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I have a quick story about Arnold and me. You know how you like to be connected to a legend But we both are members down at Augusta, and he was finishing 18, and he was through for the day, and I was finishing 9. So we were right there at the same point. We shook hands and had a few minutes’ conversation. I went over and teed off 10. But about two months later I saw him, and he said, “Last time I saw you was there at the club. How are you playing” I said, “You don’t realize what a person of your power does to a person that’s not much of a golfer.” “Oh, what’s this story” I said, “No, I’m serious. I shook hands with you and I went over to 10 and I hit a nice drive and bogeyed the hole but played it pretty well. But I was thinking about you when I teed off 11 and I hit a really good drive, and my second shot was something that I know you’ve done many times on 11 at Augusta.” He said, “What’s that” I said, “I knocked it in the hole.” He said, “You eagled 11” I said, “That’s right. After I shook hands with you it inspired me.” This is a true story. And he said, “I’ve never eagled 11.” I said, “I thought you guys eagled 11 many, many times, that it wasn’t that unusual.” He said, “Well, it is.” Event MC and local sportscaster Babe Laufenberg, a former NFL quarterback, had another great Palmer story. Laufenberg talked about caddying for Dallas Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman as he played against Arnold Palmer at a charity event. So I was caddying for Troy on Saturday when we were playing with Mr. Palmer. They’re giving the amateurs the front tees. Mr. Palmer is playing from the championship tees and the back tees. He was in the tournament. Now, Troy Aikman was still playing at the time, 6’4″, 230, big, strong bull of a man. Mr. Palmer was spotting him about 40 yards on every drive and then blowing it over his ball, and I told Troy, I am going to drop this back right in the middle ever this fairway if this 71-year-old man keeps outdriving you. I asked Mr. Palmer’s caddie — on every par-5, he’d hit the drive and the caddie would immediately hand him a 3-wood. I said to the caddie, “Does Mr. Palmer have any irons in that bag” He looked at me kind of quizzically, and he said, “Why do you ask that” I said, “Every time he hits a drive, you just hand him the 3-wood you don’t see the lie, you don’t see how far it is, you don’t see the trouble ahead.” He said, “One time I handed him an iron. He looked at me at said, ‘See all these people out here They didn’t come here to watch Arnold Palmer lay up.'” Now, the downside to this story, I told the story to Troy after his caddie told me and Troy was tickled with it too. So we get to a par-5 and he has 270 over water, so he wants the 3-wood, and after it went in the water then I handed him the iron to lay up, and we took double bogey. I said, “Remind me not to tell you any more stories about Mr. Palmer.” Not a chance. TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d8341caaef53ef01156fa498e8970c
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