"Use All The Crayons!" ... At Masters, missing Arnold
It’s been just about 10 years since a Golf Channel production crew barnstormed into Latrobe to film a loving documentary about our friend Arnold Palmer. They were here about a week and spent two solid days interviewing patrons of The Pond, of which I happened to be one. I appear in the first installment talking about how Palmer drilled holes in an office table to accommodate medals from all 96 professional victories he’d had playing golf.
The neat thing was there were two vacant holes in optimistic expectation that more victories were on the way.
I was delighted to have participated and be included in the final version, but am chagrined the funniest thing I said didn’t make the cut. And it’s not just me saying it was the funniest. The producer said so, too.
Why it was not included, I’ve never understood. But I think of it every time the Masters rolls around. It stems from the director asking me who the people of Latrobe want to win the most majors, Tiger Woods or Jack Nicklaus.
“Neither,” I said. “We’ve never stopped rooting for Palmer.”
Palmer, at the time, was 85 and two years before his demise due to heart problems.
I said it was plausible because Palmer was an honoree dubbed by Augusta to hit a ceremonial first tee shot.
“We’d like to see him hit a drive so good that he’d say, ‘You know what. I think I’m going to play this one out.’”
And then he’d birdie the hole. And the next one. And the one after that and so on.
It would be without precedent. Was it legal? Did his score count?
The situation would put rules officials in an awkward spot until they realized the guy causing the imbroglio was, gee, Arnold Palmer.
It was our hope that Palmer would go onto win the Masters. The victory would be so joyful to so many exemptions would be made for Palmer to play in the U.S. and British opens and the PGA. He’d win them all, a grand slam.
It would go on until he’d won 19 majors, one more than Nicklaus.
Man, would that have been cool.
Been active on YouTube the past week or so …
I don’t have many tweets from when Mr. Palmer was still, for lack of a better word, mortal, but here are some I composed the week he passed ...
• Questions I'm glad I never felt compelled to ask Arnold Palmer: "So what's Michael Jackson really like?”
• It’s now been 10 days. So this is the longest Arnold Palmer's gone without signing an autograph in 60 years.
• Just realized: For the first time in my life, I can probably beat Arnold Palmer at golf - but he'll still have to give strokes.
• Just occurred to me: Elvis Presley & Arnold Palmer will be seated near each other if there are homerooms in heaven.
• I’m lately finding myself getting angry at my car. Its insatiable thirst for fossil fuel means it consumes gas even when it's not in motion. I foresee a future where "smart" cars only run when the accelerator is depressed. You know, like stupid golf carts have been for 60 years!
• It would take a solar powered golf cart traveling 36,400 mph about 9.5 years to reach Pluto -- 9.7 years if you stopped for pee breaks.
RANDOMS …
• One was one of history's most bloodthirsty tyrants. The other a humble tender of ovens. But they both bore the same name so there had to be a way to differentiate the two. That's how one became Atilla the Hun while the other Atilla the Baker.
• It’s been said hydrogen is the most abundant substance in the universe. It was created in the Big Bang. Don't believe it. From my observations, the most abundant substance in the universe is cardboard. It was created by Jeff Bezos.
• Spent a frantic 30 minutes this morning searching for misplaced car keys. Was so elated when I found them I'm vowing to lose them at least once a week.
• If a diplomatic rooster tries to avert a cock fight is it fair to call him chicken?
• Red & blue states are behaving like conjoined twins fighting over whose turn it is to use the penis they share. They tolerate no compromise and revel in scorched-earth tactics that guarantee the only one who's getting screwed is one another.
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Your words never cease to amaze and amuse me...Thank you!