Mourning the King of the Army

If you are 65, as I am, and a golfer, as I am -- or even a fan of the game for long enough -- your passion about last night's debate can take a slight back seat to our mourning of the loss of an all-time great of our sport and our nation.

Arnold Palmer, the King, has passed away.

I come from an era in which golf was a sport fairly new to television -- TV itself was a fairly recent development as far as its presence in the typical American home.  I remember a show called All-Star Golf, which lasted a number of years in the late 1950s and maybe early 1960s.  It was not the broadcast of any PGA tournament; it was a custom-done 18-hole match between two tour players, and we saw perhaps 12-13 of the holes actually played in the show.

I remember a young fellow name of Arnold Palmer -- he would be representing the "Laurel Valley Country Club, Ligonier, Pennsylvania" and would compete against some pros of the 1950s who were fading from the scene at the time -- Lloyd Mangrum, Tommy Bolt, Dow Finsterwald, fellows like that.

Palmer got my attention back then and I became a big fan of his.  His wins in the Masters in 1960, 1962 and 1964 and the U.S. Open in 1960 and a British Open or two cemented that fandom.  I naturally resented the arrival on the scene and rise of a younger Jack Nicklaus, more so than the third member of the big triumvirate of golf then, Gary Player.  Player, a South African, was my size more than the much taller Arnie and the much bigger Nicklaus, so I was OK with Player.  But head to head, Arnie was my guy.

There are four major tournaments; the PGA Championship is the last each year and was the one that Arnie had never won when he put on a tremendous charge in the 1968 PGA.  Nearly 40 at the time, it was certainly thought this might be his best shot to secure the last championship needed to achieve his career Grand Slam.

I'm not going to look this up, because I want to remember it the way I recall it now, 48 years since; I was living in Chicago that year and was visiting an uncle who lived there.  What I remember is Arnie trailing in the last round but within a stroke or maybe two.  With one or two holes left, Palmer hit a drive into woods maybe 220 yards from the hole and badly needing a birdie to tie for the lead.

Arnie took out a 3-wood, not something you'd normally hit out of woods, and without either a very good lie in the woods or a good line to approach the green.  But he showed then why he was the King, smacking an unbelievable shot onto the green with an 8 or 10-foot birdie putt left to tie.

Of course, he then showed why he was human, with heroic flaws.  He missed the putt, and ended up not winning the PGA that year -- or ever.  He was second three times, I remember that.

I was a high-school golfer then.  High-school kids being hat we were and are, we competed.  You were an Arnie guy or a Nicklaus guy (no one was a Gary Player guy; we sort of liked him but he wasn't American).  I was an Arnie guy then, at a time the younger Nicklaus, capitalizing on the popularity of the game that Palmer had essentially created, was winning far more.  Nicklaus to me was like the Yankees in baseball, so I rooted against him all the time.

Palmer being 22 years older than I, he was on the downside of his career as I started actually playing the game, and my memories of the dominant player he was in his prime are just a tad faded given that I was a bit too young to remember a lot, other than watching him - and the '68 PGA.

I loved the elder statesman role he took as his career as a competitive player ended.  The Masters, the perfect major to me, took pains every year to provide a place of honor to Arnold Palmer, whether a ceremonial first drive or another well-planned way to thank him for having brought golf fandom to the public.  He had been a pioneer in his use of an agent to promote his game and his brand, and in a sense every professional athlete today can thank Arnie for that concept.

In responding to Arnie's passing, Jack Nicklaus told us what we hoped was the case.  Their competitions were cherished by both men, Nicklaus said.  "Arnie always had my back, and I always had his", he told us.  In a game played by gentlemen, we wanted to know that its greatest rivalry, at least its greatest for the first 50 years of the television era of the sport, was a rivalry of gentlemen.

Rest in peace, Arnie.  You did well here.

Copyright 2016 by Robert Sutton
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