Palmer's last round recalls dubious start

He has had more swan songs than Tchaikovsky but yesterday Arnold Palmer prepared the ground for the long goodbye. Arnie will play in his final Masters, a record 50th in a row, after which he will make his exit down Magnolia Lane via a detour along Memory Lane.

Assuming - let's not get too sentimental about this - he misses the halfway cut, he will depart Augusta National for the last time, at least as a competitor, sometime after he completes his second round on Friday. Palmer struck his first Master's shot in 1955.

"From the first day I walked on Augusta, it was something special. I had looked forward to it for 25 years." Half a century ago Palmer, who won the US amateur title in 1954, appeared on the US Tour as a rookie pro, negotiating the circuit with his wife Winnie in a mobile trailer, if not a Winnebago.

Yesterday he arrived in Georgia from Florida in his private jet. Augusta proclaimed it Arnold Palmer Day and he was given a key to the city at the Georgia Golf Hall Of Fame after a reception at the Museum of History.

On his debut, long before the vast majority of players here had been born, Palmer shot 76, 76 - the halfway cut was not introduced until 1957 - 72 and 69, finishing joint 10th for which he received a crystal vase and $696 in prize money.

By 1958, when he arrived here for his fourth Masters, he was an emerging star and was in the thick of the action at the top of the leader board. In the final round he was paired with Ken Venturi. Because of heavy rain a local rule offering relief from plugged lies was introduced. It would lead to a controversy that cast a shadow over Arnie's first major triumph and is still raging today.

Palmer's tee shot on the par-three 12th plugged into the bank behind the green. He played the ball but took a double-bogey five. Then he played a second ball with which he made par. Three holes later, the Masters rules committee, which included Bobby Jones, told Palmer that his score of three with his second ball at the 12th would stand. Palmer went on to shoot 73 and won the first of his four green jackets by one stroke.

In his latest book, Playing By The Rules, Palmer says: "When I saw my ball was embedded behind the 12th green I called an official over, expecting him to give me the relief I was entitled to. He replied 'No, you don't do that at Augusta'.

"I replied: 'I'm going to play two balls and appeal to the committee.' I knew I had that option under rule 3-3a. The official said: 'You cannot do that either.' 'Well,' I said, 'that's exactly what I'm doing.'"

What Palmer did on the 12th is called "lift, clean and place" although it is also known as "lift, clean and cheat". Venturi, who never won the Masters, has reignited the debate in his own book, Getting Up And Down: My 60 Years In Golf. "Nobody, not even Palmer, is bigger than the game" he says. "He did wrong and he knows that I know he did wrong. Palmer did not declare he was going to play a second ball until after making a double bogey with the first one." Venturi is the only man in the world to question the John Wayne of golf.

"I felt then and I feel now," Palmer said, "that I followed the rules in both letter and spirit." On Arnold Palmer Day, in Augusta, nobody disagreed with him.