Innholdsfortegnelse for December 2016 i Golf Magazine

On the eve of the 1958 Masters, Arnold Palmer sat in the Augusta locker room after an unimpressive practice round with Ben Hogan. Arnie overheard the Hawk gripe, "How the hell did Palmer get an invitation to the Masters?" 1958 A KING IS BORN Palmer said he was "nervous as hell" with Bobby Jones (far left, in sunglasses) watching. "But I wanted to show him what I was made of." "That question burned me up," Palmer wrote in his memoir, "and set my mind on showing why the hell I'd been invited to the Masters." A fired-up Palmer showed Hogan—and the rest of the field. The 28-year-old won his first major by a stroke (helped by a rules controversy on the 12th hole that was decided in his favor). The…

ARNOLD PALMER WASN'T A GREAT ATHLETE because he could hit a golf ball farther than his competitors. He wasn't a great athlete because he collected 62 victories, including seven major titles, on the PGA Tour. And he wasn't a great athlete because his accomplishments ushered in an era of unprecedented growth and prosperity for the sport and its professionals. Palmer was a great athlete because he defied expectations. When glory beckoned, Palmer would "go for broke," as he liked to say. And when he went, it wasn't just for him. It was also for us. In 1963, Palmer was stalking the lead in the U.S. Open at Brookline. Four grueling rounds had failed to produce a winner, so Palmer, Jacky Cupit and Julius Boros embarked on an 18-hole playoff for…

ARNOLD PALMER loved hitting his clubs, of course, and he loved tinkering with them almost as much. His first set consisted of cut-down sticks given to him by his golf-pro dad, Deacon. They didn't fit him very well, and Palmer found out early that if he wanted clubs that worked, he'd need to learn to alter them himself. The boy spent hours in his father's shop wrapping grips, changing out shafts, applying carefully considered lengths of lead tape and shaping clubheads. "I worked the face to look the way I wanted," Palmer once said of the refashioning of some old persimmon woods. "If I looked down and it looked perfect, I felt I would play perfect. But the grip was the most important part of the golf club to me.…

You rarely get up and down greenside, so your buddies take you to the cleaners in your weekly Nassau. Well, it so happens that going to the cleaners can help "iron" out your chipping woes. THE DRILL Grab a hanger from your closet and stick your arms through it up to your elbows, as shown. Make a few chip swings. The hanger forces your arms into a tight triangle shape in front of your chest, making it impossible for your left elbow to "fly" out, or for either arm to dominate the motion—two flaws that turn crisp strikes into chunks. Keep swinging, ingrain the connected feel and use it on the course. Before long, it'll be your buddies who have to press. SHAZAM This Photo for more ways to chip…

AT ARNOLD'S public memorial service in Latrobe, Big Jack talked about flying through a West Texas windstorm, seat-belted and terrified, while the pilot, Arnold Palmer himself, was having a grand time. Of course he was. Arnold in the air. Close your eyes and see the grin. It is only a coincidence that Arnold's ball flight with the driver, in his persimmon-and-balata prime, closely resembled a jet fighter taking off from an aircraft carrier: low and fast, low and fast, then, whoosh, the sudden climb. They don't fly "em like that anymore. Nicklaus remembers the times when Arnold would fly from Latrobe to Columbus, solo in a single-engine prop, pick him up and head off somewhere to play an exhibition for quick and easy cash, $2,000 per man, something like that.…

ABOUT 20 years ago, I read a GOLF magazine article entitled, "100 Things Every Golfer Must Do Before They Die." One item on the list: Shake Arnold Palmer's hand. I found this curious. A handshake is a handshake. What's the big deal? I mean, I knew of Palmer's importance to the game, and I was aware of the emotions he stirred. At my first U.S. Open, at Oakmont in 1994, I went to his farewell press conference and couldn't believe how all the cynical scribes were blinking back tears. Still, I didn't really get Arnie. And then it happened, three years later at Bay Hill. We were introduced, and his big, meaty paw enveloped mine. Palmer's hands were rough and strong. Macho, even. His grip was crushing. It was like…

As a nickname, "The King" stuck, but it didn't fit. A king considers himself above his subjects; Arnold Palmer was Everyman, humble, one of the guys. In commercials, he sat on a tractor, not a throne. With apologies to Steve McQueen, a better moniker would have been "The King of Cool." Funny thing, the idea of "cool." It's tricky to define, but we know it when we see it. And no one had much doubt when Arnold Palmer came around. Consider the reaction of the late CBS golf executive producer Frank Chirkinian after catching his first glimpse of Palmer. It was April 1959. Chirkinian was working the Masters broadcast when the screen before him filled with footage of a figure who seemed more gunslinger than golfer. "It's this player coming…

WHEN I HEARD Arnold Palmer died, I thought of my mom, Betty. My mom was in love with Arnold Palmer. That was the only time I ever saw her sneak a glance at the Sylvania from the brownies she was making or the dishes she was rinsing—when Arnie was on the screen. Arnie was catnip in spikes to women. The way his hair wouldn't stay put and his pants wouldn't stay up, the ruggedness of his farm-boy arms and the why-go-inside tan, the tossed cigarette, the head-thrown-back laugh, the RCA-dog turn of the head as he watched his drive sail, the schoolboy grin and the sit-next-to-me eyes. My mom would've have liked him even better in person. Here was Arnold Palmer: When he'd return his tournament courtesy car, he'd have…

1 STARE IT DOWN Casey's at bat, and his eyes stay on the ball—even after he hits it. You were probably taught to keep your eyes fixed on the ball through contact, but swiveling your head to watch it fly off the clubface frees your torso to turn. Your reward? More clubhead speed than you ever imagined. 2 LEVEL OUT YOUR TURN His hips rotate first at the start of his downswing, so at impact they're much more open to the target than his chest is. Hips, then shoulders—that's the right sequence. Also, Casey's hips turn in place (his belt is nearly horizontal) but his shoulders rotate on an angle. Most weekend players get this backwards and suffer for it. 3 PIN TO WIN Casey knows a swing secret that…

ICALLED HIM PAP from the beginning," wrote Arnold Palmer in his 1999 autobiography, A Golfer's Life. You can trace the King's mastery of social skills and his love of people to his mother, Doris, but Palmer's mental and physical strength, his black-and-white distinctions between right and wrong and his doggedness in pursuit of a goal are directly descended from his father, Milfred, who was best known by his nickname, Deacon, or more commonly, Deke. Understanding this relationship is the key to understanding what drove Arnie. Two incidents from when he was 3 help explain and define the intense father-son bond. The first occurred when the boy King was carrying a quart of milk up the stairs of his grandmother's house, and he stumbled and fell on the bottle. The glass…

PALMER WAS SEVEN shots back as he marched to the first tee for the final round of the 1960 U.S. Open at Denver's Cherry Hills. And he was ticked off. Minutes earlier, he asked Pittsburgh sportswriter Bob Drum, "I may shoot 65—what would that do?" "Nothing," Drum said. "You're too far back." "The hell I am!" snapped Palmer, who took a mighty lash and drove the green on the 346-yard, par-4 first hole. After a two-putt birdie, the charge was on. "I felt a powerful surge of adrenaline," Palmer remembered. "Something big was happening." Indeed. He added five birdies in the next six holes. Paired in that final round, a young Jack Nicklaus and an ailing Ben Hogan made valiant runs at the title but faltered late. (Nicklaus would have…

DOC GIFFIN rarely teed it up with Arnold Palmer ("I'm a hacker," he says), but for 50 years they were daily playing partners. Separated in age by just 10 months, the two would huddle in Palmer's office, tucked into the property of his Latrobe, Pa., home, to take on the unrelenting busy-ness of being the King: the VIP outings, global travel, myriad press requests, and on and on. In 1966, Palmer asked Doc, then press secretary of the PGA Tour, to be his right hand—and, on occasion, his voice, as the ghostwriter of so much of the ink we thought of as "By Arnold Palmer." Barely a week after his boss's passing, the doctor, now 88, is still keeping office hours. Palmer's absence in Latrobe is, as you'd imagine, profound.…

Nope! Whoops! While your John Daly driver windup looks cool, letting the club "drop" past parallel is costing you yards. That's because you probably tilt your body toward the target and fold your left elbow (photo, left), leading to weak slices. To maximize power, stop your backswing at its natural end point. Step 1 Grab a 3-pound dumbbell (or object of similar weight). Using only your left arm, swing the weight back as you would your driver. The dumbbell's mass forces you to keep your left arm straight and limits how high you swing your arm—perfect. Step 2 Swap the dumbbell for your driver and repeat. Your swing should now feel "wider," not longer. Don't fret—this shorter, compact move packs more punch than a long, loose one, and it's easier…