Something is missing from the Arnold Palmer tour. And not just rickie

Guests overnight at Arnold’s house – in tentaclewhere he had a condo; In Latrobe, Pa., Where he lived for decades in a modest one-story house-always said the same thing, surrendered to Palmer’s foghorn’s voice: “There is Bologna in the fridge” if you are hungry in the middle of the night. ” Simple.

No one would be quite foolish to try to talk about Arnold Palmer. He spoke to himself with accuracy and penetration and did not need much word to say much. He would say to himself, “I’m as dumb as a rock.” In his way, he was often the smartest person in the room, so smart enough to know the value of lowering expectations. He would admit that there is no simple solution to PGA Tour-liv Divide This has reduced professional golf. In any of his public pronunciation, he would be (I am thinking) to be in public support of the tournament because he was in his DNA to do it. He did not like public disputes. He would never use this word but he was a institutionalist.

And a traditionalist. I don’t think there is any doubt: would make him sick to see only 70 players of Thursday Friday The tournament appointed to that he regarded it as one of the most important things in his life. He thought 125 was a good number, that you needed plenty of players to have a critical measure going on the weekend. I’m making an educated assumption here, but he would see a cut for a field of 70 players in it as a joke that is. A cut should say that you are in your game on Thursday and Friday. A cut is a powerful memory for every player in the field that this professional golf game gives you nothing. He greatly admired Tiger’s ability to do what he had to do on Friday, after Thursday’s average rounds, to make the cut.

He would be absolutely ardent that four players are not on the field this week (between 40 or more others): Jake KNAPP, Jordan SpiethRickie Fowler and. . . Bryson dechambeau. As for the first three, you can imagine him by saying, “Here are three boys that people want to see, who can fight or win, play with the type of style that makes the golf the best.” Yes, Arnold withdrew from stylish players, and his question after all about anything related to golf was this: Is it good for the game? In 2016, Fowler was in Bay Hill Field and made the car 150 miles north from Jupiter, Fla., In Bay Hill to see Palmer to say personally he could not play. Palmer was disappointed, but impressed by gesture and he spoke of him more than once.

Gestures meant a lot for him, as he did with the custom. The order-is returning a few years-Bay Hill’s winners had a life-life to play on the tournament. On this basis, leaving all the other complications aside, you can imagine Palmer saying, “Bryson has to play this week, and I will make it rough this week that he too cannot play from it.”

Arnold loved that Woods won his tour eight times – and that Paul Goydos won it once. Golf without a David element v. Goliath for him is a much smaller game. Liv Golf and the Golf signature event leaves no opportunity for a victory of Paul Goydo because there is no one like Paul Goydos on the field.

Arnold loved a lot of money in the barrel. He and his friend Dow Finsterwald played in a match made for TV on a PAR-3 course in Las Vegas against Barb Romack and Mickey Wright. That day came with a guaranteed salary and Palmer had hundreds of similar days in his long career, where he was paid to appear and be Arnold Palmer. But he would distinguish between the exhibition golf and the golf of the tournament easily. Liv Golf, Golf on the ground with 70 players, interior night golf in an imitator, I think Arnold would put all three things in the same category: praised exhibitions. Arnold Palmer did not become Arnold Palmer playing in glorified exhibitions.

He knew Bologna when he saw it. He went to his creator ruminating to what they left, starting with the opening of the US half-dusk who left him in the fourth, or fifth rounds. Millions of us this time of the year need full golf, in full field, David V. Goliath. The Golf type that turned Arnold to Arnold, and PGA Tour at PGA Tour.

Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments in Michael.bamberger@golf.com.