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

RRS: Happy belated birthday Arnold Palmer!

Arnold Palmer turned 85 on Wednesday and the whole town was invited to the party. They held it at Greater Latrobe High School where, thanks to $1 million donated by Palmer, the district was dedicating the Arnold Palmer Field House at the new state-of-the-art practice facility. I missed it for a reason Palmer would surely appreciate: I was golfing with buddies. But I heard it was a wonderful slice of Americana. The whole high school sang him Happy Birthday. I saw him last month. He showed me his new pacemaker. I almost asked if he'd let me touch it. Here’s what I wrote about Palmer on his 80th birthday back in in ’09.

Enjoy your Sunday!

Some admiring jokers started www.chucknorrisfacts.com to put a farcical spin on the B-movie actor’s fantasy exploits. Example: “When Chuck Norris does a push up, he isn’t elevating himself, he’s pushing the earth down.”

It’s a hilarious bit of make believe.

In 2005, I was asked to do the daily timeline project on www.ArnoldPalmer.com and can now conclude what should be obvious to any fair-minded observer. And that is this:

The real Arnold Palmer makes even the make-believe Chuck Norris look like a candy-assed sissy.

Today is Palmer’s 80th birthday.

He declined an invitation to an interesting party this evening where some of his friends were going to salute him just for being such a great guy.

“I wish I could attend,” he told reporters, “but I’ve got some other things planned and I’ll be pretty busy that night. Sorry, I just can’t be there.”

The event? The opening night kickoff of the 2009 NFL season at Heinz Field. The Pittsburgh Steelers wanted to honor Palmer on one of the biggest nights of the year. They wanted to have more than 65,000 fans cheer him, watch video highlights of his career, and listen to heady praise of his lavish philanthropy.

But he has something better to do.

There’s an astounding humility in that polite little no thanks. I’m guessing he’s going have a small party with friends at Latrobe Country Club, but how many of our celebrities could resist the opportunity to have their already-massive egos stoked by having a crowd of that size blow kisses at them?

All America should feel better about itself today knowing we produced a man like Palmer and that he continues to thrive and inspire.

Unlike Norris, who’s becoming more famous for popping off on far right causes that embarrass even mainstream conservatives, facts about Palmer are, well, facts.

I know this because for two years it was my job to go through more than 50 years of newspaper and magazine clippings about Palmer and note what he did each and every day of his life.

As of today, the Timeline has more than 1,200 noteworthy items.

As everyone knows, he is one of the greatest golfers who’s ever lived. But a charming alchemy of small-town grit, old-fashioned good manners and heaven-sent good fortune have made his a life unique in American history. Many presidents may admire Sandy Koufax or Cal Ripken, but that doesn’t mean they’ll ever invite them to the White House to play catch.

But it’s different with golfers. And it’s different still with Palmer. That helps explain why former President Dwight D. Eisenhower showed up at Palmer’s house to surprise him on his 37th birthday on this day in 1966, and why Bill Clinton told biographers in 2000 that one of the greatest perks of being POTUS is the “opportunity to play golf with Arnold Palmer.”

An accomplished pilot who still flies his own jet, Palmer set an aviation world record on May 19, 1976, when he circumnavigated the globe in a Lear 36 in less than 58 hours.

Kirk Douglas said in 1970 that no one -- not Sinatra, John Wayne or Ronald Reagan -- has more charisma than Palmer.

He has a popular drink, The Arnold Palmer (half lemonade/half iced tea), named after him and the concoction is recognized by hip Manhattan waitresses who have no idea who Arnold Palmer is. In addition to the drink, two entire hospitals, a national golf museum, a regional airport, a PGA golf tournament, fancy club rooms and charity initiatives and scholarships too numerous to tally bear the name Arnold Palmer.

John Paul Newport of the Wall Street Journal wrote this week, “Lasting popularity of Palmer’s magnitude simply cannot be explained.”

It’s a safe bet that today Palmer will celebrate his birthday by playing some golf, laughing with some children, hugging loved ones, joking with buddies, being bold and doing something to help someone needy.

Let’s all try and join him in doing just some of the same. It’s life the way it ought to be lived.

All, but you, Chuck Norris.

You can just sit home in the dark and maybe dream about what it would be like to be a real man.

Latrobe abuzz: Who'll appear in Palmer bio? (besides Palmer)

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I wonder if Arnold Palmer’s as nervous about the three-night bio-extravaganza devoted to his life as I am about possibly appearing for maybe 20 seconds in the Golf Channel program.

I doubt it.

Some of you may will recall my August stories when I wrote the network was in Latrobe to film Palmer stories.

I mistakenly thought it would be cheesy filler for around Palmer’s September 10th birthday when he turned 84.

Wrong!

The producer told me they’d be jetting around the world for the next six months interviewing global dignitaries about their Palmer recollections.

But they were starting at The Pond.

So that was very cool.

Due to my associations with both Palmer and The Pond, I was to act as a sort of emcee. I’d make a few introductions and conduct on-camera interviews about what Palmer meant to Latrobe.

So it was a really great night. They filmed for about five hours, we all had a lot of laughs and we all got a little drunk for free on the Golf Channel’s generous tab.

It worked out even better for me.

They gave me a Golf Channel ball cap!

Palmer, incidentally, is a founder of Golf Channel and is apparently casual about obvious conflicts of interest. So it’s safe to assume those expecting some kind of hard-hitting exposé about Palmer never fixing his divots will have to look elsewhere.

But as the Sunday post-Masters debut approaches I find myself grappling with an odd sensation in my stomach. It is full of butterflies.

This would be disconcerting for anyone, but for me especially because my stomach is wondering why it is full of butterflies instead of beer.

My stomach’s very confused.

See, no one’s ever told me there’s a chance I’d ever be on national TV doing anything. It’s likely to be the most-watched program in the channel’s history.

And, guaranteed, everyone I know who golfs is going to be glued to the set. That’s a lot of people.

Golf and the social interactions to which it inevitably leads has been a big, joyful part of my life.

What if they use the dialogue where I reveal how being such close associates with Palmer has been one of the best parts of my career? Or about the times Palmer’s bestowed fatherly advice, or the warm bond we’ve forged over these past 10 years.

So an old friend might be watching and say, “Hey, hon, remember that Rodell kid  from the ‘80s I used to golf with and then go straight to the bar? He’s still in there.”

Editors at prestigious golf magazines with whom I once worked might be watching and say, “Well, he may have been BSing about his ability to write a coherent sentence on deadline, but I guess Rodell wasn’t lying when he said he knew Arnold Palmer.”

Arnold Palmer might be watching and say, “Who the hell is Chris Rodell?”

We’ve heard the producers shot over 3,000 hours of film. They were in The Pond filming for about five of those hours. Of that time, I was probably filmed for about 40 minutes.

So the odds of me being on for even a little bit are really pretty slim.

But — who knows? — maybe I dazzled. Maybe they’ll devote an entire episode to my insights.

Maybe I’ll get discovered. 

Maybe a publishing house will contact me with an offer of $100,000 to write the definitive Palmer biography.

Maybe some Hollywood producer will say, “By God, let’s get this dashing Rodell character to play Palmer in the biopic!”

Of course, I’m getting way ahead of myself.

I’ll be happy if even a few moments of my talk air.

And nothing will please me more than if the show features my good friends, Dick and Dave Carfang, and their great bar that’s been another Latrobe icon since 1954, almost before Palmer was old enough to legally drink.

See, I figure nothing that airs on the Golf Channel homage will change the fact that I’m already coming out ahead.

Because nothing they can say or do now will make me give them back their hat.

Related . . .

The Golf Channel doing Palmer interviews at The Pond

Golf Channel at The Pond: a recap

Arnold Palmer NOT attending my book signing

Arnold Palmer gave me boogies on Monday

Interviewing Arnold Palmer

Arnold and Elvis: cool things raining down on me