As Palmer came up the 18th for the last few plays of his final round, “I marveled, because for yesterday and most of the round today, my shins were just killing me,” he said in the interview. “Then, about the 15th hole... it went away, and all of a sudden there was none and now there’s no pain at all.”

As he played the last few holes of his final round, a massive gallery of fans cheered, applauded and cried. Just as Palmer’s victories have thrilled “Arnie’s Army” over the years as much as they’ve thrilled Palmer himself, so does his departure from The Masters signal an end to many fans’ relationship with the tournament. “I don’t like golf, I just like Arnold,” said fan Ellen DuBois, 56, quoted in the Decatur Daily. Though DuBois said she had been attending The Masters since she was 8 years old, she’s hanging it up with Arnie. “It’s his last and it’s my last. I’m not coming any more.”

It’s doubtful that she’s alone.

Throughout 50 years at The Masters, Palmer opened the game to thousands and thousands of fans around the world, many of whom are unable to separate him from their definition of the sport. Certainly, none can separate him from The Masters. Even as it’s changed over the years - the course has been lengthened and re-groomed, the field of competitors has widened considerably and the press has shifted from the game to the politics and back to the golf again - Palmer has provided a consistent Masters anchor to which the fans could affix themselves, as much a tradition as the coveted green jacket itself. “I had dinner with family and close friends at the house I rented on the Wednesday night before the first round of the tournament this year... a virtual tradition for years,” Palmer says. “The next morning, as usual, I was up early and ate a good breakfast before going to the course. “The only way my relationship with The Masters has changed over the years has been that my love and admiration for Augusta National, and for the tournament, has grown deeper and deeper.” Tradition has long been part of the tournament, and as Palmer has contributed to it, he’s also found it one of the most enjoyable aspects of The Masters.

“The one tradition that I have always followed and enjoyed was attending the Champions Dinners on Tuesday evenings,” he says.

In a pre-round interview, he discussed his first Dinner, in 1959: “The guys that were there... Maybe I was just sort of a green kid and didn’t know a hell of a lot about it, but I had great respect for the guys that played golf, like Hogan and Nelson and Snead and Sarazen and that gang that were in there. And to be in the room with Bobby Jones and Cliff Roberts and that whole scene was one that you can’t ever copy. You can’t duplicate, you can’t reproduce it, not in any way put a room of characters together like we had I first won The Masters.”

Palmer won his first Masters in 1958 at age 28 - then the youngest Masters champion. He’d only been golfing professionally for three years, but already had numerous victories under his belt.

He kicked off his pro career by winning the 1955 Canadian Open, took two more titles in 1956 and four more in 1957. He won The Masters three more times, in 1960, 1962 and 1964.

By the time he played his final Masters this year, he’d won 92 championships in professional competition of national or international stature, including seven majors (four Masters victories, the 1960 U.S. Open, and two British Opens (1961, 1962). The only major tournament that eluded him was the PGA Championship, in which he finished second three times.

Either humorous or startling by today’s standards, depending on how you look at it, Palmer’s first Masters victory was also the first year he led the money list - with just over $40,000.

Discussing his 1958 victory in an interview earlier in the week before his last Masters, “I think the total money on the Tour, counting Masters and everything, was less than $1 million, or right at $1 million. First place [at Augusta] was $14,000 that year.”

Palmer stayed atop the money list from 1960 to 1963, with 29 personal victories and a victory as captain of the 1963 U.S. Ryder Cup team. As of his last major victory (appropriately, the 1964 Masters), Palmer was golf ’s career money leader with just over $500,000. Four years later he was golf ’s first career millionaire - a mark that he hit with a second-place at the 1968 PGA Championship.

“I am very satisfied with the way my golf career has turned out,” he says. Still, through all the victories and titles, The Masters is the tournament with which Palmer is most often associated. “The Masters has always been special to me and to the game itself,” Palmer explains. “It has always been a cut above the average tournament with its wonderful golf course, its select international field of the world’s best players and its near-flawless organization in every single department.” There have been a few frustrations, of course, perhaps most notably in 1961.

“I guess the one moment from all of the Masters that I wish I could relive would be when I went to the ropes and shook hands with a friend as I played the last hole of the 1961 Masters with a one-stroke lead,” he says. “That was a big mistake because the job wasn’t done yet. I lost my concentration and wound up making six on the hole and losing the tournament by a stroke to Gary Player.” Now, the only frustration he says he has about his game is “obviously, the distance that I have lost off the tee. And, of course, there isn’t much I can do about it.” Other frustrations include “the ‘professionals’ who are getting things autographed to sell on the Internet or some other way, and those who push and shove children and other true fans in the autograph lines.”

If he’s frustrated with “fake” fans, his love for his real fans is obvious. Whether walking to the lines to shake hands with people, answering letters or just smiling and giving a nod, Palmer is perhaps best known as a peoples’ champion. In an article on MSNBC.com, PGA pro Brad Faxon was quoted paying tribute to Arnie’s way with people.

“The first time I played with him, he told me it was important ‘To look ‘em in the eye,’” said Faxon, now in his 21st year on Tour. “I thought he meant the other players, but he meant the people in the gallery.” The love and admiration Palmer has inspired extends beyond just golf; the man has become an unwitting spokesman for all things Palmer-related. Take, for example, Tom Bedell’s article on Rolling Rock beer from BadGolfer.com.

“I felt kindly toward it, not only because it was visually amusing, but because it was brewed in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. ‘Any beer brewed in Arnold Palmer’s hometown can’t be all bad,’ I used to say. In this regard, at least, I haven’t changed. I still feel kindly toward the beer.”

If he were forced to choose, he says he likes #15 at Augusta, isn’t crazy about #1. He likes his Callaway equipment, doesn’t like the fact that the ball is speeding up and pushing golf courses to increase in size.

If it hadn’t been golf, “I suspect that I would have pursued a career in aviation,” Palmer says. “Who knows.” There’s an Arnold Palmer hospital and an Arnold Palmer airport. He’s a businessman, pilot, course designer, author, spokesman, humanitarian and golfer. More poignantly, he’s The Masters, and as part of the competitive field, he will be missed.

As Laura Vecsey put it, writing in the Baltimore Sun, “There was a moment yesterday after Palmer... tapped in to complete his amazing 50-year run at The Masters when you wondered: Who’s going to do this job now?” Who indeed.