There is no settled case law, or golf history equivalent, for the precise definition of the Big Three. Harry Vardon, JH Taylor, James Braid: a trio for the ages. Arnold, Big Jack, Gary Player, same thing. And then (of course) this trio: Dr. George Franklin Grant; Dr. Cary Middlecoff; Dr. Howdy Giles. Another Big Three, at least under the popular Top Golf Dentists game show category.
Dr. Grant invented the wooden golf club (US patent number 638,920).
Dr. Middlecoff won two US Opens and one Masters tournament.
Dr. Giles was Arnold Palmer’s dentist and unofficial photographer.
Howdy Giles took thousands and thousands of pictures of Arnold over the years. The basement of his home in Wilmington, Del., was a kind of Arnold Palmer museum, and the house itself (according to Arnold’s longtime aides, Doc Giffin) was made in early, middle, and late Palmer. Goodbye didn’t push Wake Forest, Arnold’s alma mater, on his two daughters — but they ended up there. Howdy had a ball marker made from one of Arnold’s old gold fillings. Needless to say, Howdy published a book called The King and I: An Unlikely Journey from Fan to Friend.
Golf has lost a true original. Howdy died last month aged 84. This is a first Arnold Palmer’s Invitational without it.
Pardon the personal intrusion here: On a weekday in May 1987, at the beginning of my nine-year stint as a reporter at Philadelphia Inquirervisited Chester Valley Golf Club where a seniors event was being played. Arnold was 57 years old, silver-haired and brown, basking in the afternoon sun as he sat in a golf cart behind the driving range, chatting casually with a few people. I was wandering with purpose. A man, unknown to me but seeing my push button, asked me if I wanted to interview Arnold Palmer.
That would be puffery.
I breezed my way through the interview. I wrote something. I drove to New York City and had what turned out to be my first date with the woman who became my wife. I know exactly what I wore, interviewing Arnold that afternoon and then at dinner, because of Howdy. Howdy did the introduction, then took a picture of me interviewing Arnold. Later, without notice, Goodbye printed the photo and mailed it to me. As I type this, that photo and a book of matches from Lion’s Rock (316 E. 77th Street), are on my desk. I am amazed by his generosity and effort.
Over the past nearly 40 years, I’ve seen Howdy dozens of times. On several occasions, when Arnold was coming to greater Philadelphia for a banquet dinner or to greater Wilmington for a dental check-up, Howdy brought me in. When Arnold flew to Wilmington in a new plane, Howdy invited me to come take a look.
Arnold gave me a tour of the plane. He noted the cashmere blankets on each seat that Arnold said he had gotten for his wife, Winnie. When I left Arnold and Howdy that afternoon, I must have noticed that my wife and I were looking to buy a new car (new to us, that is). Arnold, committed to Cadillacs for personal and professional reasons, said, “Well, I hope it’s going to be a GM product.” You can’t buy a moment like that. Goodbye made it possible.
Goodbye, as all true originals do, has many of its moments. I remember being on the green on father’s day in Baltusrol in 1993 when Lee Janzen won the US Open. When the shot went down, there were four people on the field: Janzen, Payne Stewart, their dead bodies. Then came the fifth – Goodbye, camera in hand. He was so diligent, humble and beautifully no one could ever say no to him.
I just went to watch the USGA highlight reel from that Sunday, available on YouTubehoping I might catch a glimpse of Gratitude. I didn’t, but Arnold, the USGA’s longtime and latest ambassador, opens the show by offering some welcome comments directly to the camera, in that slurred voice. Good morning was a USGA rules official. They were both members of Valley of the Pines. Bye once he showed me one Golf Digest the 1957 cover showing Arnold in full smile. “I shave this tooth a little,” said Howdy, pointing to a pendant. “She had a bit of a fiddle about her.”
Howdy, a competitive swimmer at the University of Delaware, fell under Arnold’s spell through the magic of TV in the 1960s. To the amusement of his fellow dental school students at Temple University in Philadelphia in the late 1960s, Howdy began purchasing his clothes from Arnold Palmer’s line at the legendary Philadelphia store, Wanamakers. (A cheeky Howdy quote: “They’d say, ‘Hey, what’s with all the Palmer gear?’ But who’s having the last laugh now?”) When they were dating, Carolyn Boddorff gave her boyfriend a set of Arnold Palmer clubs. Needless to say, they had a long and happy marriage. (The two daughters married Arnold-o-philes; the four grandchildren are all getting stuck in.) When Howdy joined Bay Hill in the mid-1970s and met Arnold’s dentist, Benny Tacke, Howdy said it would be his dream to be Arnold Palmer’s dentist. “Arnie is a bad patient,” said Dr. Tacke. “When I die, you can have it.” Two years later, Dr. Tacke died and Dr. Giles had a new patient.
The last time I saw Howdy at Bay Hill was during the 2024 Arnold Palmer Invitational. Carolyn had died three years earlier and Arnold had died half a decade earlier. Howdy, surprisingly, had developed the same type of gait that Arnold had when he was in his early 80s, where the left shoulder drops to the left on the left step and the right shoulder drops to the right. He was as warm and inviting as ever, but time had taken its toll. He had lost his two great partners.
Howdy once described the first time he played with Arnold at Howdy’s home course, Wilmington Country Club, in mid-spring, 1976:
“Sixteenth hole, par 5, 603 yards. Caddy bets Arnie he can’t get home in two. Bet is for a beer. Arnie hits driver, driver, sand wedge from 15 feet off the green for a three. Gets a six-pack for the caddy and signs Bud. Comes to Wilmington to play golf and get his teeth checked.
You may have seen the picture of Arnold gracing the cans and jugs of the Arnold Palmer AriZona half and half invention. Arnold is probably looking at a distant green that just might be reachable. He is in the prime of his career. The old corpses had their nickname for Arnold, Bull, for his flaring noses, especially in the heat of battle. They’re on full display in this photo of Howdy Giles for posterity. Do you think Howdy asked everything, for using this photo? No chance.
Arnold once introduced Howdy to George HW Bush. Arnold said, “Mr. President, I want you to meet Howdy Giles, my dentist, my photographer and my best friend.”
“Oh sure,” said President Bush. “We were talking about you at dinner last night.”
Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments at Michael.Bamberger@Golf.com
