Arnie

by Tom Callahan

  He was good enough to join the Big Three, to be their fourth, and this nearly happened. But the merger fell through because Casper and Mark McCormack couldn’t stand each other, so they went their own ways. The Big Three knew exactly how good Casper was. Efficient was Nicklaus’s word for him and his game. “No, let me change that,” Jack said. “Extremely efficient.”

  “Walking down the tenth fairway,” Palmer said, “Bill told me, ‘Now I’m going to have to really go to get second.’ [Nicklaus, Lema, and Dave Marr were gaining on him.] ‘Don’t worry,’ I told him, ‘you’ll finish second.’” “It wasn’t gamesmanship,” Casper said. “I was just being honest. Arnie said, ‘I’ll do anything I can to help you.’”

  By then Palmer wasn’t playing in the ’66 Open at Olympic. He was playing in the ’48 Open at Riviera. “That’s where Hogan set the Open record,” Palmer said, “two-seventy-six. All I had to do was shoot a one-over-par thirty-six on the back nine and I’d have both the British Open and the U.S. Open records. I thought to myself, ‘Wouldn’t that be something?’ Of course, I completely forgot what Pap had told me over and over when I was a boy.” Never quit. Never look up. And, most important of all, never lose focus until you’ve completely taken care of business.

  It was George Low in the Augusta gallery all over again.

  Palmer bogeyed the 10th; Casper parred it. The lead was six with eight holes to play. Both parred 11 and birdied 12. Six shots still, now only six holes remaining. (“The worst break of all could have been that birdie at twelve,” Palmer said. “It convinced me I could break Hogan’s record.”) He missed the 13th green—Olympic’s greens were uniformly small—and made another bogey. Five strokes.

  As they approached 15, a par 3, the margin seemed permanently frozen at five. “But I thought to myself,” Palmer said, “‘now I have to par-in to beat Hogan.’” He aimed directly at a tucked pin, cut beside a bunker in a back corner. Though nicking the green, his ball blew a tire and swerved into the sand. Meanwhile, having asked himself which way Hogan would go, Casper went the surest way, to the heart of the green—fully 30 feet from the cup. Arnie didn’t get up and down. Billy made the long putt.

  “That changed everything,” Casper said. “Now he knew he could lose. And, though still three behind, I knew I had a chance.” To Billy, the ocean air felt clean and new. “The gulls were calling to me,” he said.

  Sixteen, a par 5, brought another two-stroke swing. Palmer’s new shape broke down. He should have laid up his second shot out of the heaviest rough, but went for it naturally. “With a three-iron!” Casper gasped. “A three-iron! It didn’t go a hundred yards!” Three swings into the hole, Arnold was still nearly 300 yards away from the green. The six he ultimately registered was actually more than remarkable, involving a 265-yard 3-wood, a 40-yard bunker shot inside four feet, and a one-putt.

  “I almost said, ‘Nice six,’” Casper said, “but I caught myself.” Billy had already made his 15-foot birdie putt at 16. “I knew I was going to make it, too,” he said. The lead was one.

  When Palmer missed a 12-footer for par at 17, they were tied, and, on the 18th tee, effectively changed places. It was Casper who elected the driver, Palmer the 1-iron. The irony was plain to Arnold if to no one else. Who is the bold one now? Who is being meticulous?

  Twenty-five and 17 feet away from the 72nd hole in two, Palmer and Casper both missed. Before Arnold putted, Nicklaus and Marr, who had just finished signing for third and fourth places, took seats on a hillside to witness the drama. Fairly rare, that. Palmer’s first putt was fine for weight but three feet wide. Concerned about standing in his playing partner’s line, he asked Billy, “Should I finish?” “Go ahead, Arnold,” Casper said, “you’re hot.”

  Tough game, this golf.

  Though his 3-footer was treacherous, Palmer handled it. “Believe it or not,” he said at his desk, “it was the best putt I hit all week.” By just that measure he avoided shooting a 40 on the back. Then he held his breath as Casper pushed his own birdie putt that would have been for 31. Casper said, “I thought to myself, ‘You’ve picked up seven shots on one of the greatest players the game has ever known. Maybe you better just lag this up and putt it in.’” A pair of fours. Eighteen-hole playoff the next day.

  In the playoff, like in a lot of nightmares, everything reoccurred exactly as it had before. Palmer went out in 33 for a two-stroke lead but began to unravel again at 10. That subtle fade turned into a rampaging slice, the hacker’s calling card. Casper took his first lead by holing a birdie putt at 13 that was every bit of 50 feet. Palmer couldn’t avoid 40 this time, for 73. The good player who chokes usually does so because he dwells on what it all means to him. At 18, Casper notched his 33rd one-putt of the tournament, for 69.

  “I’m sorry, Arnie,” he said. Many years went by before he added in a whisper, “Those of us who play, we understand.”

  Doesn’t 280 win U.S. Opens? Not always. But only one other golfer had ever broken 280 and lost an Open. Like Palmer, Jimmy Demaret shot 278 when Hogan set his record at Riviera. In the days before the Olympic tournament, Palmer had predicted to Marr that it would take a score below 280 to win. “No way,” Marr said. For $10, Arnold bet him, “I’ll break two-eighty.” “I never paid him,” Marr said years later. “I didn’t have the heart.”

  Early that week, Dow Finsterwald invited Arnold and Winnie on their way home from San Francisco to drop by Colorado Springs, where Finsty served as pro-in-residence at the Broadmoor. “We had dinner at the club the next night,” he said. “Dishwashers came out of the kitchen to get Arnold’s autograph. He was so nice to them. You would have thought he had won the tournament, not lost it so bitterly. How Palmer handled himself around people was the most amazing of all the amazing things about him. I took a lesson. Not that I’m as good with people. I’m not. But I’m better than I would have been. Watching him that night, you know what I was thinking? I was glad he had his airplane, a diversion. When he got his hands on those controls, he had no choice but to stop thinking about golf. It carried him away from Olympic, into the sky.”

  To Arnie’s Army—disappointed, of course—Olympic humanized him all the more. He won big, he lost big. The plaque on the 16th hole at Royal Birkdale wasn’t his only golf course monument from 1961. Another, on the ninth hole at Rancho Park, commemorated the four straight 3-woods he rifled out of bounds (and a fifth onto the green) to make a 12 in the Los Angeles Open. That’s who he was. Nobody wanted him to be anybody else. “If you don’t think golf is a humbling game,” Palmer said, “then you haven’t had something like Olympic, something you wish you could be allowed to forget, brought back up to you year after year, over and over. It’s not just a humbling game; sometimes it’s a humiliating game. But the good thing about the bad losses is they bring you back to earth. And, in my experience, they arrive at just the right time, when you need them most. The moment you become a little too full of yourself, an Olympic comes along to turn you back into a real person again.”

  Going forward, he continued to be the most asked question called into the night desks on weekends: “What did Palmer do today?” People who didn’t follow golf followed him. People who hated golf loved him. That wouldn’t change.

  13

  1973

  WINNER:

  Bob Hope Desert Classic

  “Ol’ ’enry was a wise, wise man.”

  RAYMOND FLOYD WAS SORRY to hear that, contrary to his long-standing recollection, the ’71 Hope he lost to Palmer in a playoff was not Arnold’s final victory on the regular tour. Palmer won the Hope again two years later. That was the finish line.

  Floyd so cherished his association with Palmer, he prized even the distinction of losing to Arnold last. “Everybody says he was the swashbuckler who came along at just the right time for television,” Floyd said, “but, to me, he was a lot more than that. He was the epitome of a superstar even before the word was coined. In his patience and decency, he set the standard for how superstars in every sport ough
t to be. The way he always signed autographs. The way he always made time for everyone. I sought him out, as I guess everybody did, as a young player, asking his advice on the practice tee—and you know how dangerous that can be. He said a few things and I immediately started hitting it better. Then he took my club in his hands—those amazing hands—and bent the neck just slightly. I started hitting it even better still. I came across a photograph of Palmer’s hands once. I’ve still got it.”

  Palmer won that fifth and final Hope in 1973 by two strokes over Nicklaus and Johnny Miller. So, as Arnold had finished second to Nicklaus at Jack’s first PGA Tour victory (the Oakmont Open of ’62), Nicklaus finished second to Palmer at Arnold’s last. During a post-tournament jam session in Indian Wells, a charming if temporary truce broke out in their hostilities. One or the other of them accidentally bumped a female in the crowd, dislodging her blond wig, leaving the poor woman in curlers. Picking up the wig, Arnie asked Jack if he’d care to dance. He said he’d be delighted. Taking turns leading and playing the blonde, they tangoed across the floor, proving the old adage.

  Four months after the dance, Palmer returned to Oakmont for another Open without either his airplane or spectacles (with which he lately had been experimenting), because the course was less than an hour’s drive from Latrobe and its lines were so indelibly drawn in his head, he could have negotiated it blindfolded. Early Sunday morning, this being a different era in both golf and newspapers, Doc Giffin gathered a gaggle of writers on a screen porch so Arnie could pass some of the long waiting time filling their early columns.

  Palmer was in the lead, along with three others, to be sure: Jerry Heard, known then as “the Heard Shot Round the World”; two-time Open champion Julius Boros (the amiable accountant); and Oregonian eccentric John Schlee, who would be Palmer’s playing partner that afternoon. Six strokes back in 13th place, Miller was trying to shake off Saturday’s 76. As a 19-year-old amateur, he had signed up to caddy at Olympic, his home course, but ended up qualifying and finishing eighth in the Casper-Palmer Open. And, with two top-sevens in ’71 and ’72, he seemed to be gaining on it.

  Oakmont’s famously firm greens had been all but drowned by an overnight downpour compounded by a sprinkler malfunction set off by a flash of lightning. The putting surfaces weren’t just soft now—they were squishy. It might sound like New Journalism, but Jack Murphy of San Diego was prompted to open the conversation on the porch by asking Palmer, “What if somebody goes out early and shoots sixty-three?”

  “There’ll be hell to pay,” he said, telling the story of Mrs. Fritz at Latrobe and the nickels she used to pay him for hitting her drives over the ditch. “People around here,” he said, meaning country club people, “think they can buy anything, and they’re not paying for sixty-threes.”

  Palmer was plainly enjoying himself. He looked confident and on the muscle; in short, like the winner. At a mention of his swing, he said, “Ignoring your descriptions of it, everyone’s descriptions of it—even people who know what they’re talking about [he looked around pointedly and smiled]—has been crucial to my success.”

  “Arnie, would you mind giving us an example,” said Atlanta’s Furman Bisher, flashing a similar smile, “of someone who knows what he’s talking about?”

  “Henry Cotton, for instance,” Palmer said, the Englishman, three-time winner of the British Open, Tip Anderson’s father’s old employer. “Asked about my style,” Palmer said, “Cotton replied, ‘Palmer’s style? He has no style. No follow-through, either. Never finishes a swing the same way twice. Almost goes to his knees half the time. And don’t get me started on that crouching, cringing, knock-kneed putting stance of his. . . .’”

  Everyone laughed.

  “Ol’ ’enry is a wise, wise man,” Bisher said.

  A writer who arrived a couple of minutes late at the first tee for the Palmer-Schlee pairing was baffled to find Schlee standing there alone with no caddie, no Palmer, and no gallery. He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt that wasn’t tucked in, a nod to the Hawaiian Open he had won that year, the only PGA tournament he would ever win. “Hi there,” Schlee said pleasantly, sticking a peg in the ground, balancing a ball on it, taking a practice swing, driving the ball away, and quick-stepping down the fairway after it. “See you later,” he called.

  It turned out, this wasn’t his first drive of the day. In fact, it was his third. The second was a provisional, in case the first was out of bounds. When Schlee found his original ball in bounds but unplayable, he had to walk all the way back to the tee with his driver. Nobody went with him. They all stayed with Palmer in the fairway. The U.S. Open was on pause.

  A comment of Schlee’s the day before made a certain sense now. Asked to rate his chances, he had said, “Well, Mars is in conjunction with my natal moon. So.”

  Many of the writers took him for a Southerner because he played his college golf in Memphis, looked like a curly-haired cowboy, and spoke with a prairie twang. Also, they associated him with Hogan, so, by extension, with Texas. As the story went, Hogan drove up to him in a cart on a range somewhere and asked if he’d like to have a game. That was more than unusual for Hogan. “I can’t remember what we played for,” Schlee said. “It wasn’t much, but it was all I had. I outhit him by miles. I was more than twenty-five years younger, but I couldn’t beat him. It was all I could do to tie him.” Schlee became a regular practice companion to Hogan and one of Ben’s rare cronies.

  Actually, Schlee was from a seaside Oregon town called Seaside, where his folks ran a small hotel (with a wishing well?) on the ocean. For dating the daughter of the chief of police more than for stealing golf balls (allegedly), he ended up being browbeaten by his father and the law into choosing between jail and the Army. Whether as a soldier, a college golfer, or a pro, Schlee was hopelessly star-crossed, and knew it. Because he knew stars.

  “He didn’t only do his own horoscope, he did yours, too,” Palmer said. “A decent player and, as far as I could tell, a decent if unconventional guy. Not difficult to play with. Good to play with. I had played with him earlier that year in the Hope.” Erasing his double-bogey at the first hole with an eagle at the fourth, Schlee, more than Heard or Boros (or Lee Trevino or Tom Weiskopf), seemed to Palmer to be his primary competition.

  Meanwhile, Miller stuck a 3-iron five feet at the first hole, a 9-iron one foot at the second, a 5-iron 25 feet at the third, and a driver, 3-wood, and bunker shot six inches at the fourth. Birdie, birdie, birdie, birdie. Following two-putt pars at five, six, and seven, he three-putted for bogey at eight and two-putted for birdie at nine. Out in four-under-par 32—at a United States Open!

  Missing no greens, still throwing feathers at a spongy dartboard, Miller made birdie putts of 14, 15, five, and 10 feet at the 11th, 12th, 13th, and 15th holes, where he took his first lead. His 5-iron approach at 18 went straight at the flag and did its best to climb a dip in front of the hole but couldn’t quite make it and rolled back. A 20-footer for an Open and major tournament record 62 hit the left edge and spun right. What if somebody goes out early and shoots 63?

  One-under-par for the day, four-under for the tournament, Palmer thought he was leading by a stroke when he saw a five-under score being backed in on a leaderboard. That’s how they do it. They start with the final number and finish with the name.

  “Who is that?” Palmer asked Schlee, who said, “Miller,” Arnie’s playing partner the first two rounds, “didn’t you know?”

  “I blanched,” Arnold confessed later in the press tent—an unusual word for a press tent. “You’d think as long as I’ve been playing golf, that wouldn’t have hit me so hard.”

  Palmer bogeyed 12, 13, and 14, falling away. Schlee birdied 16 to draw within one of Miller. “Playing with Palmer is roughly a two-stroke penalty,” Schlee always said. “Not his fault. But ‘Arnie, Arnie.’ Hard to concentrate with all that Arnie-ing going on.”

  Schlee had a putt at 18 to tie, admittedly a 40-footer, but it actually had a chance. He finished second alo
ne. If only he hadn’t hit three drives at one. If only.

  At age 52 and then 63, Palmer would return to Oakmont for two more Opens, 1983 and 1994, his second-to-last and his last, a total of 32 over a period of 40 years. He made the cut in ’83 (Miller didn’t) and missed it in ’94, finally shooting 81 on a steamy Friday, wearing a planter’s broad-brimmed straw hat.

  With a white towel draped over the shoulders of a sweat-soaked white shirt, calling to mind a prizefighter once again, Louis against Marciano, he took a seat in the media center. “I think you all know pretty much how I feel,” he said slowly. “Most of you I have talked to quite a bit over the years [He wasn’t kidding: George Sweda of the Cleveland Plain Dealer dragged him along to Sweda’s high school reunion, just for the fun of it. Everything was fun then] and, I suppose, the sun got me a little bit. I got a little tired, I guess, and a little emotional coming up eighteen . . . I mean, it is forty years of fun, work, enjoyment. God, I haven’t won all that much. I’ve won a few tournaments. I’ve won some majors. But I suppose the most important thing [dropping his face in the towel, he took five or so seconds to sob] is the fact that it has been as good as it has been to me.”

  It embarrassed him to be so exhausted. “I think all of this,” he said, “is just being a little sun-whipped and tired, ready to take a little rest. Hopefully a few more tournaments along the way. I think that’s about all I have to say. Thank you very much.”

  He left to a standing ovation of cynics.

  Twenty-four-year-old Ernie Els, the young South African who showed Palmer instead of telling him (“I guess I kind of like that,” Arnie had said), won that ’94 tournament, Palmer’s retirement Open. “I was on the range, actually, when he finished Friday,” Els said. “A lot of players were out there to watch him play the eighteenth hole. He’s the King, after all. He’s the man. I mean, there wasn’t a lot of television yet in Europe when he went to the Open Championship and won it twice. That famous shot he hit at Birkdale on sixteen out of the little bush. He took the whole bush and the golf ball together, and hit the ball on the green and won the tournament. He established the legend over there, just as he had over here. He was a guy everybody wanted to look at, to see. Everybody wanted to be like him. He took the game and moved it forward by himself. And he kept playing the game he loved for a very long time. Also, there’s another benefit. He gave young guys like myself an opportunity to play in his tournament. I think he’s the most unbelievable example of a sportsman throughout all sport. If you want to emulate a guy, look at Arnold Palmer. Follow what he did. I saw the replay of his press conference, where he got so emotional. That was quite something. Yeah, it was quite a week.”