ARNOLD PALMER, STILL MOST ACCESSIBLE, POPULAR PRO IN GOLF

FROM THE CBS SPORTS.COM WEBSITE

By Steve Elling

CBSSports.com Senior Writer
ORLANDO, Florida: Unbeknown to most, Arnold Palmer has never been comfortable with the moniker he picked up many decades ago, when he was fixed squarely on the velvety golfing throne, and his peers and fans were essentially minions by the millions.
A half-century later, the King thing, he says, still makes him flinch.
"There's no one king," Palmer said.
True enough, and there were a couple of kings from the same broad cultural era, guys who were every bit as impactful as it relates to their chosen fields: Elvis Presley and Richard Petty were rocking and rolling royalty, literally. Palmer, of course, was every bit the voice and driving force in his vocation.
"It's nice to be thought of as someone who helped the game," Palmer said.
Helped it? He reinvented it.
With the holiday season at hand and little live golf to televise, the Golf Channel rolled up Palmer's garage door as part of a dozen-segment instructional series airing this month called "12 Nights at the Academy." Palmer imparted his swing-coaching magic in a 30-minute swatch, as did Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Sean Foley, Hank Haney and several other luminaries.
Palmer, 81, truly was in his own element -- tinkering in the wide-open garage workshop of his lakeside Bay Hill condo as cameras rolled and he imparted wisdom gleaned over parts of nine decades in the game.
Talk about an open-door policy. When the Golf Channel asked if a handful of scribes wanted to watch the taping, to enjoy an audience with the King, there were only two possible answers: "Absolutely" and "Well, duh."
The session was edited down for its half-hour slot, minus commercials, which means perhaps 22 minutes of Palmer pearls saw the light of day. Pity, because just standing and watching the guy puttering in his workshop was a priceless experience in itself, regardless of whatever advice he offered.
From a purely comparative standpoint, Palmer's garage workshop in Orlando is a broom closet relative to the massive, museum-sized warehouse he keeps at his summer home in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, where thousands of old clubs are stored.
"Not even close," he said.
As Palmer taped the session, everybody eyeballed the smaller treasure trove on his walls and workbench, where he still re-grips his own clubs. He used to get guff from other players about how often he re-gripped his clubs, and says he once won the Houston Open with three different sets of grips on the same sticks, because he had to have them just so.
"Most of the pros on tour have never done this," he said, adding double-sided tape and a fresh grip to one of his clubs.
As is occasionally the case with TV, what happens off the air is as illuminating and entertaining as what made the final cut. With Palmer, comfortably shooting the breeze with segment host Kelly Tilghman, you just never know when he might duck in a gem.
He talked about his mom's recipe for squirrel stew. He offered his favourite self-deprecating one-liner: "My game's so bad, I can hear it land."
He noted how much the game has fulfilled him. And how much he left on the table.
Palmer and a few of his running mates were the money and motive forces behind the formation of the Golf Channel, which launched in early 1995. Palmer had a hefty stock option at the time.
"Do you know how much it would have been worth if I had taken all the stock I could have taken?" he asked off the air.
Everybody shrugged.
"A billion," Palmer said, shaking his head.

That's not a typo. A 24-hour golf network? Hey, who knew?

Not that he needs the cash. For a man in his economic strata -- he remains one of the great product endorsement horses -- he lives like a pauper, not a prince. Given his blue-collar background, something about acorns falling close to the tree comes to mind.

On his workshop wall -- he parks his Cadillac SUV outdoors because there's no room in the garage -- are dozens of sets of size 11 golf spikes and Bay Hill caps. He's not one to ditch something just because it's been used a few times. He might be the king, but his Tower of London is a humble abode and the crown jewels aren't exactly ostentatious.

Leaning on the wall in the corner is an old Schwinn bike, near a dorm-sized refrigerator for the hot summer months. A case of Arnold Palmers, a mix of iced tea and lemonade that he's credited with inventing, is on the floor. It brought to mind a line from Ireland's Paddy Harrington, who was in a Florida restaurant a few years back when he overheard someone order an Arnold Palmer for the first time.

"That's when you know you are famous," Harrington laughed. "When they name a drink after you."

Given the limited time, observers to the taping were drinking in the behind-the-curtain scene in AP's garage. An old Rockwell grinder is bolted to his workbench, so he can whittle away on his irons. Although, basically, this is where he holes up when he doesn’t want sparks to fly.

Some guys gnash teeth. AP grinds clubs. A bowl for his faithful yellow lab, Mulligan, never far from Palmer's side, is on the floor.

"Nobody knows where I am," he smirks, "unless I tell them."

Palmer remains, in some ways, the most accessible, popular pro in the game. A few years ago, before a morning round of what is now called the Arnold Palmer Invitational, a local sports-talk radio station was broadcasting from a tent located about 150 yards from the Bay Hill clubhouse. It was shortly after dawn when Palmer was spotted while taking his morning constitutional with Mulligan, now 9 years old, alongside.

The radio guys waved. Palmer came over, sat down, put on a set of headphones and gabbed through an impromptu segment, live and without a leash.
Small wonder the guy remains as popular as any pro in the game, as evidenced by the Q ratings marketing yardstick released earlier this year, when he ranked atop Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson in popularity and likeability. Now a great-grandfather, he's enjoyed that enviable position for much of the past 50 years.
Between taping sessions, Palmer, a notorious needler, ambled out of his garage and cracked jokes about his age.

"The makeup helps," I said, figuring I'd better get in the first salvo.

"Thanks a lot," he laughed.

One of the cool things about growing older is that you don’t fret nearly as much over what people think. For instance, his electric cart is parked nearby and it contains two sets of clubs, including a bag armed with six different Callaway drivers. At this point, Palmer admitted that he isn’t above using all the toys at his disposal to win a few bucks from members in the afternoon shootout across the street at Bay Hill.

Palmer is no Johnny Miller, but at this point in the ballgame he's capable of reeling off some brusque, honest answers. He laughed when asked about the series of coaches that Tiger Woods has used over the years. Palmer essentially had one instructor, his father.

"I just sort of giggle," he said. "I think Tiger has a basically sound swing and he should stick to it. Always changing, it just takes away from something that is really very good."

He bemoans the lack of singular characters on tour. Cookie-cutter swings, bland personalities and clichés rule these days.

"Hogan developed a style, Nelson developed a style," he said.

With that trademark slash at the ball, Palmer also had charisma and panache to match, which is why the man still resonates with multiple generations. It's been a long ride and he witnessed much of the before and after. Top prize at his first victory was $2,000 and only the top 15 players got paid when his tour career began. Now he envisions a unified world tour someday soon, worth gazillions.

The camera crew has finished taping the promos and is beginning to pack up its gear, so the garage is clearing out. The scribes head off to chronicle the PGA Tour's Disney World tournament taking place a few miles away. Palmer's tournament at Bay Hill, always a huge draw for fans, is set for March 24-27.

"I’d like to think I've convinced the world that there's more to this game than hitting a golf ball," he said.

That's a wrap.

For more from Steve Elling, check him out on Twitter: @EllingYelling