Now Hear This: Remembering past audiences with ‘The King’
Long live the king!
I have been to the King of England’s home. He doesn’t live there anymore. The Queen lives there now.
I have been to the King of Rock and Roll’s home in Memphis. I watched him playing touch football in his backyard in the summer of 1961.
And, I have been to the king of golf’s home away from home ( Augusta National Golf Course). It is that king I wish to pay tribute to today.
My first meeting with Arnold Palmer was at the Masters in Augusta. I had seen him play at Augusta National several times during the ’60s, but had never met him. My first professional encounter with Arnie was 1972. I have a picture of the two of us hanging in my office at home. I was covering the Masters for WLAC-TV. (Before it was NewsChannel 5).
He had just completed his practice round and when he had signed the last autograph (of many) I approached him for an interview.
“Arnie,” I said, as if I had known him for years. Of course, I had known him for years! But so had everybody else.
“Could I get an interview with you? It’ll only take a minute,” I pleaded.
Our eyes locked for what seemed like an eternity. Mine was a look of anxiety, and desperation. His frozen yet friendly stare gave way to.
“That’s good because I’ve only got a minute!” He replied, with that famous Arnold Palmer half grin.
“I’m from Nashville,” I said timidly, “And the folks back there will be thrilled to hear you talk about this tournament. You have so many fans there.”
He was holding a pair of reading glasses in his hand, which he had recently begun to wear, and our conversation centered around that, and how his eyesight was affecting his game. I felt very much at ease talking with my No. 1 all time hero. Roy Rogers was now second.
Arnie couldn’t have been nicer or more engaging. He was the king, and I was nobody. But he was talking to me. Just me. One on one. Time seemed to stop, and our few moments together under the big oak behind the clubhouse at Augusta National will always be one of my most cherished memories of this, or any other, life.
There would be other longer interviews with the king over the next 30 years in the different cities I worked in around the country. Each time we greeted each other like old friends.
One of those times was at the Congressional Golf Tournament just outside Washington, D.C. The year was 1981. Arnie and I sat together on a bench outside the clubhouse while I interviewed him. After the interview was over we continued to talk for perhaps 20 minutes about nothing in particular as I recall. Just the king and one very appreciative admirer.
I have seen him stand for long periods of time signing his autograph on anything anybody shoved in front of him, and doing it graciously. I’m certain he has never turned anyone down his entire life.
This week Arnie played his final Masters after 50 years. “Fifty years,” he mused, during a press conference this past week. “That’s long enough.”
Not nearly long enough for Arnie’s army that numbers in the hundreds of thousands around the globe. Nobody cares what he shoots, but that he is out there walking that golf course, any golf course, and hitching his pants just before he putts.
The man who captured America’s attention in the 1950s has maintained that attraction for half a century. He is truly a man for all seasons, and for all ages.
From clay in the potter’s hands was molded something magnificent, and Arnold Palmer has become the standard as an athlete, and citizen of the world, by which others would measure, and be measured.
Long live the king.