Sports Watch

By Bill Kwon

Saturday, January 30, 1999

Arnie still attracts
an army of fans

KOHALA COAST, Hawaii -- The tradewinds were blowing a constant 45 mph throughout the Senior Skins Game Pro-Am yesterday at the Mauna Lani Resort's Francis I'i Brown South Course when Arnold Palmer pulled up to the cart barn after finishing his round.

His caddy hadn't unloaded his golf bag as yet. Palmer thought for a moment that he might go to the practice range to work on his game. It was just a moment. He decided that it wouldn't do any good with the wind not letting up.

Besides, what more does Palmer have to prove? Nothing, really.

He can just show up and people will come to watch him play. At 69, he's magnetic as ever. Maybe it's not the Arnold Palmer who won 60 PGA Tour titles, but glimpses of his characteristic swing are still there.

Raymond Floyd might be going for his sixth straight Senior Skins title. Hale Irwin might have won $2 million two years in a row and Jim Colbert took the Senior PGA Tour money title back-to-back years before Irwin came on the scene. But it's Palmer the crowd came here to watch.

And who knows how many more opportunities we'll have?

Palmer doesn't know how long he can play competitively. Playing in a skins game, even for big bucks, is one thing. It's not the same grind as tournament golf.

IT has been a difficult two years. He underwent successful surgery for prostate cancer in 1997, the only year he missed playing in the Senior Skins Game, while his wife, Winnie, also had her own battle with cancer.

"The day I got out of radiation treatment, Winnie went in," Palmer said. "She gets very tired at the end of the day. She sleeps a lot. But she's doing very well. We're very high on her recovery, but she's going to undergo a bunch of tests next week."

Pending the outcome of Winnie's tests, Palmer plans on playing in the GTE Classic at Tampa, the ACE Group Classic at Naples, the Masters and the Home Depot Invitational in Charlotte.

"Then I'll take a look at how my game has been and decide how much I'm going to play after that," he said. "It won't be a lot, whatever. Maybe another tournament or two or three."

PALMER admits his game "is not good" at the moment. "There are times when I feel pretty good hitting the ball. But I don't feel real strong, which is something that bothers me. I don't feel like I'm releasing through the ball strongly, like I once did. That bothered me and my game, the whole situation."

He feels the Senior Tour competition will be enhanced with Tom Watson, Tom Kite and Lanny Wadkins soon turning 50.

"It'll make the competition heavier than it's ever been."

And Palmer might be glad along with the other seniors that David Duval is on the other tour.

Duval shot an incredible final-round 59 to win the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic at the Palmer-designed PGA West Course in La Quinta, Calif.

"That was one of the unbelievably great rounds in golf. It was something to see. Lot of times, you shoot a round like that, you do a lot of spectacular things. He didn't putt fantastically to do that. He just knocked the ball in close to the hole," Palmer said.

"But we're going to see more of that as these young players come along. The fact is that they are bigger and stronger. You see that in every sport -- football, baseball."

As for Duval's phenomenal run (nine victories in his last 28 tournaments), Palmer said that Duval "has one of the greatest shoulder turns I have ever seen. He really has a lot of shoulder movement back and through the ball. He may be the best that we've seen for a while."

Yeah, but when you come down to it. There's still only one Arnold Palmer.

For that, we should feel fortunate.