BEST GOLF

  TWO OF MY MOST FAVORITE personal golf memories occurred not in any official tournament but rather in casual rounds at places that are near and dear to my heart. One was at my course at Bay Hill Club & Lodge and the other came at my boyhood layout, Latrobe Country Club, which I now also own.

  The first, which happened quite a few years ago, occurred on the par-3 17th hole on the Championship Course at Bay Hill. I stepped up to the tee, and the hole that day was playing nearly the full length of its 221 yards. I decided that I wanted to hit a 2-iron, but my caddie that day, Tomcat, insisted on a 3-iron. Against my better judgment, I went with the 3-iron, and watched it fly beautifully right at the pin—and into the water short of the green.

  “Give me the 2-iron,” I ordered as I dropped another ball from the same place. My partners broke up laughing, but as I stepped up to the ball again, I barked, “Laugh all you want. I’ll still make par the hard way.” This one was struck just as well, but, of course, it flew a little farther, landing on the green, skipping once, and going right into the hole for a par. The hard way.

  I handed the club back to the caddie and gave him an “I told you so” look. But I said nothing. Tomcat, sensing that he needed to defend himself, responded to my withering glare by saying, “No sir, Mr. Palmer, I still say it’s a 3-iron. You hit it fat.” I could only laugh and continue walking.

  Meanwhile, on September 12, 1969, a day I will never forget, I chose just about all the right clubs, made nearly all the right swings, and made every putt I looked at—or so it seemed—when I shot a career-low 60 at Latrobe Country Club. I did this despite making two bogeys. (Pap had to get in a little dig at that a few days later, growling, “What were you doing making two bogeys on a day like that?” He did have a point.)

  I knew from the moment I teed off that I could be in for a special day. Some days you just know you’re going to hit the ball well, and this was one of those days. And, sure enough, I went out and birdied the first three holes, including a real steal at the third, which was then a par-4 of 442 yards, a long hole at the time. (It’s now a par-5.)

  Another birdie at the short par-4 fifth was canceled by a bogey at the par-5 sixth hole when I flubbed a chip after being just left of the green in two and then didn’t get up and down for par after a poor second chip shot. Fortunately, I was still, as they say, playing one shot at a time and not getting ahead of myself.

  I rebounded nicely from that disappointment with a birdie at No. 7 and an eagle at the par-5 eighth (which is now a par-4) and went out in 30 after a par at nine. My second bogey came at the par-3 10th, after three putts, but again I brushed aside the error with birdies at 11 and 12 followed by a good par at the 185-yard par-3 13th.

  Now I had arrived at the make-or-break juncture of the round with back-to-back par-5s at 14 and 15, a unique design feature at Latrobe. The first is a dogleg right and the second an uphill dogleg left. I drove the ball splendidly on each hole to set up pair of eagles. Boy, was I pumped. When I birdied the short par-4 16th, I had my sixth consecutive “3” and needed just one more birdie to shoot 59, which in the sport of golf is truly a magical number. At the time, no one on the PGA Tour or the LPGA Tour had carded a 59 in a sanctioned round of golf. Al Geiberger was the first to do it in the second round of the 1977 Danny Thomas Memphis Classic at the Colonial Country Club in Cordova, Tennessee, making one eagle, six pars, and eleven birdies—and no bogeys!

  I gave myself reasonable birdie chances at each of the last two holes, both par-4s, but neither putt went in. I had to settle for two tap-in pars and a 60. Not a bad day. Those are truly the rounds a player relishes, when he wonders how he could ever play a bad round of golf again. But, of course, the game just isn’t that way. Just when you think you have it figured out, the next time it gets you back.

  But I’ll say this much: no one has yet to beat that score at Latrobe. Holding the record at my home course remains one of the great accomplishments of my golfing life. I sincerely feel that way about it.

  MY BEST TIP

  THIS IS ONE OF the best scoring tips I can offer. How do I know? Because Jack Nicklaus still abides by the advice.

  Early in Jack’s rookie season I had observed him practicing little chip shots from the fringe of the practice putting green. Some of the shots were very good but most were … not. After observing this for a while, I offered Jack my opinion on this type of short-game situation. Being more than ten years older, I did have a bit more experience, and I merely told him that I had found over the years that my worst putt from the fringe is at least as good as my best chip. Jack wrote in his autobiography that he still uses that tip.

  Did he ever pay me back in kind? Well, over the years we have traded a lot of ideas about golf as well as many other things. But he did help me with my game once—about three decades after I helped him.

  This was in the early 1990s, and I was getting a lesson from my old college buddy from Wake Forest, Jim Flick, at the Tradition in Arizona. Flick also was a friend of Jack’s, and together they had opened a chain of golf instruction schools. At the time, I was having more trouble than usual with my nemesis—getting enough trajectory on my shots. I had hit the ball with a low, boring trajectory my whole life. As Jim and I were talking, Jack walked over, watched me hit a few shots, and then made some helpful comments.

  To be honest, I’ve never sought much help from Jack—or anyone else for that matter. That goes back to what my father said about not listening to what other players tell you because they might not have your best interests at heart. But in that case, I figured Jack was worth listening to. After all, who in history has been better at hitting the ball up in the air than Jack Nicklaus?

  The tip didn’t work for me, but that didn’t mean I didn’t appreciate his offer to help. I most certainly did, and Jack and I often discussed other aspects of the game that probably helped each of us. But everyone has to decide for himself if a piece of advice is worth using. The first order of business is to know your game well enough to be able to make the right decision.

  DRIVING

  THERE’S NOTHING IN GOLF more spectacular and satisfying to the soul and the senses than a perfectly long and straight drive, a drive that takes off like a jet, bores a straight line up toward the clouds, and then finally drops in a long and graceful arc, finding its way unerringly to a spot in the fairway way off in the distance.

  A long drive is good for the ego. It also is good for the nerves. It sets you up and puts you in a frame of mind to play the rest of your shots well, and it gives you an opportunity to score, to make a birdie or a stress-free par instead of having to grind it out.

  I’ve said previously, what other people may find in poetry or in art museums I find in the flight of a good drive—that white ball getting smaller and smaller as it flies off into a blue sky. Such a thing is truly inspirational, at least to me. And I have always felt that way, even as a kid.

  And it’s a true weapon, not only in stroke play but also in match play, to be able to drive the ball well, so well that it has your opponents thinking to themselves.

  Earlier in my career I was able to take control of some tournaments with a strong driving game, and certainly I couldn’t
have pulled off any of my charges without it. The best example, of course, was my final round rally in the 1960 U.S. Open at Cherry Hills.

  But here’s a little news for you: I didn’t really master the driver—if anyone can ever master anything about this game—until I was about thirty-two years old. I must have played at least 3,000 rounds of golf by then over twenty-eight years before I truly had a reliable driving game. That didn’t mean I could rely on my driver all the time, but I could rely on it most of the time.

  What changed? Well, I broke Pap’s golden rule, if you will. I changed my grip—if ever so slightly. And then I made another small change. I did this over the span of thirteen years, and it led to one of the best seasons of my career.

  The first adjustment came in the summer of 1949 when I weakened my left hand on the grip of the club. What that means is that I rotated my hand on the club slightly to the left and more underneath the grip. One night during the North and South Amateur that year I was playing gin rummy with my good friend Bud Worsham and one of his brothers, Herman. A third brother, Lew Worsham, who won the 1947 U.S. Open, had been watching me earlier that day, and he noticed that my grip was pretty strong—or more on top of the grip—which contributed to the hard draw that I normally played—and occasionally to a maddening duck hook. He had made an observation about my grip to Herman, who relayed it to me.

  I gave this some thought and eventually came to the conclusion that Lew was right, and that a weaker grip would prevent the club head from coming into the ball from a closed position, and I began a painful experiment. That entire summer was a nightmare as my average scores hovered into the 80s. The temptation to go back to my old grip was almost overwhelming as I was feeling so inept and my game was in total crisis. Yet I stuck to my guns. There I was, an eighteen-year-old kid trying to figure out some largely untried theory. I just felt what I was doing was going to make me a better player.

  Finally there was a breakthrough in the fall, at Oakmont Country Club in the Western Pennsylvania Amateur. Oakmont is an incredibly difficult course, one where driving the ball well is crucial. Suddenly, my driving began to come around, and I was able to keep the ball in play without losing any distance and without the fear of hitting some ugly hook. In the final, I defeated five-time champion Jack Benson 10–8 for the greatest victory of my career up to that point.

  Fast-forward to early 1962, and I am again beginning to think about my driving. As well as I had been playing—winning two Masters, a U.S. Open, and a British Open—I felt like I could do better. Throughout my career I had been teeing up the ball rather low and near the middle of my stance. I made contact with the ball while the club was still descending. But now I started thinking that I needed to move the ball a bit more forward in my stance and tee it up slightly higher. I figured that would give the club head a split second more time to travel down a straight line. That should provide a bit more accuracy, not to mention put the ball higher in the air, adding some distance.

  After working on this new fundamental and struggling in the first four events of the 1962 season, I began to see the change bear fruit. I won the Palm Springs Classic (forerunner of the Bob Hope Classic) thanks to five birdies in a row in the final round. Then I went to the Phoenix Open at Phoenix Country Club, a narrow tree-lined course that I had always dreaded. But I arrived there with a lot of confidence, and, sure enough, I drove the ball beautifully and won the tournament by twelve strokes.

  I won eight times that year, including my third Masters and second straight British Open title, and if not for 11 three-putts offsetting another beautiful driving and ball-striking week at the U.S. Open at Oakmont I might not have found myself in a playoff with Jack Nicklaus, who beat me by three over the extra 18 holes.

  My only regret about it all was waiting so long to make the changes.

  CHECK PLEASE

  BECAUSE OF THE PGA RULES in place when I turned professional, I wasn’t allowed to keep any prize money, regardless of where I finished in a tournament, for a six-month period of apprenticeship. The exception to this rule was the Masters Tournament, which wasn’t run by the tour—and still isn’t. I earned $695.83 when I tied for 10th place at Augusta National Golf Club, which, believe me, was not insignificant when I wasn’t earning any other prize money.

  I collected my first official paycheck on May 28, 1955, when I tied for 25th place at the Fort Wayne Invitational at Coyote Creek Golf Club with rounds of 69-72-72-74-287. The tour handed me a check for $145, and I was off and running to season earnings of $7,958, which ranked 32nd on the money list. Pretty good for half a year’s credit, helped immensely by the $2,400 I collected for my first official victory in the Canadian Open that August. Overall, I entered thirty-one official events my first season to average $265 per start. My average finish was 22nd. What really got me through the year was a cool piece of change I picked up after being invited to play in the Greenbrier Open, a pro-am tournament that began in 1948 and was hosted by Sam Snead in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. (It later was named the Sam Snead Festival.)

  Sam invited Winnie and me personally after we had hit it off at the Masters the month before. Held in late spring, the Festival was not an official tour event, but many tour players competed in it, even though it was opposite an official tournament; that year, played May 12–15, it coincided with the Hot Springs Open, in Arkansas. Ben Hogan wasn’t playing much anymore, but he was among the fifty players invited to White Sulphur Springs. The field also featured Snead, Jackie Burke, Ed Oliver, Mike Souchak, Henry Picard, Dow Finsterwald, Peter Thomson, and eventual winner Dutch Harrison. Bob Hope was among the regular amateurs who showed up each year.

  I was paired the first two days in the team event with a gentleman named Spencer Olin, who was the chairman of a large chemical firm. Spencer bought our team in the Calcutta, and he proceeded to back up his bet by playing splendidly the first day. Meanwhile, I shot a 69, and we were leading the field. Spencer wasn’t nearly as brilliant the next day. In fact, he really struggled and carded a 94. But I managed to hold up my end of the deal with another 69, enabling us to tie for first in the team competition.

  I scored even better in the final two rounds, with a 66 and 68, for a 272 total, three behind Harrison in a tie for seventh place in the bunched field. I won $280 of the $10,000 purse. That was nice, but nicer was the parting gift from Spencer, who gave me half of his winnings from the Calcutta. Combined with my individual showing, I left West Virginia with close to $10,000. It sure made up for my tour apprenticeship, in which I had to pass on more than $1,100 in prize money. Spencer, one of the great guys of all time, also was gracious enough to fly Winnie and me to our next stop in his private plane, and I remember thinking as I leaned back in the seat inside that DC-3 that this was the way to travel to golf tournaments.

  When we got back to Latrobe, Winnie and I decided to buy a car, and we went to Forsha Motors and bought a brand-new 1955 Chrysler New Yorker with some of our Greenbrier earnings. It was the first new car I ever owned. It was tan with a beige interior. Man, it was a sweet car. The next tournament on the schedule was the U.S. Open at Olympic Club in San Francisco. I got that car going over 120 miles per hour while crossing the Great Salt Lake, which didn’t make Winnie too happy. But later that evening I was able to make it up to her. We pulled into Elko, Nevada, and we got a room at an inexpensive casino motel. We went out for dinner—a hamburger and a beer—but before turning in I dropped the change from our grand meal on the roulette table. I put it all on double zero, and it hit. We collected 35 silver dollars.

  Boy, were we on a roll.

  FOCUS

  IN SOME WAYS I always admired the way Jack Nicklaus went about playing golf and the amount of intense concentration he used in the heat of a championship. He could just shut everything outside off and go play. He could be super-focused.

  I’m not sure I ever wanted to do that. And I don’t think you can just show up one week and do that. You can’t just say, “Oh, this is the U.S. Open, I’m going
to do it now. I’m going to put the blinders on and just get lost in myself.” That wasn’t me, and I think my golf would have suffered if I tried to play golf that way.

  I know people have wondered if I might have won more if I had spent less time concerning myself with the other side of the ropes and employed a version of tunnel vision. Perhaps. Who knows? Maybe if I had gone to hit balls after every round instead of mingling with sponsors and fans and the media, and maybe if I hadn’t responded so much to the galleries I might have won a few more titles. It’s possible.

  But would I have enjoyed it as much? Heck no! If golf itself had been all that mattered, I can’t imagine I would have had a better time, even if I had more trophies. Sure, I would love to have won the four U.S. Opens I almost won, or the two or three PGAs I barely lost. But if I had it to do over again, would I take a different approach? I wouldn’t. Let’s say I could start over. I could have five U.S. Opens and two PGA Championships and six Masters and a couple more British Opens, but not as many friends? Well, that doesn’t sound very good to me. Keep the trophies.

  The fact is, I knew how to focus on the task at hand when I needed to. I knew how to be myself as I went through my round, but I also knew how to concentrate and be ready to hit the shot when it was my turn to play. I didn’t have to shut myself off from the world for hours at a time to do that.