Arnie leaves mark at K Club

WE might not have been treated to his trademark swing, but that didn’t matter to those gathered in Kildare yesterday to pay homage to the golfing legend.

Rumour had it that Arnold Palmer got a round in earlier in the morning, before giving his final stamp of approval to the South Course at the K Club.

The course, which was created in Palmer’s mind, will examine the world’s best golfers in next year’s European Open. Yesterday, though, was all about the man who designed it.

The years have done little to erode the charisma that changed the face of golf. Yesterday, there were photos taken with old and young, kids grown up in the thrall of Tiger Woods, still eager to nestle in the presence of the man who left his mark everywhere inside, and outside, the sport.

Palmer said that the South Course was going to be an unique course in Europe and has been thrilled with how construction has gone. A course like this might be a hard sell after the hazardous weekend of links golf everyone just witnessed, but Palmer was able to pull it off.

As for the Open, Palmer said he was delighted to see a rookie take the prize. “When you are playing well, anyone can win and he put in a great performance.” Palmer had been in Ireland since Saturday evening, but his visit to the K Club yesterday coincided with the R&A’s decision to review their playing rules for marking cards. On Saturday, Mark Roe was robbed of his very live chance of winning the Open because he and his playing partner, Jasper Parnevik, marked the wrong cards.

“Rules are rules,” said Palmer. “And they have to follow them. It was unfortunate on the players, particularly Roe, but I remember the same thing happened Bobby Locke years ago in the British Open. It is part of the game, I know the punishment doesn’t really fit the crime, but it is written there in the rule book.”

Of course, Palmer became famous in latter years for playing the game simply for the love of it. Long after his powers had faded, Palmer continued to enter tournaments, missing cuts, simply because he loved going out and playing rounds of golf. It drove his greatest rival Jack Nicklaus to distraction that Palmer was content to live a life of professional mediocrity because he just wanted to hit golf balls.

So, Palmer is in an unique situation to assess what happened Roe. “I think a little conversation at the tee between playing partners would solve a lot of the problems. Maybe, people should just be meticulous about it. You have to look at how to keep players from making this mistake, when they haven’t really done anything wrong at all and that is away from the real reason of playing the game.”

And from there, there was more photo opportunities, with Michael Smurfit, with various esteemed members of the golf club, with the kids. Although he will be 74 later this year, Palmer still oozes the same easeful charm that transformed the game of golf. He didn’t even hit a ball yesterday, yet people were enthralled by his presence.

Indeed, watching Arnie meet and greet yesterday, you couldn’t but feel what golf needed now was another Palmer, another saintly everyman with his intrinsic likeability with an army to follow him.

The amount of television time afforded Greg Norman illustrated that guys like Woods and his chasing pack simply take the game too seriously, and don’t smile half enough. Of course, Palmer’s image did much to turn sport, especially golf, into a commercial venture. His association with the late Mark McCormack means that Palmer, still remains one of the highest earners in contemporary sport. Despite not having won a major since 1964, nor any tournament apart from the odd, unheralded seniors title since 1975, his personal fortune is thought to be over $400 million and he still commands $90,000 for a business day.

Arnie was the first golfer to understand how to milk his image. He was never the most talented golfer nor the most successful, although his rivalry with Nickalus was called golf’s greatest (the Golden Bear held an Indian sign over him for their respective careers). Yet, he was always the most popular. And remains so. While we wait for Sergio to sort his demons out, Ernie to get a little more motivated or Tiger to get a personality, golf will yearn for Arnold Palmer.

Portmarnock this week, where he and Sam Snead won the World Cup in 1954, could certainly do with Palmer bestriding the course, unkempt in his indomitable style, slurping at soft drinks and chain-smoking. At least, Straffan in Kildare gets a piece of Arnie to keep for posterity.