"ARNOLD PALMER: Who gives a shit? (Laughter). If you can't win, it doesn't matter. That's s-h-i-t."

Palmer's session was by far the most fun...

Q. Gary Player is going to tie your record this week for most Masters played. He's talking about breaking it next year. What are your thoughts just about that?

ARNOLD PALMER: Well, if he isn't embarrassed, I won't be embarrassed for him. (Laughter).

Q. Just your thoughts about the rivalry.

ARNOLD PALMER: No, we're good friends. He just wants to do one better, and that's fine. I'm for him. But he can't touch my record. He hasn't even come close to it. And you don't know why, though, do you? He missed a year. So that's the end of that. (Laughter).

Q. He's in pretty good shape.

ARNOLD PALMER: What does that mean? Are you saying I'm not in pretty good shape?

Q. Maybe he has like 30 more years left or so.

ARNOLD PALMER: Who gives a shit? (Laughter). If you can't win, it doesn't matter. That's s-h-i-t. (Laughter). Hey, he's my friend and I love him. I can also have fun with him, too.

And for your rally killer of the year consideration:

 Q. Mr. Palmer, the course has changed quite a bit in the last ten years, and everyone is crediting it to Tiger, and the game has changed. Do you believe that one person could change the game so much?

Letter From Dunbar

Golf World and Scotland on Sunday correspondent John Huggan shares this dispatch on the Richie Ramsay situation that precluded the reigning U.S. Amateur Champion from playing Bay Hill this week.

Dear Arnold (or can I call you ‘your majesty?’),

Greetings from sunny Scotland.

Over the course of your long career in professional golf, I’m sure you will agree that the land that gave the game to the world has been especially generous to you. Even on the many occasions when you couldn’t be bothered to come and play in the Open Championship – 13 times between your first and last appearance - we Scots did our bit to keep up the myth that the biggest event on the planet today owes its very existence to the fuss and bother caused by your first visit back in 1960. We even provided you with Tip Anderson, the best caddie you ever had. I hear you like our whisky too.

Anyway, less than a year ago one of our own ventured across the big water hazard to our left and your right and emulated your good self by winning the US Amateur Championship. That, as you can imagine, was a big deal back here in the land that gave golf to the world and amongst the people that perpetuate the aforementioned myth re yourself and the Open. We are very proud of Richie Ramsay and his achievement.

As a result of his victory our Richie has received many invitations to take part in events across the globe. One of them very kindly came from you and I know first hand that Richie was very much looking forward to competing in the “Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard” at Bay Hill.

Well, he was until he arrived in Florida to find that he was being denied entry to ‘your’ event because of a stupid and pointless PGA Tour rule that should apply only to professional golfers. Besides, would it have killed you or your office to have reminded Richie that officially “committing” – an apt word in this context – to the tournament was a necessary part of his schedule? Surely not.

When this nonsense came to light, I am perplexed by your apparent indifference to the plight of young Richie. Would it have killed you to take time away from those sycophants on the Golf Channel long enough to tell the PGA Tour pedants that at ‘your’ tournament amateurs who are no threat to anyone’s prize money and who are not taking up anyone’s precious spot in what is not even a full-field event will be allowed to tee it up even if they haven’t been told that they must officially confirm their presence? Surely not.

One last thing. You may not be aware that Richie’s month-long trip to America – during which he will take on Amateur champion Julian Guerrier for the Georgia Cup, compete in the Masters and then the Heritage tournament at Hilton Head – is being paid for by the Scottish Golf Union. The SGU, as you may not be aware, is largely funded by a levy taken from every golf club member in Scotland. In other words, me.

Arnie, can I have my money back please?

Yours in sport,
John Huggan

PS. I hear Richie is switching from Mastercard to Visa. So there.

Palmer As An Honorary Starter

In reading yesterday that Arnold Palmer was considering the club's invitation to serve as the Masters Honorary Starter, I noticed that he's sounding more likely to reprise one of the tournament's great traditions.

While reading Scott Michaux's piece on it today, I wondered about this quote from Palmer:

"I'm giving it some careful consideration now that I have stopped playing competitively.  And you know Augusta is one of my very favorite places, and of course Bill Payne is a good friend and I think he is a great guy to have as the chairman.

"So as of this day, I am really giving that some serious consideration. It isn't that I have anything against doing it. I just want it to be the right time when I decide to do it. That's all."

Is he giving his more careful consideration because of the timing, or because Billy Payne is the chairman (and you-know-who is not running the show). 

"Is it really over?"

Most of the Palmer retirement tributes are pretty syruppy, but I thought Scott Michaux's in the Augusta Chronicle was respectful without sailing over the top (and includes a nice reminder that The King really is wanted on the first tee at Augusta!):

That the end came in the first round of something called the Administaff Small Business Classic on a course, Augusta Pines, that sounds like an assisted-living community hardly matters. Whether it was the Masters Tournament or the Bob Hope Desert Classic, Palmer was always bigger than the event itself.

These goodbyes to Palmer have been accelerating with the years. He had a couple of them at Augusta National (his final major appearance) and a couple more at his Bay Hill Invitational (his final PGA Tour event). And now he has reached the point where he's not willing to even play with the seniors anymore.

Even a peer and fellow legend like Lee Trevino appreciated the significance of the moment. Playing with John Mahaffey and Palmer on Friday, Trevino pilfered the King's ball out of the final cup and whipped a Sharpie out of his pocket for the official end of an era.

"While he had the Sharpie, I said, 'Sign that glove, too,' " Trevino told The Associated Press. "We didn't take his shoes."

Palmer's final official round ended with the word "withdrawn." But even with that Palmer displayed the class that has characterized his career for more than half a century. After telling Trevino to stop keeping his score and officially citing a sore back for his premature exit, Palmer kept on playing.

"I can't leave," he told Trevino, saying he owed it to his legion of fans to press on despite the mental and physical pain.

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.

Is it really over?

"My father used to say that this life would pass so quickly it would make your head spin," Palmer wrote in his autobiography, A Golfer's Life. "And you know what? He was right about that. This life, my life, has done just that."

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.