Golf Digest Arnold Palmer Tribute Special Issue

we’ll never forget arnold palmer, a legend who loved people & his life in golf ARNOLD PALMER was not the greatest golfer who ever lived. He did a more difficult thing: He lived the greatest life any golfer ever lived. By his decency, generosity, integrity, power of personality and grace under pressure, he won the admiration and respect of people around the world. It is a sportswriter’s cliché to assign immortality to athletes, but a few of the heroes have earned the designation. Babe Ruth did. Muhammad Ali. Arnold Palmer. End of list. ▶ I love this photograph of Palmer kissing his wife, Winnie. He met her in September 1954, he proposed within a week, and they eloped before Christmas. On April 10, 1960, after winning the Masters a second time, Palmer…

‘YOUR HOMETOWN IS NOT WHERE YOU’RE FROM. IT’S WHO YOU ARE.’ When Arnold Palmer won a second state high school golf championship in 1947, his Western Pennsylvania homeland was a hotbed of sports. Arnold added golf to the mix, taking the game out of the country club and bringing new players to public courses. An area that produced Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Johnny Lujack and Hall of Fame first baseman Stan Musial now had a golfer to brag about. Arnold made golf cool in a rough-and-tumble world. By doing so, he inspired a generation of kids to follow his footsteps. —RON SIRAK…

BY ▶ Putting, of course, is the part of the touring golf professional’s game that is most often responsible for his losing or winning a tournament. ▶ Many of us do quite a bit of experimenting with putting methods and with different types of putters. I am the first to admit that I have been a very active experimenter. ▶ What it all boils down to is finding and retaining a putting stance, stroke and putter which give the greatest confidence when we’re faced with an important putt—and what putt isn’t important? Confidence is an elusive and flighty maiden, but we all know she is worth seeking. ▶ Right now I have settled on a style of putting and a putter which feel great to me. I am confident that I will strike the…

MY WHOLE CAREER, I never missed a tee time. Not once, which I suppose is saying a lot for a career that’s spanned 60 years and thousands of rounds of golf. Now, for many years I’ve had a recurring dream that I miss my tee time. In the dream there’s no consequence, because I wake up abruptly. You can’t imagine the relief, realizing that it was just a dream. Now that I’m retired, I’m hoping to hell that dream will go away. IT INTERESTS ME how Phil Mickelson is perceived as being too aggressive. It interests me because Tiger is every bit as aggressive as Phil. Look at some of the shots Tiger hits into the green from the wrong fairway, the long shots over water, the tremendous shots he…

1 DON’T BE THE SLOWEST PLAYER In my casual games at Bay Hill, we get around in under four hours—and that’s in fivesomes. 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. Encourage everyone to move quickly enough so you find yourself right behind the group in front several times, both early and late in the round. Remember the old staples of getting around in good time: 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. 2 KEEP YOUR TEMPER UNDER CONTROL In the final…

No matter the weather, Arnie’s Army was never far from Arnold Palmer’s side. The painter LeRoy Neiman artfully captured their devotion—and Palmer’s determination—on a soggy Masters Saturday in 1973. Created as part of an assignment for Golf Digest, Neiman’s “Arnie in the Rain” shows Palmer on the practice range, eyed by admirers under a rainbow of umbrellas. (Rain would push the final round until Monday, when Tommy Aaron emerged with the win.) Who’s the figure to Arnie’s right, unprotected by an umbrella? In his book Big Time Golf, Neiman recalled that it was a rainsuited Lee Trevino “keeping him company.” —PETER FINCH…