September 25, 2017
I didn't play golf as a kid. Or in High School. It was not until we were in our 30's that my husband and I picked up a club outside of a miniature golf course. But I knew Arnie.
Like someone knows a distant relative, Arnie felt like family as I grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, watching him on those 1960's Sundays when Dad would be kicked back with his feet on the couch, sun and shadows coming in through the windows, quiet hushes on TV until Mr. Palmer turned on the electric.
Mr. Palmer shares his birthday with my husband, September 10th, and the more auspicious anniversary of his passing, September 25th, happens to be Dad's birthday. He looked like my Dad.
We had the pleasure of attending Bay Hill in 2014 and will always remember the one time we've seen Arnie, on the driving range speaking with Brandt Snedeker. You could see their connection, the young man and his idol. But surrounded by camera crews, spectators and players, Mr. Palmer's charm made us all feel as if we were part of the conversation.
We were home in June 2016 for the US Open and passed by the entrance of Latrobe on our way to play a little Laurel Highlands golf that week. Arnie was there as well, was home at Latrobe, unable to partake in the celebration down in Oakmont and as we drove past I whispered a wish for him to get well. If anything could have healed him, the Laurel Highlands would have.
We had Dad with us that day. He, like Arnie, was everyman. When he took a job with Alcoa in Pittsburgh, he was a young man from Iowa, part farm boy, part chemical engineer, having attended Iowa State on an NROTC scholarship that would also make him a Navy Pilot. As we drove past Latrobe that day, he told us his own Arnie story.
He told us how a group from his department at Alcoa met with Mr. Palmer in the early 60's to see if aluminum shafts might hold up to his swing. As the new guy in the office, Dad mostly hovered by the door, brought coffee and listened in while Mr. Palmer was surrounded by business partners, chemists and engineers who talked with Palmer about metallurgy, tinsel strength and new fabrication methods. Dad says he was just a bystander but he clearly remembered Mr. Palmer's charm making him feel as if he were part of the conversation.
At the time aluminum was deemed too soft a metal for a swing like Mr. Palmer's but it would only be a few years before aluminum alloys were making their way to golf club manufacturers. And Dad would have an Arnie story that he remembered for the rest of his life.
For an interesting look back at the beginnings of aluminum shafts, go to Roger Ganem's article in the February 1968 issue of Golfdom entitled "The Aluminum Shaft Dilemma":
http://archive.lib.msu.edu/tic/golfd/article/1968feb36.pdf
