Authors: Arnold Palmer
I played pretty well, all things considered, in that first Masters outing. I opened with a pair of discouraging 76s, but then settled down a bit and shot 72 in the third round, followed by
a final round of 69. Ironically, standing on the tenth tee on Sunday, I calculated that if I got home in 32 on Augusta’s famous back nine I might be a serious factor in the tournament’s outcome. That realization got me so worked up, I regret to say, I made a double-bogey six on ten and wound up finishing in tenth place. I made a paycheck for $696 that week—money that came just when we needed it most—but more importantly, I had made the acquaintance of a special place and numerous people who would soon mean more to Winnie and me than I could ever have imagined.
At first glance, the course, designed by Alister Mackenzie with helpful insights from Bob Jones, didn’t particularly suit my style of game. There were numerous places where a high, soft fade worked best, and the undulating and fast putting surfaces favored approach shots that stuck like darts rather than ricocheted like bullets, as mine sometimes did. I quickly saw there were things I would need to learn to do if I intended to conquer the golf course and win the Masters—notably, hit the ball a bit higher and know when to back off intelligently at a hole where finesse and not power would bear more fruit.
As Pap would have pointed out, though, you’re invariably stuck with the golf swing you’re born with, and I wasn’t going to alter that much of my game to try to tailor it to Augusta’s swirling winds and daunting putting surfaces. I learned, instead,
where
to hit my drives in order to have approaches to greens I was comfortable with—in other words, put the ball where I could hit into the green on a straight, low line. In time I became pretty adept at knowing Augusta’s “angles,” as I thought of it, knowing where I could roll a ball through an opening or use a mound or hillside to pull off a shot and snug the ball close.
I remember meeting Clifford Roberts, the club’s legendary chairman, then at the height of his power, and being
almost instantly scared to death of him. Though a New York investment banker by profession, he reminded me of an old schoolteacher, reserved, tough, a headmaster brooking no opposition or even debate on any subject. He was clearly a one-man show, and the small membership of Augusta National obviously liked it that way. I was determined to stay out of his way, recalling that a few years before he’d tossed Frank Stranahan off the premises for allegedly hitting extra practice balls during a round—something that was against the club’s policy. Being friends with Clifford Roberts, I would discover, was like learning Augusta National’s proper angles—it took time, but the friendship, when it evolved, would be a lasting and genuine one.
I met Bob Jones there, too—by then far past his playing prime and only a year or so away from being stricken by the illness (syringomelia) that would rack his body and eventually force him to use a customized golf cart to get around the grounds to see players and meet people. Mr. Jones, as I called him from the outset, was as unfailingly polite and kind-spirited as anybody I ever met at Augusta. Perhaps because amateur golf had meant so much to him—he won the Grand Slam as an amateur in 1930 and then retired from the game, as he described it, before he “needed” to make money in order to play—Jones harbored a special affection for amateur champions who found their way to Augusta, treating each and every one like the special young men he thought they were, myself included.
I’d seen Ben Hogan at various tournaments and even played in a group close to him at Wilmington, but I met him for the first time in Augusta. To be honest, I was so in awe of the man, and so naturally shy, I felt he was utterly unapproachable. At the Masters someone introduced us, and we shook hands. He was polite enough, but I felt the cool distance others sensed while in his presence. Hogan was still
limping from his 1950 car crash but remained the most dangerous player of his age, maybe the best ball-striker who ever lived. I was at first surprised by—and later angered about—the fact that he never, in the years I knew him, called me by my first name. Ten million golf fans have felt completely comfortable calling me “Arnie,” but Mr. Hogan never spoke my real name. He only called me “fella.” To give him the benefit of the doubt, he called lots of young, ambitious players “fella.” Perhaps he couldn’t remember their names (after all, a lot of talent was streaming out of the college ranks into the professional ranks), or maybe he sensed the others and I were gunning for his records, which of course we were. But he was a living legend and inspiration. Golf is, at its core, life’s most good-hearted and socially complex game—one of the “most humbling things on earth,” as my good friend George Low once quipped—and I wouldn’t have minded being called “Arnie” by a man I only admired from afar and played for on a Ryder Cup team. But it never happened. You draw your own conclusions from that.
I learned a valuable lesson at that first Masters—that
wanting
something so much I could almost taste it wasn’t the best approach to winning golf tournaments, especially major ones. I learned that, at a place like Augusta National, where every shot is potentially so decisive, I couldn’t afford to get ahead of myself as I did that Sunday afternoon on the final nine, blowing myself right out of contention. I had to play my own game, shot by shot, and not permit myself the luxury of thinking what it could mean—a lesson I was destined to learn and a mistake I was destined to repeat. But that’s a tale to come.
Sam Snead and I had met before, but we got to be pretty good friends at that first Masters. I always enjoyed my time with Sam, the rounds we played together, the rustic pearls of
wisdom he dropped about the game and life, even the colorful and sometimes downright raunchy jokes he told and tall tales he spun. Sam had a dark side that emerged when his game faltered, but he was at heart a big old country boy who loved golf and had a zest for life, swallowing it in gulps (especially if someone else was buying the beer—he was also one of the tightest guys with a buck I ever met), and surely one of the most natural talents who ever swung a golf club. He and I took an instant liking to each other, and it was Sam who personally invited Winnie and me to his own little shindig, the Sam Snead Festival, which was scheduled, as I recall, to take place the week after the Tour stop at Greensboro, North Carolina, a tournament with lots of Wake Forest alums in the gallery. For that reason alone, I always dearly wanted to win there. Unfortunately, I never did. Once again, perhaps I could taste my desire to win a little too much. I shot four rounds in the 70s and wound up thirty-third. Not a great showing, and proof we needed some rest. We headed on north for home.
O
ur old Ford needed rest, too—perhaps a permanent rest. That much became clear when we got off the Pennsylvania Turnpike at the Donegal exit to take a familiar shortcut to Latrobe out of the mountains. Big mistake. The road was narrow and steep, and we’d not even reached the summit when the radiator began to spew. We had to pull off and wait for the engine to cool down before we could add more water. Then we resumed our crawl to the top. The trailer we were pulling was so loaded down with all our stuff, Winnie and I actually had to get out and push the car at times. So much for shortcuts.
What should have taken a few minutes required several hours’ worth of work and worry until, mercifully, we reached
the top. It didn’t dawn on us until we had started down the mountain into Latrobe that the final five miles (down the same road where Cheech and I used to ride a toboggan) could be an even bigger problem. Within minutes of starting our descent, the Ford’s brakes were smoking, and it was all I could do to keep the car from running away and the trailer from running over us. We finally got stopped on the shoulder and basically had to inch our way that last mile down to Latrobe. Wheezing and exhausted, car and owners, we crept into my parents’ driveway by the 15th hole at the club and switched off the engine. As long as I live, I’ll never forget Winnie’s reaction.
She got out of the car, shut the door, turned and looked at me with her jaw set, and calmly declared, “That’s it. I’m never going anywhere in that trailer again.”
I knew she was dead serious about that, and I didn’t disagree. The novelty and charm of traveling America in a trailer had run its course. The next day, we put the rig up for sale in the Latrobe newspaper. A newlywed couple bought the thing and, I gather, lived quite happily in it for years somewhere just outside of town. The only people who were really disappointed to see that trailer vanish for good over the hill were my little brother, Jerry, and even younger sister Sandy. For several days they got to use it as a playhouse, their very own palace on wheels.
T
he message was pretty clear that life on tour wasn’t going to be easy on either of us and might possibly be very tough on a prospective family. Though we didn’t know it, Winnie was already pregnant, or shortly would be, and there had to be a better way to travel than a small trailer and a worn-out Ford.
After all those weeks beating across America, Sam Snead’s invitational tournament at The Greenbrier in West Virginia was just the tonic we needed, in more ways than one. First of all, it was an unofficial event with a large Calcutta (where teams are purchased in a wagering pool), meaning I stood a decent chance of picking up some needed money. A little like Fred Waring’s shindig at Shawnee, there were a lot of parties and socializing in addition to the golf tournament. The event took place at the luxurious old Greenbrier resort in White Sulphur Springs. Speaking of luxury, a friend in Latrobe who was a pilot offered to fly us to the site, so we chartered a small plane and spared ourselves the long drive through the Blue Ridge Mountains.
By some stroke of fortune, I got paired with an amateur partner named Spencer Olin, the chairman of a large chemical firm, who not only had a splendid private plane of his own but turned out to be a pretty fair player as well. Spencer bought our team in the Calcutta and followed up that confidence by playing just great, shooting several strokes beneath his handicap. The first day I shot 69, and we were leading the field.
On an amusing note, after that nice opening round, I remember Dutch Harrison sidling over to me and telling me
he
had arranged for me to have Spencer Olin as a partner. “Don’t you forget ole Dutch, Arn,” he growled at me, and winked. Quite frankly, I didn’t know whether to believe him or laugh in his face. Dutch was a character in the same way George Low was—you never quite knew what sort of action he had going. All I knew was, hard pressed as Winnie and I were for funds at that moment, regardless of whether or not Dutch had somehow arranged the pairings, the last thing I wanted to do was give him a percentage of my winnings as some kind of personal gratuity!
The pressure seemed to get to Spencer a bit; he blew to a 94 on the second day, but I shot 67—good enough for third in the professional division and enough for us to tie for first in the pro-am team division. I collected $1,500.
The PGA Tour stop the next week was the Colonial in Fort Worth. But before that I had arranged to play an exhibition, and Spencer graciously offered to fly us there in his private DC-3. I remember thinking, as we got airborne, that this was the
only
way to go to golf tournaments; perhaps it was then and there that I made up my mind to get that pilot’s license I’d always dreamed about and maybe to buy a plane. In any case, especially in light of Dutch’s less than subtle request, Spencer Olin made the trip even more memorable by coming to me and saying, “Arnie, it’s traditional for the winner of the Calcutta to give his pro partner a percentage of the winnings. Here’s yours.” He presented me with $5,000, bringing my total earnings to a princely $6,500. What a great weekend it had been!
I played poorly that week at the Colonial and then missed the cut at Kansas City, before flying on, after a stopover in Latrobe, to Fort Wayne. This was the the first event where I could take official money. My six-month apprenticeship was finally up. Perhaps I tried too hard, or maybe I was just a little road weary. I wound up twenty-fifth and took home $145 as my first official tournament paycheck.
No matter how much I’d made, it was good to go home to Latrobe for a couple weeks of rest and relaxation before playing in my first National Open as a professional. Winnie went to visit with her folks in Coopersburg for a few days, and I hung out at the club with Pap. He was busy planting trees on the golf course and talking about making other changes. (As long as he lived Pap was always making changes to the golf course at Latrobe, a trait I inherited.) When Winnie came
back, we took our Sam Snead Festival money down to Forsha Motors in Latrobe and purchased a brand-new, beige-and-tan Chrysler New Yorker, a real sweetheart of a car, and a few days after that, loaded up with golf clubs and clothing, we hit the turnpike headed west.
That trip—our second across America inside a year—was memorable and fun for a number of reasons. First of all, we saw more sights and our trip was still a little bit like a honeymoon; the big difference was that this time the car was a sheer joy to drive. Winnie wasn’t crazy about the fact that I got the New Yorker up to 120 miles per hour while crossing the Great Salt Lake, but that evening in Elko, Nevada, we put up in an inexpensive casino motel. We had decided we didn’t have enough money to risk any gambling, but returning from a hamburger and a beer, just for fun, I dropped our dinner change on the roulette table—double ought—and hit the jackpot, collecting thirty-five silver dollars! Talk about a couple of naive kids; we hustled straight back to our motel room, showered and got in bed, clutching our winnings. I was so worried about being robbed of our bounty, I propped a chair against the doorknob just like I’d seen in the movies!
The next day, Winnie took over the driving, and she was no slouch in the speed department either. In fact, at one point we roared over a hill, and I suddenly saw cops on motorcycles scattering wildly in several directions, looking like Keystone Kops. Without knowing it, she’d nearly wiped out several young state patrolmen who were on a routine motorcycle training mission! Sirens wailed, and the police gave brief chase. Winnie, bless her, was scared out of her mind, and the captain who asked for her license must have known that. To tell the truth, I wondered what he was going to do to her myself.