Arnold Palmer still searching for that perfect club

[Moecat]

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/golf/2010-03-18-arnold-palmer-equipment_N.htm

 

Arnold Palmer has more thatn 10,000 golf clubs in his collection, many of them at his workshop in Latrobe, Pa.

By Eileen Blass, USA TODAY

 

By Eileen Blass, USA TODAY

Arnold Palmer stands among his collection of clubs at his Latrobe, Pa., workshop. Palmer, at 80, is still searching for the perfect club.

 

By Jerry Potter, USA TODAY

Charlie Mechem once was a media man by trade, but he says he had only one idea for a commercial. It involved his friend, Arnold Palmer.

"It would start with a close-up of two hands on a golf club," Mechem says. "Then a voice would say, 'I think my hands have held more golf clubs than anyone who has ever lived. Maybe I know a good golf club when I see one.' "

 

The hands, big and now weathered, would get the attention until Palmer came into view. He might be wearing a pink shirt with an umbrella pin in the collar, both trademarks, but to those who know him best, a golf club is really his trademark. This week Palmer will host his tournament at Bay Hill in Orlando.

 

INSIDE THE BAG: Caddie knows Arnie's tricks

"Everyone has something that mesmerizes them," Mechem says. "For Arnold, it's been golf equipment. It's at the center of his being."

 

By a conservative estimate, Palmer has 10,000 clubs and 2,000 putters stored away in buildings and workshops in Latrobe, Pa., and Orlando. His workshop in Latrobe, just a few steps from his office, has hundreds of clubs in bags and in bins, and they are his active collection.

 

They are the clubs he uses when he plays rounds with friends most days in the summer at Latrobe Country Club.

 

"Why does anyone save things?" says Doc Giffin, Palmer's longtime assistant. "There's no solid reason."

 

Palmer, 80, might trace his pack-rat habits to his youth. He was born at the beginning of the Great Depression, and money was tight throughout the early years. Something of value was something to be kept. It could become a milestone in a life.

 

"I always believe if you had a perfect golf club, you should be able to hit a perfect shot," Palmer says. "If you make a club that's pleasing to look at, then you've made a club that's easier to hit."

 

Has he found the perfect club?

 

"No," he says, "but I'm still trying to find it."

 

Palmer's father, Deke, was the pro at Latrobe, and one of Arnold's first jobs around the shop was repairing the members' clubs. In those days, woods were actually made of wood, and steel had replaced hickory as the best material for shafts. The area at the tip of the shaft that went into the wood was covered with string winding, called whipping, and restoring it was one of Palmer's first jobs.

 

As his interest in clubs grew, he began to tinker with the equipment, and he remains a tinkerer. When he turned pro in 1954, he signed a contract with Wilson Sporting Goods.

 

Although Wilson made the clubs, Palmer made adjustments to them while touring. Today, equipment companies provide repair services at every PGA Tour event. If a pro needs a club built or altered, the company he represents has a technician who does it for him.

 

"Most of the young pros do not have any idea what we worked with," Palmer says. "They don't do the things we did. To me it was fun, and a club was a work of art."

 

Palmer says he traveled with a vise and a hammer in his car and made repairs anywhere he could find a place to work. An uncle who was a steelworker made him a tool out of stainless steel that he used to bend the hosel of his irons, making what is known as offset, a condition in which the neck of the iron is in front of the face of the club.

 

Now, manufacturers put that in most irons that they make. It's viewed as a game-improvement adjustment because it sets the hands in front of the club, forcing the golfer to hit down on the ball. It also gives the golfer a little more time in the swing to square the club face.

 

"Any bending we did had to be done without measurements," Palmer says. "We didn't have anything to measure the bends, but we could pretty much do it by sight."

 

Palmer still has those tools, hanging in one of his storage buildings.

 

After Wilson, he had various contracts with equipment companies, including a period in which he had Arnold Palmer Golf. He didn't own it, but he was on the board and was the face of the company.

 

Cindy Davis, who now runs Nike Golf, was CEO through part of its history. "I love his passion for product," Davis says. "He knows what looks good, feels good and what works."

 

Davis says Palmer "is like a little boy with a new toy" when he gets a new club.

 

"He'd go in the back where the people grind the clubs, roll up his sleeves and work right with them," she says. "He loved the people who made the clubs."

 

One of Palmer Golf's best products was the Patented Hosel Iron. Known as the PhD, it was created by Clay Long, an independent designer who made clubs for Jack Nicklaus and Palmer. The iron had a tab of metal on the hosel that moved weight past the heel of the club.

 

"PhD was heel-toe weighting on steroids," Long says. "It was an oversized game-improvement iron. He was one of the first pros to play that type of iron."

 

Palmer Golf couldn't take advantage of the innovations it had, so sales declined. Jack Lupton, a Chattanooga, Tenn., businessman, bought control of the company.

 

It was closed, and Palmer moved on to Callaway in 2000.

 

"It's like any small company," Mechem says. "It's hard to compete against the big companies. Every company has something that for four or five years sells great. Then for four or five years somebody else has it. You have to have the staying power."

 

Palmer was hired by the late Ely Callaway, who at heart was a marketing man.

 

"He has the ability to sell anything from iced tea to golf clubs," Mechem says. "He has earned the right to be believed by people. Ely believed you needed someone like that."

 

At Callaway, Palmer is listed as "icon" on the company's roster of pros. His enthusiasm for golf equipment continues to amaze the people at Callaway.

 

"Christmas comes early when he gets his clubs from us," says Alan Hocknell, senior vice president of research and development. "When he got his tour card more than 50 years ago, equipment was quite different. He understands all of our modern technology."

[Moecat]

Note the pink driver in the first picture, on the left.

[jamo]

Note the pink driver in the first picture, on the left.

 

Bubba Watson would be proud. To me, it seems like if Arnie hasn't found the right driver yet, he probably isn't going to.

[Moecat]

To me, it seems liek if Arnie hasn't found the righ tdriver yet, he probably isn't going to.

 

Not that he really needs to, either, if one thinks about it. At heart, he's just a golf lunatic like the rest of us.

[GolfSpy Dave]

Bending to spec by hand with simple tools and then knowing it is right by sight. How cool is that?

[TWShoot67]

Not that he really needs to, either, if one thinks about it. At heart, he's just a golf lunatic like the rest of us.

 

 

+1 Agree, many of the greatest players ever and not so greatest players ever still have that thing about collecting equipment. Whether it's keeping your first set of irons to just picking up clubs from flea markets thinking you may just find one of those early treasures! Or maybe your just a plain equipment junkie.

[Matt Saternus]

I'm going to show this to anyone who says I have too many clubs! I love to see that even the greats are afflicted like we are.

[jamo]

It is sort of amazing to think that he had the career he had without liking the drivers he used.

[TWShoot67]

I'm going to show this to anyone who says I have too many clubs! I love to see that even the greats are afflicted like we are.

 

 

I would like my wife to see this since she thinks I have a problem! here's 1/2 of my collection.... Not even a dent into Mr. Palmer's collection!! Just felt like adding to this conversation with a little personal touch. some day I'll probably have 1/4 of what Arnie has collected but then again i'm just an individual not an Empire!!

[HoosierGolfer]

Nice Moe. I had not seen those pic's for some time. Got'a love Arnie.

[Addicted2Golf]

I hope some of those clubs will be destined for a museum some day and not some massive garage sale. That would be a shame.

[Addicted2Golf]

BTW, Mr. Palmer can stop searching. I've found it for him:

 

[PingManKMB]

BTW, Mr. Palmer can stop searching. I've found it for him:

 

 

 

lol

[PingManKMB]

basically we are all sick in the head, is all!

[ryandb1]

It seems to me there would be at least 1 or 2 perfect clubs in that mess.