Arnie

by Tom Callahan

  Just then a beam of light came through the office window, swooping and soaring, like an F9F Panther over Latrobe, carrying him back to the beginning. (“When I think of Palmer,” Herbert Warren Wind wrote, “I think of a burst of sunlight.”)

  “I played some golf with the brother of a close friend of mine at the club,” Arnold said. “This guy was ambitious, dreamed of flying in the Army Air Corps, and ended up a glider pilot in the war. Just to be around airplane talk, I hung out with him as much as I possibly could, pressing him endlessly about anything to do with aviation. Eventually he took me up for a wild first ride. I enjoyed it. I loved it. It was exciting, almost like playing golf.”

  All of Palmer’s many planes came spinning back to him then, from props to jets (even a helicopter, a McDonnell Douglas 500E jet), starting with the little ones he first rented, leading up to the Aero Commander 500 he bought (secondhand, for $27,000) in 1961, moving on to an Aero Commander 560F and then a Learjet before many generations of roomier and roomier, more and more powerful, faster and faster Cessna Citations, ending with the speediest private jet money could buy ($15 million). “A wonder ship,” he called it. The boy who with Fred Rogers had built models of balsa wood and glue now had exact metal replicas of the real things lined up on a shelf like on a tarmac. The most colorful was a plump jet outfitted with extra fuel tanks on whose side was painted in brilliant red, white, and blue “Freedom’s Way USA.”

  “That was ‘Two Hundred Yankee,’” Palmer said, “the plane I flew around the world, the bicentennial year [1976], to set the record for her class.” Two other pilots and a wire service journalist, screenwriter Rod Serling’s brother Bob, went with him.

  “How much of the actual flying did you do?” I asked.

  “Did all of it,” he said, mock-indignantly. “Every bit of the way. Through the darkest night over the Indian Ocean, while everyone else was asleep.”

  From Denver (the airplane started approximately where the legend did, Cherry Hills Country Club) to Boston to Wales (an unscheduled stop, for fuel) to Paris to Tehran (where the Shah was still in power) to Colombo in Sri Lanka to Jakarta in Indonesia to Manila (where he was saluted by President Ferdinand Marcos, who regularly hit the first tee ball, a slice, at the Philippine Open) to Wake Island to Honolulu and back to Denver in 57 hours, 25 minutes and 42 seconds.

  “Every now and then,” Palmer said, “I’d get off to ride an elephant.”

  Was it so long ago when he sat in the Latrobe flight room by a potbelly stove and listened to the grizzled pilots dramatizing their closest calls? Now he had his own close calls to dramatize.

  “What do you think, Doc?” he said. “Was Monterey the closest?”

  “That was as close as you want to get,” Doc said.

  “I had been in the Far East,” Palmer began to tell it, “and came back through Hawaii, where I picked up my own plane. Now I’m going to fly to California. My golf course architecture team was aboard, five or six guys. Halfway to San Francisco, past the point of no return, headwinds picked up, and picked up, and picked up, until they became unbelievable. I’m doing the fuel calculations as frantically as I can. There was no way we were going to make it to San Francisco. I plotted a new course to the Monterey airport, and hoped. Flying had always allowed me immediately to get my mind off golf. That was the great benefit of having a plane. But now my mind was on everything.”

  Like John Wayne in The High and the Mighty, he was about to order all of the passengers to jettison their luggage, when the airstrip came into view.

  “The tower wanted me to go around one more time,” he said. “I told them, ‘Uh, I don’t think so.’ After we landed, the maintenance crew said we wouldn’t have made it around again. We were bone-dry. There were a few other close shaves, a thing with the rudder once (or, I should say, without the rudder), and I had to shut down an engine in a flight out of Los Angeles, making an emergency landing in Las Vegas. Also, in the early days, I couldn’t always find the right airport on the first try. But most of the chills I threw my passengers, like Gary and Jack, were intentional.”

  “‘Can I drop you someplace?’ Arnold would ask you,” Peter Jacobsen said. “Then he’d add: ‘I don’t mean literally drop you, of course. Probably. We’ll see.’ Getting on the plane, he’d say, ‘By the way, have you ever flown with me before? No? Oh.’ Then he’d jump into that left seat the same way he hitched at his trousers, and proceed to show you exactly how good he was. He’d barrel-roll you a full turn one way, then he’d barrel-roll you a full turn the other way. ‘Sorry,’ he’d tell you while you were looking around for your stomach, ‘but I had to return you back around to where you started. It has to do with vectors.’”

  “One time in Houston,” Tony Jacklin said, “he took a bunch of us British Ryder Cuppers up for a death-defying spin. George Will, a Scot, was one. Good player. Jimmy Demaret was there, too. [”I remember that,” Palmer said. “They all got sick.”] Well, when Arnold finally turned the plane right side up, somebody on the ground called on the radio, some authoritative figure, reaming out the copilot for the shenanigans. Arnold grabbed the mike away from his assistant and abjectly took full blame. After he signed off, he told his man, ‘If you get in trouble, you might lose your livelihood. I’ll just lose the ability to fly.’ I thought to myself, ‘That’s Palmer. Even when he does the wrong thing, he does the right thing.’”

  In Palmer’s final turn at the throttle ever, an 1,800-nautical-mile trip from Palm Desert to Orlando, controllers all across the country chimed in one after another to wish him farewell and Godspeed. For three hours and 17 minutes, his spine never stopped tingling. It was the Scots engulfing him at Troon all over again.

  “This is what I fly now,” he said, pointing to the largest model, a Citation X with the markings N1AP. “Aren’t I lucky?”

  He once said, “Some people think of me as just plain lucky. I can’t argue with them. I’d like to say, however, that a man might be walking around lucky and not know it unless he tries.”

  Palmer was never much for cursing his luck, or regretting anything about his career, as he framed it perfectly for Bob Verdi in a Golf Digest Q and A:

  “If you had spent less time concerning yourself with the other side of the ropes, if you had had more tunnel vision about your game, would you have won more?”

  “Perhaps,” Palmer said. “I think I know what you mean, but I want to make sure. You mean if I had gone to hit balls after every round instead of mingling with sponsors and fans and you guys in the media?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Well, I couldn’t have enjoyed it more than I did if I had devoted more time to my golf itself. 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 Opens and two PGAs and six Masters and a couple of more British Opens, but not as many friends? No. No way, José. Keep the trophies. I mean, I remember teeing off in Palm Springs at the Bob Hope and, because I had a couple of bad rounds, I’m starting early. Real early in the morning. Maybe seven o’clock. And here comes Arnie’s Army in their pajamas and robes at the first tee.”

  He never insisted that his way of doing things was the only way to do them. “I wasn’t perfect,” he said. “Never intended to be.”

  At Bay Hill one time, when only the two of us were talking, I brought up a subject he didn’t want to go into: Tiger Woods, who was just coming undone. After a hesitation, Palmer said, “Let me make sure I say exactly what I want to say.” Staring out a window, he waited a moment longer. “Let’s not put a name on it,” he said finally. “Let’s not talk about anyone specifically, do you mind? Let’s just say that not everyone in golf or sports wants to share his life with the public, or for that matter with anyone else at all. I think that’s the simplest way
to put it. I’ve liked sharing my life. I think being out there among the people, letting them know you and sincerely wanting to know them, too, is the happier way to go. But everyone has to go his own way.”

  Then he said, “I think when Tiger lost his father, he lost himself. My wish for him is not to come back as a player but to come back as a man.”

  His wish for the game of golf was equally straightforward: “That every twenty handicapper who goes to the first tee with a knowledge of the game should pass it on to someone who doesn’t know or doesn’t seem to care. Think of those who came before, think of those who are coming next, like your children. An athlete must have a certain cockiness to succeed and win, but an athlete must also care about the game he or she plays. For every swing lesson a golfer takes, take a lesson in rules and etiquette. Preserve what we have.”

  Here are some of Palmer’s lessons in etiquette:

  DON’T BE THE SLOWEST PLAYER

  “Evaluate your pace of play honestly and often, and if you’re consistently the slowest one in your group, you’re a slow player, period. Play ‘ready golf.’ Hit when ready, even if you aren’t away, until you reach the green, be prepared to play when it’s your turn on the tee and green, and never search for a lost ball for more than five minutes.”

  KEEP YOUR TEMPER UNDER CONTROL

  “Throwing clubs, sulking, and barking profanity make everyone uneasy. We all have our moments of frustration, but the trick is to vent in an inoffensive way. For example, I often follow a bad hole by hitting the next tee shot a little harder—for better or worse.”

  RESPECT OTHER PEOPLE’S TIME

  “Because time is our most valuable commodity, there are few good reasons for breaking a golf date. Deciding last-minute to clean the garage on Saturday, or getting a call that the auto-repair shop can move up your appointment by a day, just doesn’t cut it.”

  REPAIR THE GROUND YOU PLAY ON

  “I have a penknife that’s my pet tool for fixing ball marks, but a tee or one of those two-pronged devices is fine. As for divots, replace them or use the seed mix packed on the side of your cart. Rake bunkers like you mean it. Ever notice that the worse the bunker shot, the poorer the job a guy does raking the sand?”

  BE A SILENT PARTNER

  “During one of my last tour events as a player, I noticed another pro making practice swings in my field of vision as I was getting ready to hit a shot. I stopped, walked over, and reminded him—maybe too sternly—that it was my turn to play. The point is, stand still from the time a player sets himself until the ball has left the club. Even with the advent of spikeless shoes, the etiquette rule of never walking in someone’s line of play on the putting green is an absolute. The area around the hole in particular is sacred ground. The first thing to note when you walk onto a green is the location of every ball in your group, then steer clear of their lines to the hole. When a player is about to hit a shot, think of the fairway as a cathedral, the green a library.”

  MAKE YOUR GOLF CART “INVISIBLE”

  “Your goal when driving a cart should be to leave no trace you were there. Because we tend to look where we’re going and not where we’ve been, it’s easy to damage the turf and not realize it. Avoid wet areas and spots that are getting beaten up from traffic. Golfers tend to play ‘follow the leader’ and drive in single file out to the fairway before branching off. It’s usually better to ‘scatter’—everyone take a different route—so cart traffic is spread out.”

  ALWAYS LOOK YOUR BEST

  “From Bobby Jones and Walter Hagen to Ben Hogan and Sam Snead to Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, the best players have been meticulous about their appearance. Their clothing has been sharp, and not one of them has shown up on the first tee with his cap backward, mud caked on his shoes, or his shirttail hanging out. (My shirt often came untucked, but it was my swing that did it. I started with it tucked in!) Give the impression the golf course and the people there are special.”

  TURN OFF THE CELL PHONE

  “Nobody knows less about technology than I do. But I know enough to recognize a cell phone when it rings in my backswing. If I had my way, cell phones would be turned off at all times on the course, but most clubs have given in to the fact that people are going to use them. I don’t know all the gadgets and settings on those phones, but do whatever you have to do to keep it quiet. And if you absolutely have to make a call, move away from the other players. And keep the call so brief that they don’t even know you made it.”

  LEND A HAND WHEN YOU CAN

  “It’s easy to help out your fellow players if you just pay attention. One obvious way is looking for lost balls—better yet, watching errant shots so they don’t turn into lost balls. Pick up that extra club left on the fringe or the head cover dropped next to the tee, and return it to its owner after saying, ‘Nice shot!’”

  A CONSIDERATE HEART

  “There are a hundred bits of etiquette I haven’t mentioned, like laying the flagstick down carefully, tamping down spike marks when you’re walking off a green, letting faster groups play through, and so on. All of these things are learned by observing, with a sharp eye and a considerate heart. Just know that golf has a way of returning favors, and every piece of etiquette you practice will be repaid tenfold.”

  And take your goddamned hat off indoors.

  I switched off the tape recorder. (“That’s all right,” he had told the kid who forgot to turn his tape recorder on at the Western Open, “let’s start over and do it again.”)

  A considerate heart.

  “You got enough?” he asked me, the perfect thing to ask. “Well, anything you need while you’re here, we’ll take care of it. Just holler. Nice to see you. Thanks for coming. Come back. And, again, excuse me for not getting up.”

  Outside, it was a pretty day in Latrobe (a bogey-free day for Dustin Johnson at Oakmont). Back at the tournament, a few writers and players who knew I was going to see Palmer asked, “How was he?”

  He was equal parts humble and proud.

  He was equal parts commoner and king.

  He was equal parts iced tea and lemonade.

  “He was himself,” I told them.

  24

  SEPTEMBER 25, 2016

  Fifty-eight years to the day since his first round with Jack.

  TIGER WOODS

  “I think Arnold and I had a great relationship. I was always able to talk to him about anything, not just golf. He’d take the time to listen, talk to you honestly, and then tell you exactly what he thought. He had a way of making you feel comfortable and at ease. The first time I ever met him was at Bay Hill. I was fifteen, playing in the U.S. Junior, and he was the keynote speaker. I was honored to meet him. Later, when I was at Stanford, we had dinner in Napa and we spent a while just talking. It was really cool having dinner with Arnold Palmer, and he made you relax and enjoy the evening.

  “Arnold enjoyed being Arnold Palmer. No one did it better. He truly liked people and wanted to be with them. Arnold, as much as anyone, had been instrumental in the growth of the game. His outgoing personality and style of play were made for TV. But what might be his most enduring legacy is his philanthropic work. He did so much for so many people. My kids were born at the Winnie Palmer Hospital and I’ll always be grateful for his, and the staff’s, support and kindness. Arnold will be remembered for that along with what he accomplished on the course.

  “I’ve been fortunate to have won Bay Hill a few times [eight], and that’s meaningful to me. It’s like winning Jack’s Memorial or the Bryon Nelson when Mr. Nelson was alive. It’s just different. Knowing Arnold was waiting for you at the end of the tournament, and that he’d put his arm around you and you’d share a laugh, made a win there extra special.”

  PHIL MICKELSON

  Before the third round of the 2015 Masters, Mickelson pulled out a salmon shirt. “It’s not my color,” he said. “It doesn’t look good on me. But Arnold Palmer likes to wear this color, and after spending a little time with him, I had a prem
onition. I just had a feeling that I needed to make a move.” Phil shot 67 in the salmon shirt.

  “I remember the last of Arnold’s U.S. Opens [1994] and the hour and a half he spent in the volunteer tent, meeting the people who do the work, finding out their names, signing autographs for them. He always took the time. As an amateur I played my first Masters practice round with Arnold at his invitation. I saw how he kept looking over at the spectators, smiling at everyone, giving the two thumbs-up, and really seeing them. ‘Don’t ever walk by them as though they’re not there,’ he told me. ‘They’re there.’

  “In nineteen ninety-six, the tour set aside an area for autograph signing. I don’t know why, but it never really took and they dropped it after that one year. But it worked for me, helped me organize my practice day. I still do it. Practicing is more demanding than playing, you know. You’re concentrating just as hard, but you’re hitting three times as many shots. I found myself avoiding the people during practice, and I didn’t like that feeling. So being able to block out a set time for autographing helped me. And, at Arnold’s urging, I’ve tried to make my signature a little more legible. ‘Sometimes,’ he said, ‘you only have a few seconds to make the only impression you’ll ever make on that individual. Take the full time. These are the people who make it possible for us to play golf for a living.’ He was always the one to emulate, wasn’t he? And there was never anything phony about it.

  “You mention Seve. I had a special relationship with him. I was too young to see Arnie at his best, so Seve was the one I was able to watch. From the moment I met him, Seve was so great to me, so generous. Both of us had Hugo Boss among our sponsors, and so we did some photo shoots together. We were like playful kids. I knew about Arnold sending the picture of Mulligan to Seve, and Seve naming his own dog after me. If anyone wants to put me in a line with them, I’ll take it.