Winning smile and a winning style

Arnold Palmer was about to hit shots on the practice ground at The K Club last Monday when he felt a twinge in his left shoulder. Apparently it was an ongoing problem which came as no surprise to a doctor friend who had travelled with him from the US.

On being told that medication would ease the inflammation, Palmer protested: "I don't like pills." "Well then," said the doctor, "you're gonna have to lay off golf for a month." After considering this for the briefest of moments, Palmer growled: "Okay. I'll take the pills." He looked across at me and grinned. "There are times when I think that maybe I shouldn't play," he conceded. "But I can't stay away. Right now I should be reading a book or having a drink with friends or whatever, but I need to hit a few golf balls." So he began to hit some balls.

He hit another ball. "Hell, let's talk," he said. It had been a busy morning. In the company of Ed Seay and Harrison Minchew from his design company, he had looked over the new course at The K Club which was started earlier this year, across the Liffey from the seventh, 16th and 17th holes.

Then there was a lightning buggy trip around the existing championship layout with Michael Smurfit and director of golf Paul Crowe. The objective was to pinpoint areas of improvement in a general updating of the course but also in preparation for the Ryder Cup in 2005. I joined the entourage.

"The course is going to be in fa-antastic shape for the Ryder Cup," he enthused. "It will be so good, the players will love it. What I think is now a nice golf course will be very competitive for matchplay. It's going to be very exciting."

There was also time for reflection on climactic events at the British Senior Open at Royal Co Down. "How did Jack (Nicklaus) do? Did he get close?" I explained how Nicklaus had got within two strokes of the lead before slipping away. He had, however, hit a great drive down the 18th to be within 236 yards to the front of the green. "Oh! He drove it that far, did he?" said the other half of this legendary duo.

Estimates vary, but Palmer is acknowledged as the wealthier of the two, with a fortune of around $400 million. He will be 72 on the 10th of next month; hasn't won a major championship since 1964, nor any tournament other than the odd seniors title since 1975. Yet he can still command $90,000 for a company day and is featured by Forbes Magazine among the leading earners in world sport.

Against that background, it seemed odd to hear him talk of his early days of deprivation, accompanied, in the relating of one particular instance, by surprising bitterness. He was reminded of it by the fact that his first visit to this country in 1960 was also his first experience of links terrain.

"Sam Snead and I handled it fairly well, as I remember," he said modestly of their fine Canada Cup victory at Portmarnock. "But when you love the game as much as I did, it was a new experience which fell right into place." Then he went on: " I was devastated in 1954 when, after winning the US Amateur, I found I wouldn't be able to play in the British Amateur or the Walker Cup team.

"I couldn't afford it. I had no money. I had gone to Wake Forest on a full scholarship - my books, tuition and room and board. And there wasn't money for any frills." Instead of an extended amateur career, he turned professional and joined the USPGA Tour the following year.

So, it was true that he eloped with his wife Winnie? With a conspiratorial grin, he admitted: "I did. I met Winnie when she was a hostess at a tournament I was invited to play in the week after the Amateur. I met her on Tuesday, took her out Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and asked her to marry me on Saturday. I had a job as a manufacturer's rep, making $500 a month. But I had no money. Zero."

How did he plan to finance a marriage? "Well," came the child-like reply, "I was bold." He explained: "After asking her to marry me, I had to buy her a ring. And not having any money, I had to borrow from my golfing friends who were more than happy to oblige. It cost $4,000 so I was now seriously in debt."

That was huge money then, I suggested. "It was a nice ring," he said, with one of those disarming smiles. And was the story about Pine Valley true? "This is how it happened," he went on. "My friends then took me to Pine Valley to play golf and I won enough to pay back the money I'd borrowed. I had never played the course before, but I shot 68 on my first round and that was worth a lot. They were betting me I wouldn't break 100."

With his eyes noticeably misting over, he then talked with moving sensitivity about his relationship with his wife, who died of cancer two years ago. "I suppose you could describe Winnie and I as lovebirds - every minute for 45 years. Her death was terrible. She was not just a wife but she was a friend, a partner."

I then told him about the 1994 US Open at Oakmont from where a group of visiting golf writers went to Latrobe on the Saturday of the championship. And that while playing there, Winnie arranged to have a waiter bring out drinks to the 10th tee. And how she had said to the waiter: "Put that on my tab." And then, almost as an afterthought, added: "And put my tab on Arnie's tab." He laughed heartily - "She was great."

He admitted at the time of her death: "With Winnie going, I'm a bit lost right now." But he would readily acknowledge that life goes on, and he has been helped enormously by a wonderful relationship with people.

"It started a little differently," he continued. "My father, Deke (a professional golfer), was a very tough task-master. He was a fighter but also a guy who could be very sentimental. He liked people and he didn't like it when others did things that weren't nice. And he drove that home to me constantly.

"Sure, you treat everyone the same as you'd like to be treated, but there was more. You had to play the whole thing out and remember it at all times. It became bred into me to the extent that I didn't have to work on it. Now, people are my life."

His love of people has delivered one particular dividend he could never have imagined. It had its beginnings at Troon in 1962 where, in his moment of triumph in defence of the British Open, he found time to sign an autograph for a 10-year-old Glaswegian by the name of Ian Hay. It was such a charming moment that a photograph was used on the front page of a Glasgow evening newspaper.

"I have an appointment with Ian in a couple of weeks at the Mayo Clinic," said Palmer. By an astonishing turn of events, Hay grew up to become a doctor, eventually finding his way to the famous Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. It was there that he acted as Palmer's so-called quarter-back, 35 years after their meeting at Troon.

"When I was diagnosed with prostate cancer four years ago, my wife and daughter went with me to the Mayo Clinic and we met Ian Hay," he explained. "And he became my quarter-back, that's a term I use. If you go to a clinic it's nice to have a man who watches everything you do. And Ian got me to the right doctor and then watched what happened when I was there being operated on.

"That's part of why I have had so much good fortune in my life. Because I talk to people. I find if you're nice to people, it always comes back to you, one way or another."

Palmer then talked of his close friendship with golf writer Pat Ward-Thomas of the Guardian and how they and their respective wives played bridge together. And how Ward-Thomas, a wartime pilot in the RAF, had flown one of Palmer's planes.

Flying, incidentally, has been a huge part of the great man's life since 1955. His current craft is a Citation 10.

Meanwhile, his love of the Ryder Cup, in which he played on six occasions from 1961 to 1973, was the last playing captain in 1963 and had the amazing record of 22 wins and two halves from 32 matches, is palpable. "When I think about the Ryder Cup I get choked up, I like it so much," he said.

"I think it's great in any sport that you can perform well enough to be asked to represent your country. That was among the things I told Tiger Woods when he came to me seeking advice before he turned professional.

"I told him that because he was Tiger Woods, he was never going to be like anyone else. He would always be special. And because of having received so much, he had the responsibility to be nice to people and to treat them as he would like to be treated. And how he should act as a professional and control his emotions.

"As far as I can tell, he's heeded that advice. In fact at this point in time I think Tiger has done a fantastic job."

When considering Palmer's incalculable contribution to tournament golf, it seems that his legacy was already determined as far back as that fateful July day at Troon in 1962. That was when his great friend, Ward-Thomas, paid him this beautiful tribute: "In technique, attitude and manner, he makes some of his famous rivals seem puny.

"Palmer's presence has brought greatness once more to the old Championship. It has inspired others to compete and has set a new standard which can only benefit all who follow." And remarkably, he's still doing it.