The Palmer Years
The centenary Open
Championship took place at St Andrews in 1960
and Arnold Palmer came over aiming to win it as
a third leg of a
golfing Grand Slam; he had already won the
Masters and US Open that year. It is a great
pity that he did not win: rain postponed the
last round and his momentum faded as he finished
one stroke behind Kel Nagle. But he vowed to
return and to everyone's delight he won the
next two Opens at Royal Birkdale in 1961 and
Troon in 1962. His presence brought in his wake
the leading American players and after 1960 the
Open Championship resumed its place as the
leading golf competition in the world.
Thirty-five years later, Palmer waved farewell
to the Open at St Andrews with the applause and
affection of the British crowd echoing in his
ears. He captured the public imagination on both
sides of the Atlantic as no golfer has done
before or since. He was exceptionally strong,
with huge hands, and his technique was somewhat
short of being classic. But what he lacked in
finesse he made up for in whole-hearted endeavour. Often, when at the height of his
game, he would snatch victory from the jaws of
defeat, but as he grew older this happened less
frequently. Always, win or lose, he remained
polite, charming and enthusiastic.
Palmer's advocacy of
the Open made golf into an international game. He
declared, like Hagen had before him, that the true
golfer could play on all types of course and that to
be a true champion a golfer had to win the Open on
the links courses of Britain, where the game had
originated. Hagen had written in his autobiography
that he had to change his game completely to win in
Britain, adding "I've repeatedly insisted that I
like competition. Well, I had it from the links in
the British Isles. And far from upsetting me, it
challenged my skill as a champion golfer so greatly
that I was more and more determined to win that Open
Cup".
Where Palmer led his
contemporaries followed. Nicklaus, Trevino, Watson,
Miller, Weiskopf and Floyd all went on to win in
Britain and, as the American challenge grew, so deep
down did the spirit of resistance start, first from
Jacklin, later from Ballesteros and Faldo. In the
last ten years, as golf has become truly
international, so the supremacy of the USA has
started to show signs of cracking. No-one would say
it has been broken but as the twenty-first century
approaches golf on both sides of the Atlantic,
indeed, throughout the world, is certainly very
evenly matched.
The Palmer Years