Arnold Palmer: Rare and Classic Photos of Golf’s Superstar Everyman

Golf is essentially an exercise in masochism conducted out of doors; it affords opportunity for a certain swank, it induces a sense of kinship in its victims and it forces them to breathe fresh air, but it is, at bottom, an elaborate and addictive rite calculated to drive them crazy for hours on end and send them straight to the whisky bottle after that. . . . Golf’s occasional moments of joy, like those afforded by heroin or slot machines, only lure the dupe deeper into frustration, and the better the player the more horrible the contrast becomes. Millions who follow the game have been absolutely confounded, as a result, by certain recent developments in the life of a young man named Arnold Palmer. Palmer seems to have golf licked.

It is not so much Palmer’s accomplishments, however [He won six of the first 14 tournaments he entered in 1962, an utterly phenomenal record. — Ed.], as his method of achieving them which has captured the imagination of multitudes. Golf tournaments, by ancient axiom, are not won — they are lost. A tight tournament can be lost by one drive into the rough or one approach shot in a sand trap. . . . But Palmer, a positive thinker of the most untrammeled variety, actually seems to be able to win — to run the game, no matter who is playing, rather than let it run him.