Kingdom: How much did receiving the Byron Nelson prize mean to you?

Arnold Palmer: He was always a dear friend to me and winning his prize was a great honor. When I was a youngster, Byron was writing his book. It was one of the first books I read about golf and the disciplines it takes to excel. He was very important to me and I treasured his friendship.

K: Babe Krinock, the man who taught you to fly and a lifelong friend, passed away recently. How will you remember him?

AP: As a great friend. He was very important to me. He taught me to fly and was very special. A great guy and a great pilot. We’re all going to miss Babe.

K: You were in the Coast Guard. Do you still have a strong affinity for boating or the sea? If so, how does that factor into your life now—i.e., are you a boater at all or do you enjoy sailing or going on cruises?

AP: Once a Coast Guardsman, always a Coast Guardsman. I don’t do much boating these days. I used to do quite a bit. In recent years, I have not.

K: The Pens have just won the Stanley Cup and the Steelers won the Super Bowl. Is there something about your western Pennsylvania neighbors that demands perfection from their athletes?

AP: I watched the Penguins every chance I had. They were wonderful. They did a great job. I’m very happy for (Penguins team owner) Mario Lemieux. It’s the western Pennsylvania background of steel and coal. They’re a tough group. They demand a lot from their professional athletes and they’ve been rewarded with a lot to celebrate.

K: The course at Bay Hill is currently being renovated, how is that progressing? When will it be back open for play and what does it mean for the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by MasterCard?

AP: Very good. I toured it yesterday and am very pleased with what’s been happening at Bay Hill. We will have most of the physical work wrapped up in just a month and then things should be in playing shape by October, which is pretty fast.

K: Quite a few of your contemporaries are also celebrating their 80th birthdays in 2009—notably Bob Goalby, Peter Thomson and Dow Finsterwald. How would you assess them as individuals and your collective generation of golfers as a whole?

AP: Well, they’re all great golfers and made great contributions to the game and they’re all great friends.

K: Watching episodes of Shell’s Wonderful World of Golf, it seems that most of the greens you played on 40–50 years ago were very slow compared to today’s putting surfaces. Why was this and why did the authorities decide to speed them up?

AP: The greens weren’t that slow, although there were a lot of them that were. The reason they were slow is that cutting them low led to funguses and diseases and taking care of them was expensive. There were times that they were just as fast as they are today. I know Oakmont’s greens for the ’35 Open were just as fast as they were for the ’07 Open. But the modern technology has helped them speed up the greens a little more quickly.

K: If you were starting out on Tour today, using modern equipment, how different do you think your swing and overall technique would be?

AP: I think it’d still be the same.

K: Phil Mickelson’s wife Amy is undergoing a difficult time. How challenging is it for a golfer to close that off in his/her mind and go out and perform at the highest level?

AP: It’s something you never put out of your mind, even in the heat of battle. I’d had it in my family with my daughter and my wife. It’s a constant worry. You just hope for the best. Of course, with modern medicine and what the doctors can do, you can try and move forward with hope and faith that something positive is bound to happen. In Phil’s case, it’s got to be a major worry. I’m sure Phil and the medical people are doing all they can to take care of Amy.

K: Since his comeback, Tiger Woods has clearly not struck the ball as he would like and complains about putting poorly, yet he won twice and had five other top–10s in his first seven strokeplay events of 2009. You could argue that had he had a better draw, weather–wise, he’d have won at Bethpage.

AP: That’s you saying that! That’s just the rub of the green. He is a tremendous player and his record is proof of that. Don’t worry about Tiger. He’s doing just fine.

Woods and Palmer share a mutual admiration

K: Padraig Harrington, who you know well, appears to have lost the golf game which won him two majors last season with over–analysis. Were you ever tempted to go down the same swing–change route and what do you think he should do to recapture his form?

AP: I was never tempted to change my swing. I usually went back and worked on the things that I knew worked for me in the tournaments I’d won. So I never made any swing changes most of my life. I’d go back to basics and drill on that stuff. And that’s what I’d advise Padraig to do.

K: What changes have you seen in college golf since your days as a member of the Wake Forest College golf team?

AP: There’s more sophistication in college golf, but I haven’t seen it change all that much. There’s just more of it and it’s better. A lot more players participating and I think the opportunities are better.

K: Can you envision a return to shorter courses and a game based on strategy and accuracy or do you think courses will continue to get longer?

AP: It’ll be a combination of things. Certainly, they aren’t going to shorten the golf courses, but the courses will require more strategy. Making the golf ball less lively would solve a lot of problems. It would help the great traditional golf courses remain challenging and relevant.

K: Do you think the future of golf as a recreation for busy people hinges on the development of a shorter version of the game as an alternative to the full 18 holes?

AP: I would hope it would always be 18 holes. A version where you can do 18 holes a little quicker would be good, but I don’t want to see the game change like that. Any changes shouldn’t tinker with the essence of what’s been a truly wonderful game for so many, many years.

K: If you could redesign any hole on a storied competition course, which hole would it be and how would you change it?

AP: If it’s a great course, I’d leave it the way it is. There are some great holes that I might change, but I’m not going to tell you which ones I think they are!”

K: Do you mark your ball with a coin or with a ball marker? Why?

AP: (Rattles a pocket full of umbrella logo ball markers and hands one each to Rodell and photographer Scott Spangler) I use these. Now, you can, too!

K: What do you think of Warren Stephens’ new golf development at Alotian Club in Pulaski
County, Arkansas?

AP: It’s great. I was just there. It’s very well done. That’s beautiful country down there.

K: Latrobe is a wonderful area, what is being done to lure more golfers to play at LCC and to promote golf tourism in general for the region?

AP: We’re offering some additions. We’re helping with the opportunity to play and I hope more people will come and see us here. We already have some rooms here, but we’re talking about the possibility of doing a hotel with Marriott. Starting with Latrobe, there’s some really wonderful golf here and we welcome golfers to come and see for themselves.

K: Is there any person in the world you haven’t met who you would really like to?

AP: No, I just take it as it comes. There’s a lot of people I enjoy meeting as time goes on, but I sort of take it as it goes.

K: How much are you looking forward to your birthday on September 10?

AP: I just hope I make it to September 10! I don’t make any plans for these things, but I have a feeling other people are seeing to that.

K: What do you miss most from the game of golf from when you first started playing professionally? I always love the stories of you and Winnie riding around in that little camper. Are you nostalgic for those days?

AP: I did that for one year and then Winnie said, “That’s it!” That was the end of that. If I were playing the tour today, I’d probably be doing what Davis Love III does. It’s pretty neat he has a luxury RV with all the amenities at each tournament. That’s what I’d be doing today if I were playing 35 tournaments a year, which is the schedule I used to keep.

K: What is the greatest modern improvement in the game?

AP: It’s the zoom in the golf clubs and the balls. It’s certainly a great improvement over what we had. But the biggest change is in the golf courses themselves and the equipment we use to take care of them. It’s fantastic and makes it so much easier to take care of a golf course. One of the things I’m working on is trying to reduce the cost. That’s something we have to do to grow the game. And environmentally, we are working extremely hard to improve the environment by using less water, fewer chemicals and that is imperative. We must do that.

K: What’s the best advice a caddie’s ever given you?

AP: From hole–to–hole, the best caddie I ever had was Tip Anderson, a Scot who caddied for me in the British Opens and whenever I played in the UK through most of my career. He was great. He was relatively quiet, but when he said something it was always something I paid attention to. He usually knew what he was talking about.

 
Tip Anderson, far left, helped steer palmer to his first victory in the british open in 1961 at royal birkdale

K: How important is having a good caddie?

AP: In a lot of golfing careers, a good caddie has made the difference between winning and losing. Nobody I’d care to mention.

K: With the Internet continuing to develop as the 21st century’s ultimate shopping mall, does the green–grass pro shop have any future?

AP: I hope there will always be pro shops. The pro shop and the PGA professional is very important to the game. He’s as much the pro shop as the building itself. A really good pro is something that is important to the membership. A good club professional creates an atmosphere where people want to come and play golf and enjoy the camaraderie of a day at the golf course.

K: When you play in pro–ams, what techniques do you use to put your amateur partners at their ease so they have a chance of playing their best golf?

AP: I usually try and get to know them quickly on the first tee and try and give them the impression that we’re there to have fun. It’s not important how well or how poorly they play. I want to help them enjoy what should be a special day.

K: Do you believe there will be golf in heaven and what will the courses look like?

AP: A heaven without any golf sounds like hell to me. I think courses will be in outstanding condition and the views will be absolutely lovely. I think they’ll all be perfect. But our games still won’t be. It wouldn’t be any fun if every shot was a hole–in–one. There’d have to be some stiff challenges and tricky pin positions. I believe there will be bogies in heaven.