“Arnold?” the priest’s eyes questioned.
You were supposed to choose a saint for your Confirmation name, and it was obvious Arnold wasn’t ringing any saintly bells.
“As in Palmer,” I said.
The priest nodded and placed the communion host in my mouth. In 1971, even priests knew who Arnold Palmer was — and maybe, like me, thought Arnie was capable of miracles.
My dad and I were part of Arnie’s Army. We watched him on our big Zenith, waiting – praying — for his heroic “Charge!” His arms and face were bronzed by a lot of golf course sun; he had Paul Newman hair and a shy smile. When he strode down the fairway he would occasionally hitch his pants up over his snaky hips, sometimes puffing no-hands on a cigarette. Arnie didn’t swing at a golf ball — he lashed at it, following it with an angry twist of his club like a guy with a divining stick searching hysterically for water. His putting stroke was more snapshot than sweet spot: knees knocked, arms locked, he willed the ball into the hole — and grimaced like a shot man if it lipped out.
His nemesis was Jack Nicklaus, younger by a decade, a puffy blond crew-cutter with a picture-perfect, powerful golf swing. I hated Jack (Fat Jack, I called him, right to the TV’s face); he was unflappable flab and not enough flair. And worse, he was too good; he beat Arnie too many Sundays.
Forty years later, I see all too clearly whom I was rooting for on all those Sundays when I thought I was cheering on Arnie: I was rooting for my father. Like Arnie, my father’s golf swing was all will and no grace; picking up the game at 28, he developed a tight, rapid, slashy swing that one of his friends dubbed “Zorro.” And like Arnie, my dad was the gritty underdog to the likes of Dr. Eddie O’Keefe and Art Hemker, smooth-swingers born with silver golf clubs in their hands. When I caddied for my father, I got a rare close-up of both his incredible courage and his incessant self-doubt. More often than not, he was out of his league, in over his head — or so some part of him felt — and all he could do was grip the driver even tighter, pop it down the middle, steel will it onto the green, and cross-hand rap it, somehow, into the hole.
I was there on the fifteenth green, the flag in my hand, when his thirty-foot birdie putt dropped, closing out Dr. O’Keefe and moving my father into the finals of the Mohawk Club Championship. I was sixteen years old, and I was so proud of my father I felt tears swell up and take over my eyes. I wanted to hug him, but all I could do was slap him on the back again and again.
A decade ago now, I watched Arnold Palmer walk up the eighteenth fairway at Augusta for his fiftieth and last time. In his mid-seventies, his legs hurting, the “Charge” all discharged, he walked like an old man. And for the first time I sensed a sadness he has carried with him all these years. That’s another thing Arnie and my dad shared, this deep life-long sadness — that, and an old warrior’s will to ignore that sadness, and that fear, and all that self-doubt, and to find a way, somehow, to prevail.
And when I write that, I feel proud all over again, and my own sadness, and I wish my father were still here so we could talk about that brilliant birdie day back in 1975, his courage, and maybe his self-doubt, and mine, and I could finally hug him, really hug him, for all of that.
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Photo: Getty Images
Hogan man myself (though he was before my time). I have an original, “The five lessons” printed in Sports Illustrated, the month and day of my birth. Have an original, first run, Hogan watch and more. Even have his swing, and am planning on doing one of the “old guy” tours as my early retirement, earn a few bucks doing something that I love. Arnie was the man, a man among men. I could take or leave Jack but Arnie was a joy to watch, listen too. There is a book, “And then Jack said to Arnie”. Inside peak, hilarious,… Read more »
Hi DJ, I’m sorry I missed your response many months ago. (I’m new to this whole comment thing.) Wow, that SI “5 Lessons” on the day and month of your birth–no wonder you’re a Hogan man! I am too, though, like you, he was before my time. There was just something quiet and stately about him; and I also knew of his car accident, and how hard he worked to come back from that. I’ll look up “And then Jack said to Arnie.” I know they were friends — and I saw how moved Jack was recently at Palmer’s death–but… Read more »