I saw nothing. Just utter blankness.
No ground. No people. No vegetation. Complete nothingness.
What is happening?
I closed my eyes for a full three seconds. When I opened them, my head began to spin, and I reached back for something . . . anything to keep me from falling. My right hand clutched something soft and leathery. I looked at the material and tried to focus while I regained my balance.
It was a seat. A black leather seat. There was another one next to it and then a small window. I leaned forward and gazed out of the plexiglass, and my breath caught in my throat.
Blue skies. A few clouds. And, thousands of feet below, the outline of farmland. I’m in an airplane. I turned around and saw that the nothingness of a few seconds earlier had been replaced by the inside of a private jet. Turning toward the front of the plane, I saw a narrow opening that led to the cockpit. I took a tentative step forward and saw a pair of hands on the yoke. Feeling my heart pounding in my chest, I continued forward. When I reached the opening, I saw a silver-haired man wearing a pink golf shirt and gray slacks behind the controls. He didn’t look at me, but he didn’t have to.
This was the Arnold Palmer with whom I was most familiar.
“What do you think of my jet?” he asked, and I heard the good-natured midwestern twang that had appeared in countless Hertz and Pennzoil commercials.
“It’s nice,” I managed. “Very impressive.”
“Have a seat, Randy,” he said, gesturing to the empty co-pilot’s chair.
I hesitated for a moment, but then eased into the other seat in the cockpit.
“Did you know I was a pilot?”
I nodded, trying to find my voice. I cleared my throat. “There is a funny story of you flying the European Ryder Cup team around in your plane during one of the matches in the sixties.”
Arnold laughed. “That was a lot of fun. Some good fellas on that Euro team.”
“Some folks thought the Cup was over at that point,” I said, trying to relax my nerves but not succeeding. I was sitting in the cockpit of Arnold Palmer’s jet and talking to the King himself. “Because those guys were in awe of you.”
Arnold shook his head, but the smile remained. “Sportswriter gobbledygook. We just played better than they did. The reporters always look for that dramatic angle, but the bottom line is usually a lot simpler.”
I cocked my head at him. “You were Arnold Palmer. You had won a bunch of major championships. You had endorsement deals and were doing commercials. You could fly a jet airplane.” I snorted. “You don’t think those fellas were a little awestruck by you?”
He shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not.” He touched my forearm and then pointed at the yoke in front of me. “Take it.”
“What?”
“Put your hands on the copilot’s wheel.”
“Why? I . . . I don’t know how to fly a plane.”
“Just do it, all right?”
I leaned forward and put my hands on the wheel. I glanced at Arnold, who had removed his own hands from the wheel in front of him.
He winked at me. “Now I want you to turn your wheel a little to the right and watch what happens out in front of this glass.” He pointed toward the front windshield.
I did as I was told and noticed the nose of the airplane shift ever so slightly to the right. I couldn’t help smiling as I gazed at the legend to my left. “I’m flying.”
He punched my shoulder lightly. “You’re flying. Now straighten her back up.”
I took in a deep breath and slowly exhaled. Then I turned the wheel back to the left.
For the next ten minutes, Arnold Palmer, one of the greatest golfers to ever play the game and an icon in sport, gave me a lesson on how to fly an airplane. He explained the controls and what each of the different buttons did. He lectured on how to understand the coordinates and demonstrated how to maneuver the steering wheel to achieve what you wanted. When he finished his summation, I squinted at him. “How in the world did you find time to learn how to do this?”
“It meant something to me, so I made time.”
“Why?” I asked, hearing the incredulity in my tone. “Why would you ever need to fly a plane?”
“I was scared of airplanes, Randy. Terrified of them. Afraid that I might die in a crash, and not all that crazy about heights. I learned how to fly so that I could conquer those fears.” He paused. “It was the best thing I ever did.”
“Oh, come on. You drove the green on the first hole of the U.S. Open and shot sixty-five to win. You played golf with presidents and royalty. You were the King of golf, for God’s sake. How could learning to fly a plane be the best thing you ever did?”
He smiled and gazed out the front windshield. “I wasn’t sure I could do it. I was afraid. But I pushed through my fear, believed in myself, trained and practiced hard with flight instructors, and”—he snapped his fingers—“I did it.” He looked at me. “There’s no greater feeling than overcoming a challenge that seems insurmountable.”
I felt the same sense of being punched in the gut as I had on the tee box at Cherry Hills before watching Arnold hit his famous drive. Johnnie’s words then came back to me. Perhaps it’s not so much about pulling off the shot that counts, aye? Maybe it’s believing that he can.
“You believed you could do it,” I finally said. “Just like hitting driver off the first tee at Cherry Hills in 1960. You believed you could drive the green, and you eventually did it.” I paused and looked at him. “You believed you could fly an airplane and overcome your fears, and you did it.”
Arnold nodded, still gazing out the windshield. “That’s true,” he said. “But that’s not all. Belief is very important, but it’s only one part of the equation. You still have to practice and train hard.” He finally turned his head to face me. “And then you have to do the most important thing.” He paused. “The hardest thing.”
I felt goose bumps rise on my arms as the intensity of his gaze fell over me. “What’s that?”
“You have to go for it.”
I raised my eyebrows, but Arnold Palmer’s gaze remained trained on me as if he were sizing up a birdie putt. “You have to set your fears to the side and have the guts to go after what you want. Whether it’s driving the first green at Cherry Hills or learning to fly an airplane, you eventually have to tee it up and let her rip.”
“What if you crash?” I asked, hearing the timidity in my own voice. “What if you crash and lose everything?” I licked my lips and they felt dry as sandpaper. “What if you duck-hook your driver into the woods and make a double bogey?”
He punched my shoulder again, this time harder. The force behind the blow stung a little. “But what if you don’t, Randy? What if you win?” He paused and turned back to the front of the plane. “You’ll never overcome your fears and truly obtain victory unless you decide, once and for all, that you are going to pursue what you want with everything you have. That will mean taking a few risks, but that is a good thing. A life without risk is a life not lived.” He paused. “Isn’t it time you lived?”
I felt my heartbeat racing, and my hands were clammy with sweat. The airplane seemed to be moving faster. “What if I lose?”
“You may,” Arnold said. “You may lose a lot. I sure as heck did. But you’ll never ever win, unless you set aside the chains of doubt and fear . . . and go for it.”
I couldn’t think of anything to say and felt myself slinking down in the copilot’s chair.
“Let me tell you something else, Randy.” Arnold’s voice was quieter now. “The more you’ve lost. The harder you’ve been knocked down.” He nodded to himself. “Those losses make the taste of victory that much sweeter.” He paused, and his tone grew even softer, just more than a whisper. “But you’ll never know, unless you pick yourself up off the ground and go after what you want.”