The first hole at Cherry Hills Country Club was a 346-yard downhill par four. Because of the slope and the higher altitudes in Colorado, the hole tempted golfers to go for the green off the tee. If they were able to pull off the shot, then they would have an eagle putt to start the day. Make it and they gained two shots on the field. Two-putt and they still had an easy birdie in hand to gain momentum.
It was the kind of shot my father would have called a fool’s play. The fairway was tight and tree-lined on both sides, and there was water down the right side. Miss the shot and trouble lay everywhere. The quest to make an eagle or a two-putt birdie could easily become, in one bad swing, a test to save bogey or worse. I didn’t need a history lesson to observe these challenges. Johnnie and I set up shop directly behind the tee box, and I was able to size up the hole in a matter of seconds.
“A fool’s play,” I whispered.
“Or a champion’s,” Johnnie fired back. When the Scotsman’s temper flared, so did his accent, and the last word came out like “champeen.”
“How did he fare on this hole the first three days?”
Johnnie shrugged. “Went for the green each time. Double bogey in round one after blocking his drive way right and into the creek. A scrambling par on day two after missing the green.” Johnnie scratched his chin. “Missed the green again in round three and ended up three-putting for bogey.”
I shook my head. “So, hitting driver off the tee had yielded a three-over total on one hole. That doesn’t sound good.”
“Mr. Clark,” Johnnie began. “Perhaps it’s not so much about pulling off the shot that counts, aye? Maybe it’s believing that he can.”
The words felt a bit like a punch to the gut, and I readjusted my feet on the grass. I glanced down at Johnnie, and he was looking right at me. His green eyes were fierce. “Have you ever thought about that?”
I didn’t say anything, turning my attention back to the tee box and trying to ignore Johnnie’s pointed question. A commotion had begun, and the patrons to the right of us were being told to make room. The one-thirty group was approaching.
I watched Arnold Palmer move through the gallery . . . his army . . . toward the tee box. It didn’t appear that his short session on the driving range had done anything to quell his anger. As he stepped up onto the elevated mound where he would hit his first shot of the day, the agitation in his tense expression was obvious. Arnold snatched the driver out of his bag and tossed the cover to his caddy. Then he glared at the ground while his name was announced to the crowd: “And from Latrobe, Pennsylvania, Arnold Palmer.” Unlike the times I had seen him as an elder statesman in practice rounds at Augusta, the look on the man’s face now was all business. He barely watched as his playing partner struck what appeared to be a three wood down the left side of the fairway, well short of the green.
When it was his turn, Arnold teed his ball on the left-hand side of the marker. He stood behind the ball for a couple of seconds and gave his driver several soft swings with only his right hand. Then, without hesitation, he approached his ball and took his stance. He turned his head once to look at the target and, after returning his eyes to the ball, started his swing.
I had seen the golf swing of Arnold Palmer in his prime thousands of times on black-and-white videos, and I had watched the older version of the man hit live shots. It would be wrong to call his move on the ball a thing of beauty. He snatched the club back fast and made a full turn behind the ball, his clubhead dipping past the point where the shaft was parallel to the ground. Then he transitioned hard to his left side and lashed at the ball as if he were wielding a sword and literally trying to kill the white object on top of the tee. His follow-though was likewise violent as he stopped the clubhead out in front of him and cocked his head to the left. The move made him look like he was trying to will the ball to where he wanted it to go.
Was it beautiful? No. That was too weak a word. The man’s swing was majestic and powerful. When Arnold’s persimmon-headed club contacted the golf ball, the sound resembled that of a twelve-gauge shotgun.
I heard myself gasp at the sight and sound of the shot. Then I watched the ball take off on a dead line for the flag 346 yards away. The murmurs from the people around me turned into a rising quell of yells and then flat-out screams as the ball appeared to have a chance of reaching the green.
“He did it!” a man next to me hollered. I glanced at him and saw that he was holding binoculars tight to his eyes. “It’s on the front of the green.”
The man’s voice was drowned out by more cheers from the gallery as the news began to dawn on them all. When confirmation from the fans by the green had permeated back to the tee, the roar of excitement and joy from the army of patrons around me was stronger and louder than anything I’d ever heard in my life. Arnold Palmer had started the final round of the 1960 U.S. Open by driving the green on the par-four first hole. Through the shrill screams and applause, I heard voices of men, women, and children that seemed to come from every direction.
“Unbelievable!”
“Amazing!”
“He did it!”
“We love you, Arnold!”
“Yes!”
Arnold snatched his tee out of the ground and began to walk down the fairway. After a few feet, he hitched the back of his trousers, and I couldn’t help but smile. When I did, I realized that my mouth had been hanging wide open. I had just seen one of the greatest shots in golf history. No telling of the Arnold Palmer legend was complete without mentioning him driving the green on the first hole at Cherry Hills in the final round of the U.S. Open.
And I had witnessed it.
As I took a step backward, I realized I was still squeezing my arms tight to my chest. I let out a deep breath. “He birdies this hole, right?” I was talking to myself as much as I was to Johnnie. “He birdies six out of the first seven, doesn’t he?” I nodded to myself as the details came back to me. “Shoots his sixty-five, finishes at two eighty, and wins the tournament.”
When I didn’t hear any response from Johnnie, I looked back for him, hoping that a return trip to the nineteenth hole might be in order. But he was gone. When my eyes returned to the tee box, it was gone too. The fairway in front of the tee was gone as well. As were all the people.
Everything . . . was gone.