The PGA Tour is teeing it up this week at the Bay Hill Club in Orlando for the playing of the Arnold Palmer Invitational. The Arnold Palmer is one of just five invitational tournaments on tour meaning that they have some degree of freedom regarding who gets into their field. The API is also one of those high priced Signature Series events with a $20 million purse and a $4 million payday to the champion.
Last week the tour began its Florida Swing after spending two months in Hawaii, California, and Arizona. The PGA Tour opened up in Palm Beach Gardens for the playing of the newly named Cognizant Classic. It used to be called the Honda Classic and the Jackie Gleason Inverrary Classic before that, but time moves on and so does corporate sponsorship. Austin Eckroat, a 25 year old from Oklahoma State, won his first tour event and took home the $1.62 million check that went along with it. Before last week Eckroat was one of the tour’s faceless middle of the pack linksters, but with his win at the Cognazant, Austin is at Bay Hill playing alongside Rory, Scottie, and Jordan. He’s a tour winner which enhances his ability to get into the higher paying tournaments that are part of the Signature Series. It’s kind of like a two tiered system on the PGA Tour with big money events and regular events. The money is still very good.
The Arnold Palmer Invitational has been around since 1966 when former PGA champion Lionel Hebert beat the threesome of Charles Coody, Dick Lytle, and Jack Nicklaus by two strokes to capture what was initially called the Florida Citrus Open Invitational. I’m not exactly sure what an “open invitational” means since the terms seem oppositional, but we’ll stay away from the rudimentary elements of Grammar 101 and move along. It was then an invitational for two years and an open for the next seven years, promoting citrus oranges all the while. By then Arnold Palmer had begun his affiliation with the tournament. He was also the owner of Bay Hill, and the end result was that we have one of the tour’s longest running, most stable, and highly popular tourneys. Just ask Tiger who’s won it a mind-numbing eight times.
If there were ever such a thing as a Mount Rushmore of golf, Arnold Palmer would definitely be on it. Although he passed away a little more than eight years ago, he had the sort of impact on the game of golf that continues to make him the iconic figure he is today.
Born in 1929 in western Pennsylvania, Arnold Palmer was born into a golf environment. His father, Deacon Palmer, did everything at Latrobe Country Club from serving as the golf professional to hopping on a tractor and cutting the fairways. Arnold was brought up in a very working class environment and he was very aware, from a young age onward, of the distinction between the golf course members and the golf course staff. Nonetheless he developed into an outstanding golfer as a youngster and received a golf scholarship to play at Wake Forest University. He spent one year playing college golf. He won the Southeastern Conference individual title that first year but dropped out of school following the tragic death of his teammate and best friend, Bud Worsham. Arnold entered the Coast Guard and served for three years. During his time in the Coast Guard, Palmer designed and built a nine hole military course in Cape May, New Jersey. He played a lot of golf while protecting our shores.
Upon release from the Coast Guard, Arnie returned home, worked at Latrobe, and played competitive amateur golf. In the summer of 1954, the 24 year old Palmer worked his way through the highly talented field to win the United States Amateur at Detroit Country Club. At the end of that year, Palmer turned professional. The PGA Tour of that time was somewhat like the travelling circus. There was no Q School, not everyone who made the cut received a paycheck, and the top pros were affiliated with a private country club that usually paid them more than they could make on tour. If you wanted to play, you simply entered the tournament.
During his rookie season, Palmer won the Canadian Open. His first place check was for $2,400. The victory also meant that Arnold Palmer became a big hit with the fans. He was a power player. He had a very aggressive style of play. He was well muscled from all his work at the golf course as a youngster and he looked differently from most of his fellow pros. He hitched up his pants, slashed at the ball, ran in his birdie putts, and was suddenly the face of professional golf with the aging of the threesome of Byron Nelson, Sam Snead, and Ben Hogan.
Palmer won twice on tour in 1956 and then rattled off four more wins in 1957. Fans of the game really took notice when Palmer captured the 1958 Masters. While Arnie was rising to the top of the world of golf, he had a brand new outlet to feature his great talents, namely the brand new world of television. America was slightly more than one decade removed from the conclusion of World War II and suddenly every household in middle America seemed to own a television. Golf was a great sport for the airwaves to cover and Palmer became the common man hero as well as the heart-throb of those watching. He didn’t remind the working class of an elitist golfer. He was a man of the people who played with abandon while winking or giving the thumbs-up to his adoring galleries. Arnold Palmer came along and golf started to grow.
Over the next two decades Palmer would win four Masters, a wild come-from-behind United States Open, and a pair of British Opens to make it seven major championships. He completely rejuvenated the British Open on his own by entering it, encouraging other American pros to make the unfamiliar journey overseas, and promoting the cause of golf’s Grand Slam with the Open as a part of it. He would go on to win 62 times on the PGA Tour and would take his game worldwide as he won two times apiece on the European, Australian, and Latin American tours. He also notched 10 wins on the PGA Senior Tour. Five of those wins were Senior Tour majors. All sorts of accolades followed Arnold Palmer with his entrance into the World Golf Hall of Fame, receipt of the Bob Jones Award, the Old Tom Morris Award, the PGA Tour’s Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Presidential Medal of Honor. Yet to fans of the game, Arnold Palmer was always that guy who kept the Pennzoil in the tractor and swung from his heels.
Late Sunday afternoon a golfer of great talent will play well over four days and 72 holes and add his name to those on the perpetual trophy of the Arnold Palmer Invitational. Somewhere up there at Heavenly Gates Country Club Arnold Palmer is looking upon the festivities with pride.
