I’ve been remiss in not mentioning Arnold Palmer‘s announcement this past Friday during a round in a Champion’s Tour event at Houston’s Augusta Pines Golf Club that the round would be his last competitive round of golf. Steve Campbell’s article is here.
That Arnie would finally call it quits at a not particularly notable Houston course in a largely-ignored Champions Tour event (it’s football season in Texas, you know) seemed somewhat out of place. Arnie has actually been saying good-bye for quite awhile, first at Augusta National (his final major appearance) and then at his tournament, the Bay Hill Invitational, which was his final PGA Tour event. Suffice it to say the Augusta Pines is not anywhere near as dramatic a venue as either of those courses for Arnie to bid farewell to his fellow senior golfers. Too bad that the tournament couldn’t have been played a few miles south at Champions Golf Club, a venerable championship layout where Ben Hogan played his last competitive round about 40 years ago.
Palmer’s impact on golf and sports is so pervasive that it is difficult to put it in perspective. Suffice to say that there would be no Tiger Woods — at least in the larger-than-life sense that we know him — had not Arnold Palmer literally pulled the PGA Tour by its bootstraps into the forefront of televised sporting events around the world. Heck, Arnie even created the modern sports promotion business by hiring his old college chum, the late Mark McCormack, as the first real sports agent back in the late 1950’s. Scott Michaux, a columnist for AugustaChronicle.com, does as good a job as I’ve seen in this article (reg. req) of conveying Palmer’s special nature. Noting that Palmer withdrew from his last tournament on the fourth hole, but continued to play the remainder of the round for the benefit of his fans, Michaux observes as follows:

That’s what made Palmer the most beloved player in the history of golf. He was not its greatest champion and didn’t possess the finest swing, but nobody before or since has ever had the charisma that Palmer holds in spades. Whether it’s on the golf course, in the clubhouse or on the dance floor, Palmer oozes with the magnetism that has drawn his Army of fans for every step of the ride.
That the ride is finally over is as traumatic to his fans as it is to him. That Palmer never won a major championship in my lifetime didn’t stop him from being as giant a figure to my generation as he was to his own. That it has been 18 years since I witnessed him win his last tournament at the senior Crestar Classic in Richmond, Va., hasn’t made every sighting since any less thrilling.[ . . .]
Now we can only wish that Palmer will take the stage that late greats Byron Nelson, San Snead and Gene Sarazen took before him on the first tee of the Augusta National Golf Club for an honorary start to the Masters. With no other places to get a glimpse of the King, it is our last hope.
Palmer understands that no matter how awkward it might be to stand up in front of the world trying to give it that good shot, just a fix of his radiance is all we want.