'The King' Returns to Augusta


Arnold Palmer has been coming to the Masters since 1955. He played it that year and all the way to 2004, after which he bowed out following his 50th consecutive appearance due to age and not being able to keep up with the youngsters on the lengthened Augusta National course.

He's enjoyed success at the iconic Georgia layout as well, winning green jackets in 1958, '60, '62 and '64 and also racking up eight top-10 finishes. The year 2014 marks the 50th anniversary of his fourth Masters' victory.

Now 84, Palmer annually makes the drive down Magnolia Lane to participate in Masters' activities, including the traditional Champions Dinner on Tuesday night and to hit the ceremonial first tee shot Thursday morning with fellow legends Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player.

Arnie hopes to continue in that latter role as long as he's capable. When asked by a reporter on Tuesday when and if he ever plans to step down, he joked, "I could say something that might commit me (laughter). You know, I have no idea. I have no thoughts. I think the Chairman makes that decision, and if he wants me to hit that first tee shot and I have to crawl (chuckling) that's what I'll do."

Palmer's Masters' roots go all the way back to when the great Bobby Jones, Augusta National's co-founder and event creator, personally hosted the tournament. To this day, Palmer is awed by Jones' contributions to golf. "I think I have nothing but total respect for what he did for the game of golf and how he played it. I read two or three books about Jones, his private life, his golf life.

"I know a lot about him; a lot of you people in this room have no idea how much I know about him . . . He was a great guy and I revere the thought that I had the opportunity . . . when I started reading about him [at] about 12 years old, reading about him and what he did; and then being here at Augusta and having drinks with him, shaking hands with him, talking to him about the game and what he thought of the game.

"So all of that wrapped up is a pretty interesting story and it's in my mind. I can occasionally think of sleeping and waking up in the middle of the night and watching him putt, and thinking about how smooth he was and how good he did the things he did on the golf course. And that pleases me."

Here's what else "The King" said during his sit-down session with the media on Tuesday.

MODERATOR: Good afternoon, everyone. It's my distinct pleasure to introduce this true legend and great ambassador of the game of golf. Arnold's golfing career has many highlights and many of those have to do with his accomplishments he has made outside the ropes. Arnold has committed the majority of his life to giving back to the game that has given him so much. Of course Arnold has a special gift of wowing those lucky enough to get a glimpse at the charismatic swing and personality that remains forever etched in their minds. And I know all of us at Augusta National feel truly privileged to have played a small part in the legacy of Arnold Palmer. Arnold joins us on the 50th anniversary of his fourth and final Masters victory in 1964. Before we take questions, we would just like to ask you to comment on, reflect on, the 50th anniversary of that memorable triumph.

ARNOLD PALMER: Well, I'm happy to be here. Let's just say that. I'm pleased. I was reminiscing a little today when we were talking about what has happened to the Masters and to Augusta and to this Club in the years that I've been coming here. I came here first in 1955, was my first Masters. And I parked a trailer with my wife on the other side of Daniel Field just off the railroad tracks - are those railroad tracks still there? Does anyone know? (Dead silence in the room). This is a great group (laughter). I'll give them a history book so they can read up (laughter).

I parked a trailer there and I drove over to the Club and the feeling was so overwhelming that I felt like I had died and gone to heaven, and I mean that. It was so wonderful to drive to Augusta and to the Club and the Masters in 1955. And you can't believe it, I played the winter tour for the first time, and the golf courses were, let's say, less than great. But it was my opportunity and when I got here, I felt like I was walking on a cloud. It was so beautiful. It was something that I had dreamt about all my life and here I was for my first Masters, playing in the Masters Tournament. And I couldn't wait to get on the golf course and to play and to think about instead of hitting chip shots out of the mud and on the fringe and long grass and bad situations, here I was hitting chip shots that were absolutely beautifully lying in short, beautiful grass and onto absolute perfect greens. And that was what I was dreaming.

So, that was the beginning. It was something that I can tell you about it now, as I'm doing, but I can't make the feelings that I had for being here. It was something that I talked to my father about when I was a baby, and when I was growing up working on a tractor and driving a tractor cutting fairways and greens and tees and knowing that I had arrived at the Masters. The rest of the story is pretty much history. I played my first Masters and I played pretty good. I was scared to death and excited, but I was having fun playing on a golf course that was manufactured so well and so fine that it was just a thrill.

And I think I finished about 10th in that tournament, and that in itself was a thrill of a lifetime and I was still under the PGA rules and auspices of not being able to accept what I won on the normal Tour events, because of the apprenticeship. But at Augusta, the money I won, I was able to put in my pocket and take home, and I can tell you, it was a thrill to do that, too, because I had not been a professional six months. So that kind of gives you an idea of what it was like to be here. I stayed at a hotel downtown and it was fine. It was a lot different than it is today. The accommodations were okay. And being here again, getting a caddie, Iron Man - do you remember Iron Man?

MODERATOR: No, sir.

ARNOLD PALMER: You don't? I'll never forget him. Nathaniel Avery was his name. He was great and told me where to go and what to do, and that was the end of it. Now, what else do you want to hear? (Laughter)

MODERATOR: We'll ask a few questions but you keep talking as long as you want to.

ARNOLD PALMER: That was a thrill. That was probably - it was probably the biggest, exciting thing that had happened to me in my life and in my game of golf. I had won the national amateur. I played a lot of tournaments and I played some good golf, but there was a feeling that is very difficult to tell you what that feeling was like to be here at Augusta and at the Masters. I was just very thankful.

Q. How much longer do you anticipate hitting the first tee shot off with Jack and Gary? Do you want to keep doing it as long as you can?

ARNOLD PALMER: Well, I could say something that might commit me (laughter). You know, I have no idea. I have no thoughts. I think the Chairman makes that decision, and if he wants me to hit that first tee shot and I have to crawl (chuckling) that's what I'll do.

Q. How did the 1964 tournament rank as far as how well you played? Is that the best four rounds you've ever played here or any other major, do you think?

ARNOLD PALMER: Yes. My one thing that was disappointing to me in my existence here playing in the Masters was that I won three times and was all - it was a squeaker every time. I would walk up 18 and people thought I was looking at them. I was scared to look at them. I was playing to win the Masters, and it was probably one of the hardest things I've ever done and most enjoyable.

But the one thing I wanted to do here, after having won three times, was walk up 18 feeling comfortable, feeling like, hey (giving a smiling thumbs up). And I can refer to that a little bit, Dave Marr, who was my playing partner, and also a friend, and when we teed off at 18 the last day, I was comfortable. I felt like if I could just keep it down that narrow fairway, I would be all right, and I sort of casually said to David, "If I can help you, David, I will." And he looked at me and he says, "You can help me." And I said, "How is that, David?" He says, "Make nine." (Laughter)

Q. Just want to talk about another win, which was the 1958, your first Masters. Wondering if you had a sense of how your life changed from that moment before until after that victory, what it felt like and how you felt you were received by your fans and golf in general?

ARNOLD PALMER: Well, I'm not sure about your question but I'll answer it this way: I was very excited. I suppose there was a little solemn damper put on it by the situation at 12, which I felt that I was 100 percent right. And when I saw the situation, I felt good. I felt like I hit my shots good, doing what I had to do as a professional golfer.

I remember Jonathan Winters, who was the chairman of the Rules Committee, talking to me and he says, "Arnie, we are not questioning anything. We just want to review the situation." And I understood that. And that didn't bother me, because I felt like I was hitting the ball pretty well and I was going good. Did I know I was going to win? No, I can't say that I knew I was going to win. I knew that I was in a position that if I played some good golf the last three or four holes, that I had a shot.

Q. The U.S. Open, as you know, is at Pinehurst this year. Are Augusta National and the Pinehurst No.2 course, are they similar in your mind?

ARNOLD PALMER: Similar?

Q. Or how would you compare the two?

ARNOLD PALMER: As a player and as an architect that builds golf courses, and looking at the situations, to me, I had played Pinehurst quite a lot when I was at Wake Forest. So I knew what that was like, and there was a lot of similarities to the way you play a golf course like Pinehurst No.2 versus Augusta; things that in those days were not unusual at all. People took them as somewhat normal. And what am I talking about? I'm talking about run offs. As you know, Pinehurst No.2 is a golf course that has been built and is built with almost every green having run offs from one way or the other. Sand traps, yes, but not as severe as some of the run offs.

Well, Augusta was somewhat similar to that. It had run offs, it had areas where you had to plan what shots you were going to hit and where you wanted to end up to play that shot on those run offs, and everyone - one of the things that was outstanding in my mind when I was playing here, was that they - the good players and the people that had watched me play, none of them really thought that I had much chance to play very good here because I hit the ball on a line low, usually driving it at the target, and it was not really acceptable, particularly when you had so many shots that might be run off shots where the ball would roll down the hills and into the valleys and so on. And I decided that one of the things that I had to do, if I were going to play any kind of golf, particularly winning golf here at Augusta or the Masters, was put the ball in the right position; not always necessarily close to the hole. Get it in a position where that run off wasn't as severe to making the next shot or the shot to follow. Does that answer your question?

Q. Yes, it does. Thank you. Looking back at your career, considering how well you continued to play after the '64 Masters, are you surprised or disappointed you never won another major after that?

ARNOLD PALMER: Surprised?

Q. Or disappointed?

ARNOLD PALMER: I suppose. Disappointed? Yes. I played some of the best golf I ever played in major championships after the '64 Masters. The Open a couple times; matter of fact, three or four times, and didn't win; the PGA once or twice. It was disappointing. I played good here a few times, and my short game didn't hold up to the standards that I had set up for myself. I must say that in theory, I kind of figured out why those things happened to a degree, and I looked at it more as a psychological downfall as anything, and that was it was like winning The Open at Cherry Hills when I won. It had something to do with the fact that I got over a hump. I climbed over the hill, and I satisfied some of the deep desires and ambitions that I had. And again, I use the word "psychological" because it may have caused a letdown and caused me more than I had anticipated had I had the same driving desire to win before, I might have won a few more Masters or a few more Opens or a couple PGAs, who knows. But that's kind of going back and looking up never mind, you know what I'm talking about. Psychologically, it affected me.

Q. What are some of your fond memories of the Champions Dinner over the years, and what's the strangest thing you ever saw on the menu?

ARNOLD PALMER: Well, of course, just being here was, you know, the young people that haven't been here too long (tapping Member on the arm) didn't understand what happened at the Masters dinners. When you're sitting there with people that I've read about and heard about, I think of Ralph Guldahl and I think of people like Snead, Nelson and Demaret and Henry Picard, who was one of my favorite people of all time when he was here, and listening to them talk. And needless to say, Snead, what a great player, and Demaret. And then remembering those people and thinking about the years that they played golf. You know, this afternoon, we were talking about the tournaments and the winners. When we had the Masters Club dinner, and Hogan was the originator of it, we would sit down in the room, and I counted them one year, and I think there were 12 guys in the room that were at the Masters Club dinner. Those are the only people that were there.

And I remember talking to some of the other pros, and I think Nicklaus might have been one of them, and I think - yeah, I'm sure he was, and we were kind of laughing and we had just held the title for a couple times. We said, you know, it would be nice if we could just keep this room to about 12 or 13 people (laughter) and we laughed. Now you walk in there and you see all these great players that are there, but at the time, there were a lot of great players there. I can name every one of them: Horton Smith and Sarazen and those guys. And they are people that you really, when you're in the game of golf like I've been and you dream about it and you work on a golf course and you do the things that come naturally to you, but you can't ignore the fact that these people were great players. And that excites me. Still excites me.

Q. It sounds like you still take great pride in having driven that tractor and cut that grass. How did that affect the golfer that you became and the man that you became?

ARNOLD PALMER: Well, it only affected my golf in that it taught me to be humble and to know where I came from. I suppose I think about my father and the things that he told me when I was driving that tractor, and I would drive it on the side of the hill with the old Fordson steel wheels with the steel spikes on it, and if you didn't keep them flat on the ground, and you had a weight on the back you were pulling, it would spin and it would tear the golf course up. And that got my attention. It got my attention, because the old man was about to kick my ass (laughter) all the way around that golf course if I didn't learn how to drive the tractor. It was like playing golf, do what he tells you to do.

MODERATOR: Does that answer your question, sir? (Laughter)

Q. You talk about some of the great players and when you were first coming along. What do you think about some of the young guys today, Jordan Spieth and Patrick Reed?

ARNOLD PALMER: What do I think about the young guys today?

Q. What do you think about this generation coming along, these 20 somethings now?

ARNOLD PALMER: I'm very impressed. I've been watching these young guys and it's amazing how they hit the golf ball, how well they play. I've never ceased to be pleased and surprised to see the physical conditioning that these young people are coming with; to see their ability, to see how they play the game. I look at them and you think about a 23 , 22 , 25 year old, and you see the shots they are hitting and how far they are hitting the golf ball; I'm startled, surprised and pleased. On the other hand, I watch them sometimes when they are playing recently, and I see some of the shots they play, and I must say that I'm a little disappointed in some of the finishes I've seen. Now, we see recently some of the things that are happening and they make the long putts and they do things, and that's great. I still stick with them that they are great players and they are doing very, very well.

On the other side of it, like one of my old mentors used to say when I was playing tournament golf as an amateur, and he would say, "Okay, Arnie," he says, "I see you're out there practicing that 20 foot putt all day." He says, "You'd better get that thing up around the hole around three or four feet or five feet and be knocking it in." And I think about that. And I think about it all the time, and I remember how I used to dump the balls out pretty close to the hole, five or six feet, and practice it. And when I see some of these guys miss some of these little putts, I think if I were telling that guy what to do, I would tell him to get that shag bag out there and get about a 5 or 6 footer and start knocking it in the hole.

Q. Could you talk a little about your relationship with Bobby Jones?

ARNOLD PALMER: Well, of course, my thoughts, reverence, I think I have nothing but total respect for what he did for the game of golf and how he played it. I read two or three books about Jones, his private life, his golf life. I know a lot about him; a lot of you people in this room have no idea how much I know about him. It was written. You could read it if you took the time. He was a great guy and I revere the thought that I had the opportunity after reading, when I started reading about him about 12 years old, reading about him and what he did; and then being here at Augusta and having drinks with him, shaking hands with him, talking to him about the game and what he thought of the game.

So all of that wrapped up is a pretty interesting story and it's in my mind. I can occasionally think of sleeping and waking up in the middle of the night and watching him putt, and thinking about how smooth he was and how good he did the things he did on the golf course. And that pleases me.

Q. Will this be a different tournament without Tiger Woods in it, and how do you see Tiger's career proceeding from here?

ARNOLD PALMER: Well, you know, lately I've heard so much about Tiger and opinions; opinions are about what you pay for them, and most of us don't pay much (laughter). I would say that as Tiger continues on his personal physique and ability to work and stay healthy, I don't see any reason in the world why he will not come back and potentially do the things that he has had the desire to do. Drawback? Well, there is a drawback that relates to myself a little about the psychological aspects of the game and the fact that you've won and you've won the tournaments that you were working to win, and that is still there. It's going to be - he's going to have to overcome that. He's going to have to overcome the fact that he won as much as he did, and he's going to have to refresh that in his mind and his psychological approach to the game. If he can do that, I see no reason in the world why he can't come back and be as good a player as he ever was.

MODERATOR: Thank you all for coming. Thank you, Arnold, very, very much for spending the time (applause).

The transcript for the above interview is courtesy of ASAP Sports.