Why Arnold Palmer’s customized letters meant a lot to so many

The next story was excerpted with permission from “Arnold Palmer: American Hero,” © 2022 The American Golfer, Inc. You might purchase the guide right here.

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Brandt Snedeker had however just a few hours at house in Franklin, Tenn., on the day that Arnold Palmer died September of 2016. Snedeker had simply accomplished the Tour Championship in Atlanta and had a fast turnaround earlier than he ventured to Minneapolis to play within the Ryder Cup.

Making an attempt one way or the other, as so many golfers had been, to soak up the shock and impression that golf’s one and solely king was gone, Snedeker sat down in his house research and commenced to tug out some letters that Palmer had written to him via the years.

There was most likely 15 of them, he mentioned. As he learn every one, finding out them for his or her thoughtfulness and personalization, he was struck by the magnitude of Palmer’s heat, generosity and overflowing kindness.

“I’m there all of the stuff that he had despatched me, and desirous about the time he spent on me . . . I used to be a no-name man when he began writing me letters, and I understand he’s performed that for a numerous variety of individuals,” Snedeker mentioned. “It type of hit me, the time he put into all people else however himself. That’s going to be one thing you may’t exchange.”

When Snedeker made the U.S. Palmer Cup workforce after ending his profession at Vanderbilt in 2003, Palmer mailed a letter to him. A 12 months earlier, when Snedeker was named an NCAA Div. 1 All-American, Palmer had mailed him a word and an image, signing it “Finest Needs, Arnold Palmer.”

“It’s fairly cool to have all that stuff at house and undergo it and understand that I’m one among most likely 10,000 those who he did that for in his life. That’s fairly particular.”

Ten thousand? Snedeker’s estimate might be excessive.

Honestly, possibly it isn’t. Palmer certain made loads of golfers pleased.

When did all of it begin? His longtime assistant and workplace confidante, Doc Giffin, mentioned Palmer, an old-school gentleman for whom he labored 51 years, wrote letters to match winners

for so long as he can keep in mind.

Giffin was a newspaper man from Pittsburgh, in Palmer’s yard, who first went to work for the PGA Tour and later grew to become Palmer’s private assistant in 1966. The 2 had fairly a run collectively. Palmer received 62 instances on the PGA Tour. He knew profitable wherever, on any tour, was a particular accomplishment in a profession. Many Monday mornings within the workplace throughout the road from Palmer’s beloved Latrobe Nation Membership had been saved for discussions between Palmer and Giffin on what had gone on throughout tournaments on a number of excursions over the weekend, akin to who’d received, and the way they’d earned victory.

What had began a long time in the past as Palmer writing handwritten congratulatory notes to winners and pals morphed right into a extra expansive custom in later years. Palmer would dictate customized letters for winners every week on the PGA Tour, PGA Tour Champions, LPGA and even what’s now known as the Korn Ferry Tour. The letters can be typed up neatly, and Palmer would then affix his well-known signature to them.

“We loved speaking in regards to the weekend golf actions, for certain,” Giffin mentioned. “And I collect that it meant one thing to the gamers who obtained these letters. He did through the years get loads of ‘thanks’ notes from those that acquired a letter and appreciated it.”

In Gee Chun profitable a significant on the LPGA? A letter from Palmer. Mark O’Meara starring within the 1996 Presidents Cup with Palmer serving as his captain? A letter.

Wesley Bryan profitable a 3rd title on the Korn Ferry Tour in 2016, incomes a battlefield promotion to the PGA Tour? Palmer despatched him a letter. His letters weren’t solely for winners, both. If a participant did one thing particular, Palmer took discover.

As a lot as Palmer received, and he received some large occasions (his 62 PGA Tour titles included seven main championships), he misplaced some actual heartbreakers, too. So any participant who misplaced a championship on the wire could be a candidate for a comforting message from The King.

“Infrequently, when any person had a disappointment and didn’t win, some uncommon circumstance, he would sometimes write to somebody sympathetic that he didn’t win the match,” Giffin mentioned.

When then-rising College of Michigan sophomore Nick Carlson made a spirited run on the 2016 U.S. Novice at Oakland Hills exterior Detroit, advancing all the way in which to the semifinals, Palmer, who’d received the 1954 U.S. Novice champion at close by Nation Membership of Detroit, acknowledged the accomplishment. The U.S. Novice at Oakland Hills had been contested a few month earlier than Palmer’s loss of life, and the letter Carlson would obtain was one of many remaining ones mailed out from the Palmer Enterprises workplace.

“To get the letter, learn it, and get goosebumps studying it, nearly type of in tears, you’re so shocked and humbled that somebody like that may take the time to succeed in out to you,” Carlson mentioned.

Jordan Spieth figures he acquired shut to fifteen letters from Palmer. He retains all of them collectively, and vows to border just a few of his favorites to show in his house in Texas.

“I feel the primary one I obtained was the primary John Deere,” Spieth mentioned of his first Tour win, in 2013. “It was so cool. It’s customized and signed. However…it wasn’t simply this particular feeling that this letter was coming to me; it was realizing that he took the time to try this every week, and never even simply to winners on our tour that week. It’s superior.”

Palmer’s impeccably neat letters — with a well-recognized Arnold Palmer, P.O. Field 52, Youngstown, Pa., within the daring header — had been despatched via the U.S. mail, although as soon as Palmer began sending letters to winners on the LPGA, a PDF can be connected into an e-mail and despatched. With e-mail at our fingertips every day, a letter of any type has turn into a misplaced artwork. Palmer beloved to create, signal and ship them.

“That was simply his nature,” Giffin mentioned.

Palmer and Jack Nicklaus ceaselessly had been characterised as heated rivals on the course, however they grew to become nice pals. Nicklaus mentioned Palmer took him beneath his wing as a younger participant and taught him a terrific deal about what it took to be an expert. It was Palmer who satisfied Nicklaus to jot down a word to a match sponsor on the finish of an occasion. Nicklaus started writing these notes as a PGA Tour rookie and continued the custom into his days on what was then the PGA Senior Tour.

“It’s a pleasant contact that Arnold taught me,” Nicklaus mentioned, “and I appreciated that very a lot.”

Following Palmer’s lead, Nicklaus sends a handwritten word to the 4 main winners every season, one thing he has performed for greater than 40 years. Did Jack ever obtain a letter from his pal Arnold? He couldn’t keep in mind one, although on the event of profitable his sixth Masters in 1986 at age 46, Nicklaus did obtain a Western Union telegram from Palmer.

Palmer, who was 10 years older than Nicklaus, first congratulated Nicklaus on profitable his 18th main. And perpetually the optimist, Palmer concluded with this: “Would possibly you assume there’s an opportunity for a 56-year-old?”

Palmer’s historical past of writing letters dated to his taking part in days, when he’d take the time to thank sponsors after every match he’d play. As for the notes to gamers, on the Arnold Palmer Invitational in 2013, he mentioned how he and Giffin, his assistant, would get collectively on Mondays or Tuesdays, discuss in regards to the week’s winners, and ship off a customized message of congratulations. Palmer even confided that past being a terrific behavior to proceed, there existed a little bit additional incentive to correspond with the PGA Tour winners.

“It’s one thing that reminds them that we’ve got a match additionally,” Palmer mentioned, “and that we’d like them to indicate up right here (to Bay Hill).”

Many instances, although, there have been no strings. The letters merely served as a gracious gesture to congratulate a participant on a job properly performed. Golf is a lonely sport that doles out way more disappointments than triumphant moments, and profitable isn’t simple. Individuals ought to take discover. Palmer at all times did.

English professional Paul Broadhurst sorted via mail he’d acquired in late September 2016 whereas he’d returned house from the U.S. to the tiny village of Fenny Dreyton, exterior Nuneaton. There

had been the standard payments, and there was one piece of correspondence that instantly caught his consideration.

“It’s humorous, really,” Broadhurst mentioned, “I believed it could be an invitation to the Bay Hill Traditional (Arnold Palmer Invitational), that’s what I believed. It had ‘Arnold Palmer’ on the envelope, and I believed to myself, ‘Proper, I’ve simply received the British Seniors, I’ve simply received at Pebble Seaside, it might be an invitation to play.’ That was my preliminary response.”

Broadhurst, who’d received the PGA Tour Champions’ Nature Valley First Tee Pebble Seaside Open 9 days earlier, lastly opened the envelope and acquired a shock that trumped any tourney invite: There was a properly written congratulatory letter signed from Mr. Palmer — acquired two days after Palmer’s loss of life.

Broadhurst’s particular memento is among the final three letters Palmer mailed from his Pennsylvania workplace. In Gee Chun and Michael Thompson, who on Sept. 18, 2016, received occasions on the LPGA and Internet.com Tour, respectively, additionally acquired letters from Palmer dated Sept. 19, lower than per week earlier than his loss of life. (The PGA Tour was off the week of Sept. 15-18.)

On his house partitions, Broadhurst has framed images of him competing within the Ryder Cup, an image of him taking part in alongside Spanish nice Seve Ballesteros, and a photograph from his novice days on the British Open, when he was paired with Jack Nicklaus.

Broadhurst regrets that he by no means had the prospect to satisfy Palmer in individual; he had his letter framed to occupy a spot of prominence in his house.

“It’s clearly very particular,” Broadhurst mentioned. “The way in which he wrote it, regardless that he was ailing, he was watching the top of the golf, or he wouldn’t have recognized how I did play the 18th and the delay we had taking part in that gap.

“I’m going to discover a good house for it on my wall.”

Arnold Palmer: American Hero

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Arnold Palmer: American Hero is the seventh guide in The American Golfer’s massive espresso desk guide sequence (11″ X 14″) on the best within the sport. Along with the definitive historical past of the Ryder Cup, the sequence contains massive lavishly produced espresso desk books on this format on: Ben Hogan (2), Bobby Jones, Byron Nelson and Jack Nicklaus.

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