Banned from Latrobe C.C. ... Me!

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The call informing me I was no longer welcome at Latrobe Country Club came coincidentally three years to the day after Arnold Palmer died. Now, that’s another thing I never thought I’d have in common with Ben Roethlisberger.

Ben was banned for refusing to sign autographs.

I was now being forbidden from signing them. I called the organizer of an area charity raising funds to fight the rare disease that killed his little boy and said, sorry, I can’t help.

Can anyone sense there are elements of over-reaction in this unfolding story?

Either way, we’re left with one of the most powerful and lucrative enterprises in sports business pitted against me, author of the blog that was recently named the “32nd Best Blog and Website for Amish Readers.”

How did we get here?

I’ve for more than 20 years enjoyed stellar two-way relations with leaders and rank-and-file employees of Orlando-based Arnold Palmer Enterprises. I liked them, they liked me. How much?

In 2012, I was feted at an interview/luncheon among eight company leaders where I was given a hand-shake deal on a job that would pay in the neighborhood of $70,000 plus benefits (see detail-laden link below).

And you need to understand the heirloom significance of the term “handshake deal” to the legend of Arnold Palmer. It’s foundational to his success and stature.

So did I get the job?

I don’t know.

It’s been seven years and I’ve yet to hear back. My calls and letters were all ignored. I think my wife still thinks I made the whole thing up.

I finally wrote about it in 2014, the day after I appeared in the wonderful Golf Channel documentary on Mr. Palmer.

My post was scathing. Sample line: “This isn’t behavior worthy of Arnold Palmer. This is behavior barely worthy of weasels.”

What was the reaction?

There was none. I continued to get all the opportunities I enjoyed prior to my bitter screed. In fact, an evident acclaim began to build around my Palmer Q & A’s, so much so that the vaunted chairman of APE invited himself into one of our last sessions, an imposing move that would have rattled less seasoned writers. 

His post-interview evaluation as he shook my hand (hand shake!): “They all said you were the best. They were right. Well done.”

No repercussions there. And there were none in September 2016 when a top Palmer company executive, grieving the legend's death three days prior, said, “Chris, you are the voice of Arnie’s Army.”

Google “Voice of Arnie’s Army.” You won’t get a network announcer, a Golf Channel executive or one of the flaccid sycophants from the tour press tent.

You get me. And that was a year before I wrote the book Jim Nantz said is “the best book anyone’s written about Arnold Palmer.”

Well, brace yourself, because The Voice has something that needs to be said. It is:

“No one who earns their living standing behind the name of Arnold Palmer should ever treat anyone the way Orlando-based representatives of APE have now twice and without apology treated me.”

This brings us to my second indiscretion (see second link). I used the blog to personally bash the Bay Hill director of golf. I was angry how he’d responded  to my Christmas week call of cheer with pouting complaints and surly threats.

I momentarily thought I’d called, not Arnold Palmer's club, but Sergio Garcia’s.

I let it slide for three months — didn’t want to do anything rash — before responding. Did I go too far? Probably. Was I justified? I think so.

I think it just galled me that people who are well-compensated to extol the values of Arnold Palmer fail to live up to them. My experience isn’t nearly as intense, but I still consider it a privilege to respond to strangers the way he would.

Especially at Christmas!

In lieu of that, how can we end this unseemliness?

Well, let me be the mature one.

First, I’ll not mention either incident again, despite provocations like today’s embarrassment, if my Bay Hill friend apologizes. He must have been having a bad day. No one rises to that professional elevation being the kind of jerk he was with me for two excrutiating minutes.

The second condition is even easier to settle. Just someone — anyone — from Orlando answer one question:

About that hand shake job offer, geez, when can I start?

I think a company like yours would love to employ at least one guy who really, really cares about responding to difficult situations the way most of us used to think Arnold Palmer would. 

Related …

The day Arnold Palmer’s people offered me a $70k-a-year job

I got screwed by Bay Hill … again!

Playing Oakmont (and Arnold Palmer says I'm the best)

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I’m set to golf today at Oakmont C.C. in about four hours. The fact will no doubt stir resentment among my golfing friends.

Oakmont is one of the most prestigious golf clubs in the world. 

Well, let me rub it in a little more. I’ll tee off after I bid Arnold Palmer bon voyage on his way to Florida. One of my partners today is Doc Giffin. He’s been Palmer’s able assistant for the past 45 years, and Doc asked me to pick him up at Palmer’s Latrobe office where he wants to say goodbye.

And I get to tag along.

I’m on a bit of an Arnold Palmer roll right now.

And by “Arnold Palmer roll,” I don’t mean the man behind the hip Arnold Palmer tea has added a trendy new sandwich to his culinary endeavors.

I interviewed Palmer Friday for about the 75th time in the past 10 years. I started off, as I always do, with a real toughie.

“Mr. Palmer: on Monday you’re departing Latrobe for Orlando where you’ll spend the next six months while we here in Western Pennsylvania endure the wind, the snow and ice. My question is: Will you please take me with you?”

He roared with laughter.

Then he said no.

The whole interview couldn’t have gone better. It was the highlight of my day. Heck, it might have been the highlight of his, too.

I know this because at the conclusion he told me I’m the best interviewer he’s ever had. He said, “You are the best. It’s always a real treat to sit and talk with you. You’re funny and you ask great questions. I always really enjoy these interviews.”

You’re probably thinking, well, one of the reasons Arnold Palmer is so popular with the media is because he says that to everyone.

That may be true, but if it is I found out he’s said it to me more than anyone else.

Bob Drum is a legendary Pittsburgh sports writer who chronicled and assisted in Palmer’s rise to legend. I asked Palmer how far I had to go until I reached Drummer status.

“You’re right there,” he said. “I don’t think anybody’s interviewed more than you. And that’s saying something.”

Coming from him, it was incredibly flattering.

And I had it all recorded!

Or so I thought. 

I floated out of the room thinking I could take this precious audio and make a great YouTube clip of one of the most interviewed and popular men in the world saying I was the best.

Heck, Trump posts it on his website if Palmer deigns to pose for a picture with him.

So I get to my office and, I admit, foremost on my mind wasn’t transcribing the interview for which I was being paid. No, it was how I was best going to use the Palmer praise to make myself look monumental.

It was all I had on my mind.

And that’s probably the reason I somehow deleted the whole thing. 

Gone. All of it. From a fool-proof iPhone!

I wasn’t really worried about the interview. Everything he says is burned into my brain and the Q&A format makes it easy to duplicate (Doc later told me it read like a transcript).

But what was I to do about the part where Palmer said how great I was?

To ask Doc if I could come back and have him say it all again would be unseemly.

I did it anyway.

And to really up the unseemly ante I asked if this time I could film him doing it while holding a copy of my book. I was intent on an offhand compliment into a full-out infomercial.

I tell you, when it comes to shameless self-promotion, I got crass coming out my, er, ears.

But Doc said no. The timing couldn’t be worse.

So my hopes to enrich my life through something Arnold Palmer said were in vain.

It’s okay. 

There are other compensations. See, knowing Arnold Palmer means you can always get great golf tips from Arnold Palmer.

That’s what happened when I told him I was playing Oakmont. I asked if he had any suggestions about how I could get a really good score today.

And, indeed, he had a great tip.

He suggested I play someplace else.

Related  . . .

Yesterday, Arnold Palmer watches me nearly ace

Arnold Palmer NOT attending my book signing

So, what’s Arnold Palmer really like?

Arnold Palmer gave me noogies on Monday

Interviewing Arnold Palmer

Me on TV & the day Palmer's people offered me a $70,000 job

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I knew when the phone started going off at about 10:52 p.m. last night I’d made the cut. Friends from around the country were calling to say they’d seen me near the very end of the second installment of the Golf Channel’s wonderful biopic on Arnold Palmer.

It concludes tonight at 10 p.m.

We’d DVRd it and were about 10 minutes behind. So it was very exciting.

Sure enough there I was. It started with a voice-over played above a shot of the custom table top at Palmer’s office where he’d embedded medals from each of his 95 professional victories. I’m saying how after each victory he’d always tell the craftsman to drill an extra hole, so sure he was he'd soon win again.

The film then cuts to me saying something like “and today there are still two vacant holes waiting for Palmer’s next victories, ones this 83-year-old man is confident may one day yet happen.”

The whole thing takes 18.3 seconds. It’s very cool.

The entire sequence lasted about two minutes, I’m sure, but the producers graciously edited out all the “ahs,” “ums,” “ers” and times I yelled “Cut!” while I paused to scratch something itchy.

I rewound it about three times to allow my vanity its due bask and then once more to check something that was important to me in terms of accuracy.

I wanted to make sure the tag line didn’t imply I worked for Arnold Palmer.

It did not. It said, “Chris Rodell, writer, Latrobe, Pa.”

I do not work for Arnold Palmer, something that often baffles me because about two years ago people who work for Arnold Palmer offered me a job. And it was a prestigious full-time job with benefits, perks and a salary that we’d agreed would be in the neighborhood of $70,000 a year.

See, there was talk about hiring me to be a curator regarding the Arnold Palmer legacy. I got all dressed up and met a group of about eight people in a secluded section of the dining room at the Latrobe Country Club to discuss the particulars.

Two of my good Latrobe friends I’ve known for 10 years were there (they’re long-time Palmer employees), as were about six people from Florida whom I’d never met.

The Sunshine Staters were running the show.

About 10 minutes into this meeting, I realized I was being offered an important job, one for which I was perfect. I’d interviewed Palmer more than 50 times and had put together the comprehensive day-by-day timeline that is central to www.ArnoldPalmer.com. 

You’re going to think I’m making up what I’m about to tell you. I am not. And the facts are without embellishment.

I shared with them my ideas about why Palmer is a transcendent figure, and how his legacy should be promoted so it’ll forever endure. I spoke with evident insight and polish, so much so that the attorney who was running the meeting at one point put his pen down and looked up from his detailed notes and said, “I have to say your ideas are giving me chills. You’re a tremendous speaker. You should be a college professor.”

In fact, I said, I am, which was true.

I was thinking how I didn’t know how this job interview could have possibly gone any better.

Then it did.

The meeting’s other key figure said, “We want you to work for us. But we want you to keep doing what you’re doing. We enjoy your blog and want you to keep writing as you’re doing now. Now, we’re going to go to lunch. You two sit here and work out the details and then come join us.”

If my wife had been there, this is the point at which she’d have begun hyperventilating.

Me, I felt like my time had finally come. I was being offered a high profile job for which I was eminently qualified. 

Then it got better again.

One of my old friends with the full attention of everyone pulled out a $100 bill and said, “And I want to buy five copies of your book.”

I say I was feeling confident, but at this point I did begin to feel a bit woozy like I was hallucinating. Never has a job interview with anyone gone so well.

The details of what followed remain burned in my brain.

The attorney asked how old my kids were for the purposes of the benefit package. I haven’t had benefits in 20 years.

“You’ll want a 401-K, won’t you?”

I’d never even considered it before, but now I desperately wanted one.

“Now, I want you to take the weekend and talk this over with your wife and get back to me next week with an idea for a salary.”

I said — and these were my exact words — “I don’t need to talk to my wife. I know what I want right now. Would you faint if I asked for $70,000 a year?”

He took off his glasses and said, “I’m not fainting. It’s not going to be easy, but I’ll see what I can do. I think we can justify it.”

What I didn’t say and what I thought was, “Man, throw in a couple free rounds of golf and I’ll settle for $20,000! You have no idea how difficult living without benefits and a salary has been for me and my wife.”

He told me he’d get back to me in a week.

Really, right then it was one of the best hours of my life, certainly the best hour of my professional life.

So we went to lunch where I was careful not to say much lest I blow it. Then we all departed with handshakes, hugs and goodbyes.

What did I do next?

I took that crisp $100 bill and drove right down to the local florist and spent a big chunk of it on a lovely arrangement. Val wouldn’t be home for an hour.

I kept the suit on. I’d for years been looking forward to a moment like this and I wanted to make a big impression.

When she got home, I gave her the bouquet and said, “Everything’s changed. I’ll have a salary, benefits and you and I are now part of one of the most prestigious corporate teams in the world.”

Her first words were, “I don’t believe you. This can’t be happening.”

A long-suffering wife’s premonitions are downright eerie.

I think she suspected the flowers and the good news were all a crafty ruse designed to snag me some quick cinch sex before the kids got home.

I think part of her still believes that’s what really happened.

Even if that sex hadn’t come to pass and — hallelujah — it did, I was destined for a really good screwing that day.

Because after almost two years I’ve yet to hear back personally from a single one of the Florida decision makers who’d dangled so much before someone so needy.

I was included in one mass e-mail announcing a vague eagerness to move forward, but not one call. Not one update. All my many follow-up letters, both electronic and snail mail, have gone unanswered, all my calls unreturned.

Not a single professional courtesy has ever once been extended.

Understand, this isn’t some faceless corporation. This is Arnold Palmer Enterprises. Palmer famously built his vast empire on a handshake deal with super agent Mark McCormack and I had a handshake agreement with a room full of people representing the man forever known as The King for how he treats everyone.

This isn’t behavior worthy of Arnold Palmer.

This is behavior barely worthy of weasels.

And let’s pause for a second to consider how low you’ve sunk when you’re getting business etiquette lessons  . . . from me!

I’ve for 22 years been a freelance writer. I’ve lost count of the times people stiffed me for pay, reneged on expense accounts and stopped returning my calls when they’ve owed me thousands of dollars. Pound puppies get treated better.

And the very worst treatment I’ve ever endured is at the hands of people who have an obligation to live up to the standards of a man adored and admired around the world?

The mind boggles.

So we persevere and remain ever cheerful in the face of every adversity, certain that one day something really good is going to happen regarding my career.

It’s something I’ve said each and every day since 1992.

Some of you might wonder about the wisdom of so publicly criticizing the business ethics of a conglomerate with whom I still work, that I might in essence be biting the hand that feeds me.

Well, in the last two years it really hasn’t been feeding me all that much to make all that much of a difference.

I think it’s because the hand’s been too otherwise occupied showing me its extended middle finger.

Related . . .

Arnold Palmer gave me noogies on Monday

How I became a PROSEtitute

Exercises in ironic education

Interviewing Arnold Palmer