While the golfer
of today could not have been present at the creation of the game of golf, many
of us were witness to the birth of the modern game. For many golfers, the ritual of the modern
game, the shared sense of community with millions of other golfers, has lifted
golf to a level higher than a game, if not to the level of a religious
experience. Every religion has its spiritual
leader. From the Pope to the Dalai Lama,
most religions seem to focus their mantle of authority on one person. Golf's spiritual leader is also its secular
leader and King, a rare combination in modern times that does not also involve
totalitarian rule. Golf’s King, of
course, is none other than Arnold Palmer.
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| The King |
When I was a young boy the best
golfer on the planet was Arnold Palmer. I was too young then to appreciate the
historic extent of his contribution to the game. And while perhaps not the greatest player in
golf history, he might have been the most important one, because he was the
steward of the game of golf from its roots as a limited, country club
experience to the mass exposure and popularity the modern game enjoys
today.
Not only were his skills great, his
personality and charisma also made him a swashbuckling golf hero to many fans who
were just beginning to understand and play the game. Not one to sit on a lead, Arnie would charge
from behind, hitting shots out of impossible lies with an aggressive, powerful swing that finished with a curious, high twist
(not a finish you would teach to a youngster nowadays). Once his swing was done, Arnie would hitch up
his trousers and lead a charge down the fairway and up to the top of the leaderboard, as Arnie’s Army
followed and cheered every shot, urging him to “charge” toward victory. (Arnie’s
Army is hard to fathom today. Huge
crowds would follow Palmer around the course, cheering their hero as he boldly
shot his way around the course. Woe
betide those fans, and sometimes competitors, who stood in the Army’s way. Other golfers popular at the time had their
following, complete with alliteration, like Lee’s Fleas (for Lee Trevino.) But nothing topped Arnie’s Army. Back then, keeping with the trend, what would
Tiger’s gallery have been named, Tigers' Tails?
(Oops, better not go there.)
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| Not The King |
The modern equivalent of Arnie’s
Army might have been the crowds who in the past followed Tiger Woods. I attended his AT&T event in Washington several
years ago, waiting at a green a few holes ahead of his playing group. As he played closer, the fans began to move
along ahead of him, like a rising tide gradually pushing waves higher up the
beach, that ebbed once he had played the hole and moved on, leaving the same, diminutive
crowd around the green, like beached seaweed or sun-bleached driftwood, to
watch the rest of the professionals play through in Tiger’s wake. How things change.
Arnie
pulled off what is arguably the most famous come-from-behind win in golf
history at the 1960 U.S. Open, coming from seven strokes (and 14 players)
behind at the start of the final round to beat a 21-year old amateur named Jack
Nicklaus, “The Hawk” Ben Hogan, the leader Mike Souchak and other
notables. Arnie also won the 1960 Masters
Tournament by coming from behind and birdieing the last two holes to move past Ken
Venturi to victory. (Venturi would
cement his place in golf legend by winning the 1964 U.S. Open at Congressional
Country Club, playing 36 holes in blistering 100-degree heat and humidity on
the final day, wracked by heat
exhaustion and dehydration, nearly dying in the process. The picture of
him trudging down a steamy Congressional fairway with a wet towel draped over his
head on the last day is a sports classic.)
Both
Palmer victories corresponded to the burgeoning growth of sports in general and
golf in particular on television. The
year 1954 marked the first national television coverage of the U.S. Open. CBS
began its television coverage of the Masters in 1956, and added coverage of the
PGA Championship in 1958. And the
classic Wide World of Sports television show, bringing you the thrill of
victory, the agony of defeat, and the human drama of athletic competition,
began broadcasting in 1961, bringing clips of the Open Championship to America
before ABC began broadcasting the tournament in America in 1966.
Overall,
Arnie finished with 92 professional victories, 62 of them coming on the PGA tour, the fifth-highest total all-time. He won 7 majors, donning
the Green Jacket four times, the British Open two times and the US Open once. He won the U.S. Amateur in 1954, and five
majors on the Senior Tour. Palmer never
won the PGA Championship, but as a consolation prize he has had a delicious beverage
named after him, as well as receiving the adulation of millions of golf
fans.
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| The Drink Of Champions |
But
the numbers, as impressive as they are, simply don’t tell the story, because
the telegenic, personable and hard-charging Palmer burst into the homes and
hearts of the golfing world, and became one of the most famous (and wealthy,
due to his commercial endorsements) athletes in the world, while at the same
time ushering the game of golf into the modern era and simultaneously into the
Golden Age of the game. It can be argues
that, as a result of his popularity, the game of golf experienced a boom during
the decade of the 1960s that it has not experienced either before or
since. According to research conducted
by the National Golf Foundation, approximately 3,800 golf courses were built in
the ‘60’s, a good four-iron more than in any decade since and almost a quarter
of the number of courses that exist today.
Perhaps most telling, the courses
built in the 1960s were mostly affordable public courses, not the high-end, daily-fee
courses you see being built nowadays.
The common man, inspired by his hero Arnold Palmer, now could hitch his
own pants and storm around the local golf course, unlike in prior eras. And he did so in droves, with the growth rate
of golfers calculated by the NGF to be three to five times higher in the 1960s
than in any decade since.
Not
satisfied with being the Father of the Modern Game, Palmer was the impetus for
the creation of the Senior Tour (known as the Champions Tour since 2002) as
well. Arnie’s presence alone guaranteed
crowds at the early Seniors events, events that most older golfers avoided like
the plague, not wanting to be associated with “geezer golf”. Arnie thrived on the Senior Tour, winning five
senior majors. The Senior Tour thrives
today, thanks in large part to Arnold Palmer.
Part
of his aura was his confidence and his positive approach to the game. As Arnie
said in his book, Go For Broke, “"Yes. You must play boldly to win.
My whole philosophy has been based on winning tournaments, not on finishing a
careful fifth, or seventh, or tenth." The next quote summed his philosophy
to a tee, if you’ll pardon the pun:
Asked about taking a reckless shot, (which to most golfing mortals he
would do on a regular basis) he said “In 18 years of tournament golf I feel
I've never tried a shot I couldn't make."
Most athletes have an unswerving belief in their abilities; the great
ones are correct in their assessment of the extent of their own abilities, and
Arnie was one of the greats.
As is the case with the passage of
time and the laser-like focus on the “now” by the media and most of us regular
humans, Palmer, now that he no longer plays the game on any tour and has
receded gently out of the spotlight, does not seem to get the tremendous acclaim
or credit that he should for his leading golf into the enormous popularity it
enjoys today. Even his well-chronicled bout with mortality
and prostate cancer did not seem to bring him the awards and encomia he most assuredly
deserved. Being awarded the Presidential
Medal of Freedom, this
nation’s highest civilian honor, one of only two golfers to receive this prestigious
award (Jack Nicklaus is the other), while remarkable, just doesn’t seem enough.
While America seems to have a nasty
habit of waiting for its stars to die before heaping the proper acclaim on
their heroes, I don't want golf fans to make the same mistake here. There will never be another Arnold Palmer, so
let’s give The King his proper due, today, although the following suggestion hardly
meets the standard of the tribute he truly deserves. (Someone
with a lot more juice than me – read: just
about anybody) will have to organize the
following tribute, but here’s the concept:
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| And A Great Humanitarian |
Rent a golf course, with a finishing
hole built for a huge gallery. We have
one right here in the D.C. area, TPC Potomac at Avenel Farm (nee TPC at Avenel).
It would be perfect in every way.
The
course was originally crafted as a perfect stadium golf facility, designed for
hosting a PGA Tour event. It was taken
off the market for a few years, refurbished and reopened in 2009 to entice a
tournament back to the place. And the
course would bring back fond memories for Arnie. The King made back-to-back aces on the par-three third
hole prior to the start of the 1986 Chrysler Cup. During a practice round on
Tuesday, Palmer, the captain of the U.S. team, made a hole-in-one with a
five-iron on the then 182-yard hole. The next day was the pro-amateur event and
Palmer, again using a five-iron, made a one -- the first time that back-to-back
aces were recorded on any professional tour.
Make
a day of it. You could sell 25,000
tickets easily at $100 a pop in this golf-crazed market. Cover expenses- the rest goes to
charity. (Make sure to include one of
Arnie’s causes in his amazing network of charities as a beneficiary.) Sell the rights to the highest bidder, who
could run the tribute until the end of time on its video channel. The entire event would be great for a good
cause, honoring a man who truly deserves it – unlike most modern athletes, he
has never done anything to insult or besmirch either his reputation or the integrity
of the game.
Open the gates at 10:00 am.
Set up skills demonstrations by any pro that wants to be there. Import some of Arnie’s contemporaries. Fly in Jack, Lee, Gary, Tom, all the
legends. Set up video screens with the
highlights of his career all over the course.
Set up the food tents, beverage
tents, tchochke tents and of course, the air-conditioned corporate tents.
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| Our Arnie Marches On |
Later
in the day, move to the live testimonials.
And then as the sun slowly sinks to the horizon and
crepuscule sets in
(more on the French motif in a second),
cue
the lights and lasers for a brilliant son
et lumiere spectacular. Line the
fairway with all the spectators and turn everyone’s attention to the top of the
hill of the 18th fairway. The
spotlight shines, and there in the light is Arnie, the King, hell, the Emperor,
alone at the top of the hill against the setting sun, save for his chosen
family member on his bag. Let Arnie wave
to his adoring fans, then begin the long stroll down the 18th
fairway slowly, down to the green in the stadium setting, ringed by a raucous sea
of golfing humanity. Let Arnie’s Army,
in full throat, 25,000 strong, raise their voices to the sky and cheer their
leader one more exultant time. Let the acclaim
of the crowd roll over him like the Pacific surf as he stands on the green embraced
by his fans once again, the noise settling on him with Nature’s grace, like dew on the grass on a cool summer morning
in Latrobe, PA. Then, let the choirs
sing out his everlasting praise.
The Battle Hymn Of The Re-Publinx
(Battle Hymn of the Republic by
Julia Ward Howe)
Mine eyes have seen the glory
of the coming of his horde
They are tramping down the
fairways
Where the King of Golf has scored
He hath hitched his fateful
trousers
on his terrible swift charge,
His Army marches on.
Chorus:
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
His Army marches on.
I have seen him as he's cheered
on
by ten thousand circling fans,
he has builded Golf, the modern
game
as one of its great champs
We could guess his righteous
scoring
by the din of roaring fans;
His Army marches on.
Chorus:
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
His Army marches on.
I have known of Arnie's gospel
Writ in burnished irons of steel
Arnie has so few condemners,
Because his grace is real;
Let the golfers born of woman
regard him as the ideal;
His Army marches on.
Chorus:
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
His Army marches on.
He has always played a golf game
that never sounded a retreat;
While graying hair means higher
scores
his legend grows replete.
Oh! Be swift, my soul to answer
him,
be jubilant, my feet!
Our King is marching on.
Chorus:
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
His Army marches on.
(Solemnly now)
In the beauty of St. Andrews
Golf was born across the sea
With a glory in Her bosom
Golf transfigures you and me;
As he played to make golf holy
let us sing on the first tee,
While Arnie marches on:
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Our Arnie marches on.
AMDG
© R. E. Kelly 2012 -2021
