An Interview With Arnold Palmer

This article from the 1994 U.S. Open Program has been repurposed for members of the Victory Club Presented by Lexus. The interview with The King and western Pennsylvania native was conducted by the late legendary golf writer Tim Rosaforte. To become a member of the Victory Club Presented by Lexus, click here.

It was 32 years ago. Arnold Palmer was coming off a win at The Maters and was going home to Oakmont, the course he virtually grew up on. Nobody was ever more of a favorite in a major championship.

We all know what happened. The fat kid with the ugly pants from Columbus, Ohio, beat him. Beat him by three strokes in a playoff, 71-74. Beat him with the Army in full force rooting against him.

Today, Palmer calls it “the most hurting” tournament he ever lost. And this one was lost on the greens. Palmer three-putted 17 times, and 22-year-old Jack Nicklaus had his first major championship, defeating “The King” in his own backyards.

Palmer has been back to Oakmont for other major championships. He was a factor in the 1973 U.S. Open until Johnny Miller caught fire and torched the course for a tournament record 63. In the ’78 PGA, he shot 78-74 and missed the cut. In the ’83 Open, he shot 74-75-78-76–303 to tie for 60th place, and figured that was it as far as Oakmont was concerned.

“I suppose in one word it was anticlimactic,” Palmer said earlier this year. “I suppose then I was accepting something that I’m not sure I accept right now, and that is it’s over.”

It may be as far as Palmer winning at Oakmont, but he and this Pittsburgh landmark are once again linked by historical thread. Through a special exemption, Palmer has been granted a spot in the 156-man field for the 94th U.S. Open. He has also been named the Honorary Chairman of the championship.

It will be a nostalgic trip back for him, to walk in that clubhouse as he first did 52 years ago. He can still smell the wood, see the old locker room attendants, hear Emil Loeffler greet Palmer’s father Deacon at the pro shop after they drove the back roads through New Kensington from their home in Latrobe.

When we caught up with Palmer earlier this year, he was encouraged with his ball striking, but still fighting his putter. Oakmont and the Open were very much on his mind, even in February. Now aged 64, he has seen half his life pass by since those five days in 1962. Yet, he seems to relive it every day.

Q: What does it mean to go back to Oakmont and U.S. Open at this stage of your career?

Palmer: It’s very nostalgic, since I was raised in the Pittsburgh area and started playing competitive golf there as an amateur when I was 12 years old. Oakmont was the flagship of the golf courses in the area when I was a youngster. It was something any kid wanted to do–play that golf course and be a part of it.

Q: Everybody remembers the ’62 Open, but didn’t you win some events at Oakmont?

Palmer: Over the years I won some events there. I won the West Penn Amateur there one year. And of course the Opens and the PGA Championships that I played in at Oakmont are all events that I can’t avoid thinking about, even though the results aren’t the results I would want. If there was ever something I did want in my career, it was to win a major championship in Pittsburgh, more particularly at Oakmont.

Q: What are your thoughts about this year?

Palmer: I hesitated as to whether I should accept the invitation to play at Oakmont, first because I didn’t want to take a spot away from someone young and going after the Open championship and secondly, because I didn’t want to embarrass myself with the kind of golf I might play.

Q: Had you resigned yourself to the fact that you had played in your last Open?

Palmer: Pretty much so, yes. Once I stopped trying to qualify, that was it. This certainly will be the last one.

Q: You had no problem being asked to qualify, did you?

Palmer: For the U.S. Open, never. The British Open was different. When I played over there the first time in 1960, after winning The Masters and the U.S. Open, I had to qualify – and did – and finished second. The next year I had to go back and qualify again and won. The next year I went back and told them if I had to qualify I would not come back. That’s when they changed the policy for the British Open.

Q: What made you accept the invitation this year?

Palmer: Wondering, how am I going to participate in that Open if I’m not playing? As you know, it isn’t much fun to just stand around and sip a beer while everyone else is out on the golf course. From that standpoint, I’m happy to be playing, and looking forward to it very much.

Q: As a boy, what was your original connection to Oakmont?

Palmer: I had a friend, my father’s friend really, who was a member of Latrobe Country Club and a member of Oakmont. He was the one who took me there. His name is Harry Saxman. Over the years he was a great friend and helped me in my rise in the golf world. That was one of the things I thoroughly enjoyed, going with him and my father to Oakmont and playing that course. Putting those greens was something I really enjoyed. This was still in the years when we were still playing the stymie rule, and Oakmont’s were the greatest greens in the world for stymies. The ball would turn and roll and you could make it do things because the greens were so fast. Unless there was another ball absolutely in your line, it really didn’t matter.

Q: Besides the course and the tournaments, what memories do you have of Oakmont?

Palmer: I can remember the detail of the locker room, and the smell of the wood and the wooden floors. All the things that Oakmont was famous for. I guess there aren’t many things I can’t recall about the club, from the locker room man to the starters. When I went there Emil Loeffler was the pro and golf course superintendent, exactly like my father at Latrobe.

Q: Was he close to your dad?

Palmer: Very close. As a matter of fact, when he passed away, Oakmont and the officials there offered my father a job, and he really had a lot of sleepless nights thinking about whether he should go to Oakmont or stay at Latrobe. I think the attachment to Latrobe was too great. Not that he didn’t want to go to Oakmont. I think he wanted to. But I think the feeling and the attachment to something where he started was so great that he couldn’t leave.

Q: What were those trips to Oakmont like with your dad?

Palmer: In those days, getting to Pittsburgh was a different matter than it is today. We drove in a ’39 Chevrolet. During the early part of the war years, you couldn’t buy a new car. We drove that ‘’39 Chevrolet for probably eight or nine years before we got a new car. Of course, we always went to the back roads, the New Kensington route, up the river and across the bridge to Oakmont. We went that way to avoid congestion on Route 30. We always went a little north and took the back roads.

Q: Is Oakmont one of your top three courses of all time? Would you rank it that high?

Palmer: That’s difficult. I don’t know if I've ever put any of my favorite golf courses in a ranking of 1-2-3. I haven’t because I didn’t want to be unfair to them. Oakmont could be No.1, but so could Laurel Valley or Pinehurst No. 2 or Merion or Winged Foot or Medinah. For that reason, I have never categorized them. I think Oakmont is one of the great golf courses of all time. It’s an old traditional golf course. I had the opportunity to remodel it a little once, and didn’t want to change it to any great extent and didn’t. I think the only thing Oakmont ever needed, and may still need, is a little length off the tees to make it play a little bit longer. But I still think Oakmont is right up in the tops of all the courses in the world, without question.

Q: Let’s talk about ’62. Where does that Open rank in your mind.

Palmer: The event that I lost to Jack was probably the most hurting loss of my career. I lost it, I think, because I wanted to win it so badly. When I think that I three-putted 17 times in that event, and in my youth, too, when fast greens were something I enjoyed...

Q: What was your mindset going into that event?

Palmer: No question I was up, and I was playing pretty good. Then I cut my finger. It scared me to death. I thought it would hinder my ability to play. Of course the one area where I didn't think it would affect me is where it hurt me most, on the greens. As far as hitting the golf ball, in the four rounds of the Open, I couldn’t have hit it much better. I played as fine golf from tee to green at Oakmont that year as I had played anywhere. I may have played some better rounds since, but up to that point it was my best 72-hole performance.

Q: How did you cut your finger?

Palmer: I slammed my finger in the trunk of my car at the Thunderbird tournament in New Jersey, just as I was leaving for Pittsburgh. It was strictly an accident. It was probably from the excitement of going home and getting to Oakmont and wanting to play in the Open.

Q: How did that affect you?

Palmer: It was never stitched, but I kept a heavy bandage on it and the glove kind of held it together. That saved me. It kept me comfortable playing, but I was very, very concerned. Still, from tee to green, you would never have known I was hurting at all.

Q: Were you overaggressive or were you coming up short?

Palmer: I was never short. Overaggressiveness was my problem. But in those days I usually made the putts coming back. At Oakmont, I started missing them.

Q: At what point did you realize that Nicklaus was a factor?

Palmer: I had played with Jack a little, and I knew he was going to be a good player. I didn’t know how great he was going to be at the time. I don’t think anyone knew. At that point in time, I didn’t think he could drive it straight enough to be a factor at Oakmont. I though his driving would get to him at some point in the tournament. I was surprised to see him because as great a factor as he was that week. He won on the strength of good driving and putting.

Q: You had a putt on the last green to win outright. What do you remember about that putt?

Palmer: At both 17 and 18 I missed putts that would have given me the victory. At 17, I missed an eight-to-10 footer for birdie.

Q: And at 18, it was a 12-footer with a break in it?

Palmer: To the right.

Q: Bobby Jones once said if he wanted somebody to make a putt for all his life’s savings, he’d pick you. Under those circumstances, considering the way you had putted in the tournament, was that putt makeable?

Palmer: I thought I’d made it. I felt like I’d made the one at 17. I was most disappointed at seeing those two putts drive away as they did.

Q: The putt finished on the low side at 18?

Palmer: Right. I didn't give it enough room.

Q: What were your thoughts going into the playoff? Were you upset that you had let Nicklaus get back into the tournament? Or did you clear your mind and start fresh?

Palmer: I started out fresh, but it was a big letdown for me at that point to have let it slip away to where there was going to be a playoff.

Q: You were at the peak of your career then, and Nicklaus came along for the first time and challenged your throne right in your own backyard. How hard was that to accept as you walked away from that golf tournament?

Palmer: I didn’t have a problem with that. I suppose I was cocky enough and confident enough at the time that I could handle whatever situation that arose. Although I had a great respect for Jack and his game, I guess I didn’t realize how good he really was and as a result of that it didn’t affect me at all.

Q: You won two majors after that. The British Open that year and The Masters in ’64. In any way was that tournament, losing that playoff, pivotal in your career? Had you won there, would it have been in any way different? Would you have won more majors?

Palmer: If I had won there, I might have gone to win a number of major championships. That may have had something to do with not winning three or four more.

Q: If you had one shot over again, would it be the chip shot from the rough that you fluffed at the ninth hole?

Palmer: Oh yes. That really ruffled my feathers, so to speak (laughter). In fact that same shot–our of rough around the green– cost me about three Opens. [Julius] Boros won the Open because he played that shot so well. I lost it for the same reason. I couldn't play it. I was too timid with it.

Q: You were 32 at the time. Will Grimsley wrote that you didn’t just walk to the first tee, you climbed through ropes like a prizefighter. What was it like to be Arnold Palmer in that era? Is it something you can still relate to? Can you do things now that you did back then?

Palmer: I keep hoping so and I keep thinking so, but I don’t know. Back then I was headed for something and I wasn’t going to let anything stop me. I loved what I was doing, I had a great family, and even though it was tough, it was something I thoroughly enjoyed. It’s like becoming the chairman of the board of a company. You work from the labor position at the bottom and you work all the way up through the company and you make it. Once there, if you keep your head on your shoulders and don’t let it affect you too much, you’re going to be successful. I felt pretty good about that.

Q: What was the best part about being Arnold Palmer back then? Was it hitting the golf ball, having all those people follow you, knowing you were the best?

Palmer: I think it was all of those things. But the best part might been being able to go home and see my father. Just talking with Pap and my friends was one of the great thills of my life.

Q: Will it be hard for you to go back to Oakmont, emotionally, knowing it will be the last time?

Palmer: No, I’m over that. I’d like to think I’m more mature than that. I would love to go to Oakmont and play well, make the cut, and make a play for the Open Championship. And I would never tell you that, somewhere in the back of my mind, even winning isn’t still there.