A Life Well Played by Arnold Palmer

Author:Arnold Palmer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

THE PRESS

ONE OF THE CONSTANTS in my life that has brought me a fair bit of enjoyment—through all the years of golf, the major championship victories, and the satisfying wins around the world and at home, both amateur and professional—has been the press coverage that I have received. I’ve enjoyed many of the folks in the press. Some were my friends. I understood their business. They were guys I could talk to and learn things from.

I didn’t really pay much attention to the things written about me when I was a young amateur golfer, but I sure noticed a few things after I won the U.S. Amateur in Detroit. I’ll never forget that the press was writing some head-turning things, including that my come-from-behind, intense style of play seemed to stimulate the galleries. They noticed how I spoke to spectators and joked with little kids in the crowd, my changing facial expressions as I seemed to react strongly and with great emotion to nearly every shot I struck, the way I hitched my pants as I walked up a fairway.

The truth is I loved these stories, mostly because they confirmed what I dearly hoped was true—that for all my rough edges and lack of refinement I belonged among golf’s elite. Jack Clowser of the Cleveland Press wrote that “Arnold Palmer was born to be a great golf champion.” Not to be outdone, the Plain Dealer’s John Dietrich wrote that golf had witnessed the birth of “a new super champion.” I still get chills thinking about these stories.

Now, I had enjoyed a fair amount of press since I was a teenager, with my crusty old friend Bob Drum of the Pittsburgh Press covering some of my early successes.

I was lucky that newspaper writers took a liking to my style and reported things about me that were quite flattering. Over the years, I enjoyed favorable coverage whether or not I was the winner of this or that particular tournament, perhaps partly because I made myself accessible as much as I could with the media. In the heyday of my professional career, after I’d started to win majors, it was not unusual that I would be summoned to the press center for interviews regardless of my standing in the tournament. I tried to oblige as much as possible.

Of course, there were times when I might have frowned on a particular story here and there, mostly if some particular part of it was inaccurate. But negative press does come with the territory, and there were some stories over the years that were, shall we say, less than complimentary. But I took those in stride. I felt I always was treated fairly, and in return I felt like the press had a job to do and if I could help them at all, I would.

Only a few episodes have ever made me truly angry. When I decided to promote Callaway’s ERC II driver, which was nonconforming to the USGA equipment standards, I was hit pretty hard in some circles.

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