Arnold Palmer and Sam Snead, two famous golfers, played a nine-hole exhibition at the Thendara Golf Club, where I’d caddied in my teens. It was 1961, and each golfer would receive $2500. Yes, times have changed.
The Club was in the little town of Old Forge, in New York’s Adirondack Mountains. I was a college student, living in my parents’ summer home, and working in town as a parking-lot attendant at the Enchanted Forest, a backwoods Disneyland. I loved the job, working outdoors, and, most of all, being with my co-attendant Bob, who had become a close friend. Handsome, dashing, my age, and an exuberant hustler, Bob taught me the lucrative art of extracting tips from arriving drivers.
Bob and I went to the exhibition, well-attended but not mobbed
. I followed Palmer as closely as I could. He was affable and relaxed, chatting merrily with spectators—until he was ready to swing. Then he’d concentrate with laser intensity. After he’d hit his shot, he’d resume being his relaxed, affable self.
Joe, who was our boss at the Enchanted Forest, somehow became connected to Palmer. The two went out for dinner with a large group that included Bob and Arch MacDonald, a former Thendara club champion. After dinner, Palmer wanted a place to party, and Bob offered his parents’ “camp,” which is Adirondack-ese for a summer home, which in this case was an impressive house on First Lake. Bob’s parents and the rest of his family were not there, but I definitely was, as was a merry crowd, including Palmer.
I didn’t dare approach him, but I did watch from a distance. He was the same affable, relaxed man he’d been at Thendara. He loved to flirt, and there were women there well worth flirting with. He also enjoyed drinking booze, though he never seemed at all inebriated. The party roared on. Palmer was still carousing when I left, well after midnight.
The following is from a brief local newspaper report of Palmer’s trip late that night to Rocky Point, a prestigious hotel on Fourth Lake: “Palmer played straight pool with Arch MacDonald until 5 in the morning.”
Early the next morning, Bob drove Palmer to what served as the airport for Old Forge. Palmer flew in his private plane to Lake Placid where he was scheduled to play another exhibition match, this one was eighteen holes. He set the course record for the lowest score.
While reading the newspaper story about Palmer setting the record at Lake Placid, I thought of Shakespeare’s Prince Hal, who, like Palmer, was an extraordinarily-resilient man. Each could carouse ‘til the wee hours but still, soon thereafter, could face a challenge and prevail, performing brilliantly, far beyond anything I could aspire to.
I wondered how unique Palmer was. Surely some other star athletes were similar to him, able to win–indeed to set records–regardless of recent intense partying that would render a normal human incapable of performing with minimal competence, let alone superbly.
I can’t generalize about star athletes based on Palmer, my sample of one. Still, I sensed, then and now, that Palmer’s gift must be shared by other star athletes, enabling them to party heartily and, soon afterward, play at peak level.
Babe Ruth comes to mind.