Books by and about Arnold Palmer are something of a mini-industry within the world of golf publishing. Even a quick search for “Arnold Palmer” on the Amazon website yields a couple dozen titles within the first few pages of search results—the man who was golf’s greatest ambassador was easily the most written-about figure in the game. In the great library of the game of golf, only Ben Hogan comes close to this level of attention, and most of those books are volumes purporting to reveal the “secret” of his phenomenal golf game.
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| Chris Rodell, a golf writer who was Arnold Palmer’s neighbor for 24 years, has compiled an entertaining collection of reminiscences about golf’s greatest ambassador. |
The latest volume about Arnold Palmer, entitled Arnold Palmer: Homespun Stories of The King, by Chris Rodell, is a delightful read that is sure to be appreciated by fans of the man who will always be remembered as one of America’s greatest sports figures.
Arnold and golf on television came into the American consciousness at about the same time, and the American viewing audience fell in love with the ruggedly handsome young man who played golf with a swashbuckling, go-for-broke style that endeared him to viewers all over the country, and eventually the world. It was Palmer who almost singlehandedly transformed the game of golf—in the eyes of Americans, at least—from the pastime of the white-collar denizens of stuffy, exclusive country clubs to the status of the everyman (and -woman’s) game that it has always enjoyed in its birthplace—Scotland.
Palmer’s love for the game, and for the fans who adored him, translated into commercial success that kept him among the top earners in the game years after his playing days were over, and a large part of that mutual love stemmed from the hometown appeal that he exuded.
A man like Arnold Palmer could have lived virtually anywhere he wanted, and though he had homes in Orlando, Florida and La Quinta, California, in the Palm Springs area, his birthplace of Latrobe, Pennsylvania was his true home until the end of his life. As hinted at by the title, the anecdotes that make up this book are largely hometown stories told to the author by the townsfolk who knew Palmer as Deacon’s boy, the guy who stopped in at the Youngstown Grille for breakfast or the Tin Lizzy tavern for a drink, and who played much of his golf at Latrobe Country Club.
From the way he treated people, and the way that people responded to him, you might never know that Arnold Palmer was a man who had literally dined with presidents, kings, and queens; who could, and had, played golf at the most renowned and exclusive golf courses in the world (and was a part-owner of one of the best, Pebble Beach Golf Links), or that a street, the local airport, and a few other things around town in Latrobe were named after him.
Author Chris Rodell brings considerable hometown cred to the table in writing this book of reminiscences. Rodell has himself lived in Latrobe since 1992, within walking distance of Palmer’s own home. He came to know golf’s greatest legend after first meeting him in 2001, and in 2005 was hired to go through more than a dozen legal-sized boxes of magazine and newspaper clippings detailing Mr Palmer’s life as told in publications the world over, for the purpose of compiling a timeline of the great man’s career. Throughout the process, if he had a question, all he had to do was go ask Mr Palmer—not bad, huh?
It was a level of access that is unique among the dozens, if not hundreds, of journalist and writers who have interviewed Arnold Palmer over the years, and gives this book a level of authenticity that is virtually unmatched in the canon of Palmer bio’s. If you are a golfer (or even if you are not), and a fan of Arnold Palmer, you will enjoy this book. Arnold Palmer: Homespun Stories of The King is available from Amazon and Barnes and Noble, and if they know what’s good for them, at your local golf shop.
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