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June 25, 2001
CROMWELL, CONNECTICUT
BOB STEVENS: 1956 and 1960 GHO champion, Arnold Palmer. Some thoughts on coming back
and being with all the rest of the winners in a situation like this.
ARNOLD PALMER: I think it is very nice and it is very rare. I'm surprised that there
are not as many -- they are not all here, are they?
BOB STEVENS: A couple are still playing at Westchester.
ARNOLD PALMER: I understand that. I think it's wonderful. My first victory on the PGA
TOUR.
BOB STEVENS: Recollections of that week?
ARNOLD PALMER: Well, 1960, it was the Insurance City Open. It was at Wethersfield. I
like the golf course. And as I recall, I got into a playoff with Ted Kroll, I think, and
won on the second extra hole. Of course, that was -- in a lot of ways, that was a major
victory for me. It was my second PGA TOUR victory but first in America or in the States.
It was very welcoming, and, of course, things started happening a little better after
that.
Q. Did he give you a putter to use before the tournament?
ARNOLD PALMER: He did give me a putter, yes and it was a good one. Lasted for a while.
Of course when you have as many as I do, they can't last too long. You've got to get rid
of them to give the new ones a try.
Q. (Inaudible)
ARNOLD PALMER: Of course it was a great, sort of a homecoming for me because when I was
in the service, I was stationed at New London and I spent my weekends here in Hartford and
I played golf around the various golf courses with Bob Kay and, of course, Wethersfield
and a couple other courses. But for a short period of time, I thoroughly enjoyed being
here in Hartford on the weekends and when I came back after being here in the service,
that was kind of a home coming for me and something that I look forward to very much.
Q. (Inaudible.)
ARNOLD PALMER: You must have heard me this morning. I just asked Tommy why he told all
those stories about me throwing clubs and I could still be throwing them every day for
hours and never catch up to Tommy Bolt. Actually, I was the referee for Tommy's club
throwing. (Laughter.)
BOB STEVENS: Are these stories that we lose a bit of in today's corporately-sponsored
golf world where the guys are not together traveling? It's not the traveling circus coming
to town like it used to be.
ARNOLD PALMER: I think that's probably true. It depends on how you mean that. I
traveled with Tommy my first year on the Tour and I joined up with him and his wife in San
Francisco in June of '50 and we traveled most of that summer and of course we ended at the
Canadian Open in August of '55 and just so happens -- and we were good friends and we are
still good friends. I don't want you to misunderstand that language that we used, but
Tommy and I have been good friends for many years. Of course -- and a sideline to that, I
think that he is one of the greatest players and hitters of the golf ball I had ever seen.
Traveling with him and getting to know him was a real pleasure for me. I was playing with
him by coincidence after shooting 64, 67 the first two rounds of the Canadian Open and
then coming back with another 64 in the last round I was paired with Tommy. On the sixth
hole, I hit what was not too untypical. Matter of fact, I had better say, it was sort of a
typical tee shot. Duck-hooked it into the woods on the sixth hole of the final round and
the ball was lying in some pretty heavy rough and I just by chance saw an opening to the
green; and there was a log lying there, Tiger Woods type rock, and we moved it and Tommy
came in and he --
BOB STEVENS: Is that where Tiger learned it?
ARNOLD PALMER: I guess. He says, "Hit it into the fairway, you dumb bastard."
Of course, at that age, that was not my policy, so I saw this opening and I hit it out
through the opening on the front of the green and Tommy was mad at me for the rest of the
day, but he wanted me to hit it into the fairway and I hit it on the green and he didn't
like that at all. But that tells you that he was a friend. He was interested in what I was
doing and as you know, I won the tournament and shot my -- I have not shot four rounds
lower than I shot that week since I've been a professional:
Q. (Inaudible.) How should we judge the greats?
ARNOLD PALMER: I don't think there's any question about the fact that to be fair to the
all-time golfers, back to the beginning of the PGA TOUR, that we need to look at a system
that would give points for how you finished, how you played over your career and starting
at the beginning. I think, you know, in the early days, there was really no reason to go
any other way but for money. It was the only system that we had, really, and the money was
so feeble that it was not a big deal. Our leading money winner in 1958, and I think I was
around $50,000. Of course $50,000 in '58 was a lot of money, but when you look at it today
-- as a matter of fact, my eligibility on the Senior Tour has run out or is close to
running out. So, if I didn't have some sort of an exemption other than money, I would not
be eligible to play, and, of course, that's a sensitive situation, not for me, because I'm
not really a factor or haven't been a factor on the PGA TOUR, but at the same time, the
sponsors want me to play and want me to show up. But if I were solely relying on the
money, I would not be making it. Now, of course, they have made an exception as to people
that win over so many tournaments, and that's how I am eligible now. But I agree with
anyone that has a theory, we need to find a system that will give the guys an opportunity
to continue to play if they wish and/or to put them in a category that is equal to the
kind of money that they are winning today. That's as simple as that.
Q. How do you stay so grounded with all of the success you've had?
ARNOLD PALMER: You think I am, really?
Q. Trevino told us you were.
ARNOLD PALMER: He's my buddy. (Laughter.) I have tried very hard to stay the way my
father taught me, to stay even before I thought of playing professional golf or being out
here doing what I'm doing and I try to give that advice to the young guys today. I see
that sometimes they forget that -- under different circumstances, they might have been on
the other side of the ropes looking in and I always feel like it's nice to remember that
you could be on the other side, so treat those people like you should like to be treated
if you were on the other side of the rope, and I've tried to stay with that policy.
Q. (Inaudible.)
ARNOLD PALMER: Of course, in both instances I won this tournament in the playoffs, and
I remember it pretty well. I remember coming to the last hole at Wethersfield and I think
it was the second time and I looked up at the scoreboard and -- who was it, Bill Collins
was leading, and I needed to either make a birdie or a par. I think I needed to make a
birdie at the last hole. I don't remember that exactly, but it was somewhere there and
there were 16 guys tied for second. And I thought, oh my God, well you've you just figure
it out -- and that time, the purse went from like, whatever, 2,000 or $2,500 to $100 at
16th place. So, if you didn't -- and that immediately hit me. I thought: My God, if I make
a bogey on the last hole, I can be -- I can be 17th. Well, it turns out, whatever I
needed, a par or birdie, tied and then won the playoff. But that was a pretty dramatic
situation for me. That was 1960, wasn't it? And it wasn't just the money, it was where you
finished because we were doing everything then. We were playing for points and position on
the -- again, go back to the same old stuff. I was looking for the -- everything was taken
off the Money List. So it was important to win money whether you needed it or not. It was
important that you won it to get in the right position.
Q. (Inaudible)
ARNOLD PALMER: First of all, I remember very specifically Charlie winning this
tournament. First black man to win on the PGA TOUR. Charlie and I were pretty good
friends. Even back way back, and we talked and I thought it was wonderful. I thought he
had done a great job. I suppose that relating that to Tiger Woods and to the fact that
when -- just before Tiger had left Stanford, he called me and he said, "Could I come
meet you?" I was playing in Napa. Of course, that's a story in itself, because Tiger
came up and we had dinner and we talked about the things that he wanted to talk about, and
some of the very things that we are talking about here now. Be humble and stay that way,
whatever happens in your life and don't forget to treat other people just like you would
like to be treated. Those are some of the things we've talked about. He asked a lot of
questions and I thought it was pretty neat that he cared enough to come and do that, and
of course we had a great dinner. He left and he got a notice and I got a notice that if he
didn't pay for his share of the dinner, he was going to be in trouble with the NCAA and
the USGA. So, as it turned out, he had to send me a check for his part of the dinner. That
was sort of the beginning. But I thought that he handled that very well.
Q. (Inaudible.)
ARNOLD PALMER: Well, I don't think it was a lot different than what I had to go through
as a young golf professional's son on the Tour. I had played a lot of amateur golf and I
had been pretty successful as an amateur golfer. But when you come out, it is a whole
different ball game of course, until people get to know you and are comfortable with you,
it's tough. Now, Charlie, obviously being black, had a little more of a problem and he had
to overcome and I think that in his mind; it was always nice to have a friend or have
people that he could talk to and a lot of the guys were pretty friendly with him. I played
a lot of golf with him and we had a lot of good times and playing golf. So, I think that
was part of the whole series of what was going on, and I was aware of what was happening
and I think everybody else was. But it was over, except for the fact that he had to get
used to the fact that he could do whatever he wanted to do and play wherever he wanted to
play.
Q. (Inaudible.)
ARNOLD PALMER: Sure, just to be very short in my answer, sure. I miss a lot of the
things. I think that the Tour has lost some of the friendliness and some of the demeanor
that it once had. But it's like golf clubs and golf balls. Things change. And we are in an
upscale situation golf-wise, economy-wise, world-wise. If you recall, I went to the
British Open in 1960 and won. One of the reasons I went was that I felt without question,
that golf was going to become very, very international. You could quiz me all day on that
and it would take all day to answer all the questions, but if you remember -- and of
course, I was reading a lot about golf and the international aspects of golf, whether it
be South Africa, Australia or you name it. Any place -- and this is the key to it -- any
place that the United Kingdom had a colony. So you can go back in history a long ways,
they played golf. Well, just the fact that that was a part of the golf scene, simply meant
that those people in those countries whether it be Africa or Australia or India or
wherever were going to have golfers, and as time went on, those golfers were going to
become factors in the game of golf. So one of my things, when people said, why do you go
to the British Open, I said, well No. 1, I thought that you could never be a real champion
in golf if you didn't win internationally and if you didn't win the British Open because
British Open was the key to golf around the world and international golf. If you think
about it and look at it, that's the case. It's a must. So winning the British Open was
very, very important to me and playing in it was more important, and the fact that it was
at St. Andrews and all of those things that I have just mentioned about international
golf. Well, look at international golf now. Look at what's happening. I mean, as time goes
on and mind you, that it's going to become more and more a part of the golfing scene. We
talk about world tours and whether Greg Norman had the thoughts originally or whether the
PGA TOUR and president-day situations with World Golf Championships; is that it going to
become a more predominant factor in the game of golf than any other single thing than we
are looking at today: The U.S. Tour, Japanese Tour, the Australian Tour, Far Eastern Tour,
whatever, they are all going to be factors. But one major factor is going to be the world
tour events, and it would not surprise me -- when, in the next ten years, to see as many
international major events as there are individual events and individual countries.
Q. (Inaudible.)
ARNOLD PALMER: I think it's sort of like back in the early days when Bob Hope got
involved and Sinatra and Crosby. When they played in a tournament, it brought another
factor into the game of golf, and the fact that Sammy Davis came here was specifically to
call more attention to the golf tournament by people who might not otherwise be interested
in what's happening in golf. The entertainment world was very, very helpful to
professional game by their involvement, whether -- and the people that I mentioned were
the people that were key in that a long with other people. Gordon McKray (ph), Phil
Harris, and that had a lot to do with the popularity of golf and more people recognizing
it. Dwight D. Eisenhower was probably one of those factors involved in bringing for
recognition to the game.
End of FastScripts
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