Arnold Palmer, a Scottsdale Practice Green, and the Worst Putting Advice I Ever Gave
📚 The Richard Archives: A true story from a lifetime of unexpected encounters, adventures, and memories worth preserving.
Desert Mountain Golf Club – 1996
The playing of the Tradition at Desert Mountain on the Cochise Course, one of the five Jack Nicklaus designed courses there- what was called back then – a Senior Tour event.
I got there at O-dark-thirty.
The sun was just beginning to creep over Pinnacle Peak, and I was setting up my booth on the path leading to the clubhouse.
Nobody was around.
Then I heard it.
Clickety-clack. Clickety-clack.
Golf spikes on concrete.
Somebody was coming up the walkway toward the practice green.
I figured it was an early bird getting some work in.
The footsteps stopped at my booth.
I turned around.
Holy crap.
Arnold Palmer.
I had convinced the owner of the resort where I worked to sponsor a booth at the tournament.
Golf had a way of putting me in places I never expected to be. It eventually led to more than twenty years working around televised professional golf—a story I tell in Twenty Years Inside the Ropes: How I Became a TV Golf Spotter, 1987–2010.
Naturally, my reward for this brilliant idea was that I got to work the booth.
They had parked me just outside the men’s locker room, near the practice green.
As it turned out, I couldn’t have asked for a better location.
And there stands the King, in the flesh.
He picked up one of my brochures and started leafing through it.
“Stayed there once during the Phoenix Open. Nice place,” he said.
I don’t remember what brilliant response I gave him.
Probably because I was standing there thinking:
That’s Arnold freaking Palmer.
Then he asked if I played golf.
Somehow I managed to stammer a yes.
Then Arnold Palmer said something I certainly wasn’t expecting:
“Walk with me.”
He was headed to the practice green just behind my booth.
When Arnold Palmer asks you to walk with him to a practice green, you walk.
Arnold Palmer Asked Me for Putting Advice
He dropped a couple of balls onto the putting green and looked at me.
“Mind checking my alignment while I hit a couple?”
I looked at him.
You want ME to check YOUR alignment?
This was Arnold Palmer.
I was pretty sure the man knew where to point a putter.
He was obviously having a little fun with me, so I stepped behind him, checked the line, and gave him my expert assessment.
“You’re good“
He rolls one… and it drifts off low — “the amateur side.”
He straightens up, gives me a wink, and says:
“Do me a favor — head back to your booth and don’t quit your day job.”
Classic Arnie. A little mischief, total class. I’ll never forget the morning I met the King.
Five Minutes With the King
That was it.
No formal introduction.
No photograph.
No autograph.
Nothing viral about it.
Just a few minutes on a practice green early one morning in Scottsdale.
But that’s what stayed with me.
Arnold Palmer could have walked straight past my booth without saying a word. Instead, he stopped, looked through my brochure, struck up a conversation, invited me to walk with him, and then had a little fun at my expense.
Arnold Palmer wasn’t the only golf legend who caught me completely off guard over the years. There was also the day I picked up a telephone and heard another unmistakable voice on the other end—a story I told in The Day Jack Nicklaus Answered the Phone.
I didn’t mind.
Arnold Palmer had just asked me to check his putting alignment.
How many hackers like me get to say that?
I’ve met quite a few interesting people through golf over the years, but some encounters stick with you because of how completely unexpected they were.
Another one came at Muirfield in 1992, when my work in golf put me in the middle of a very different encounter with Nick Faldo. I wrote about that one in The Day I Called Faldo Home — Muirfield 1992.
This one certainly did.
I went to Desert Mountain that morning because somebody had to work the booth.
I came home with a story I’ve been telling ever since.
And for the record, Arnold Palmer was right.
I didn’t quit my day job.
🗣️ Your Turn
Sometimes the best encounters are the ones you never saw coming.
I wasn’t standing in line for an autograph or hoping to meet Arnold Palmer. I was working a booth before sunrise when I heard golf spikes coming up the walkway—and suddenly the King was standing there looking through my brochures.
Have you ever unexpectedly met someone famous, someone you admired, or simply someone you never imagined you’d get a chance to talk with?
Did they live up to your expectations? Surprise you? Make you laugh? Or leave you with a story you’ve been telling ever since?
Finish this sentence:
“The person I never expected to meet was __________, and the thing I still remember about them is __________.”
Tell us your story in the comments. And if Arnold Palmer ever asked you to check his putting alignment, I hope you did a better job than I did.
📚 Continue Exploring
Golf has put me in some unexpected places over the years—and introduced me to more than a few unforgettable characters. Here are a couple more stories from that part of my life.
📺 Inside the Ropes: ABC Sports & the 1988 Desert Scramble
A behind-the-scenes look at professional golf television and what really happened inside the ropes during the 1988 Desert Scramble.
⛳ Cart Path Rage: Why We Snap on the Course—and How to Keep Your Cool
Golf is supposed to be relaxing. Then somebody does something on the course that makes you wonder why you ever took up the game.
⚠️ Bunker Rule
For the golfers reading this: relax. This isn’t that kind of bunker.
Nobody needs a sand wedge, you don’t have to open the clubface, and Arnold Palmer isn’t standing behind you wondering why it took three shots to get out.
This bunker is for the conversation.
Golf memories are funny things. Two people can attend the same tournament, follow the same player, or remember the same era and come away with completely different stories. That’s part of what makes them worth sharing.
If you met Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, or another golfer you admired, tell us about it. If your memory differs from mine, that’s fine too. We’re swapping stories here, not signing scorecards.
Keep it friendly, respect somebody else’s memory, and remember: improving your lie is permitted in this bunker only if you’re telling a really good story.
📌 Bunker Notice
This story is based on my personal recollection of meeting Arnold Palmer at The Tradition at Desert Mountain in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Many years have passed since that morning. The encounter, the practice green, Palmer’s sense of humor, and his memorable advice to me are presented as I remember them. Conversations from decades ago should be understood as recollection rather than a word-for-word transcript.
This isn’t an attempt to document Arnold Palmer’s career or write golf history. It’s simply the story of one unexpected morning when one of the greatest names in golf stopped at my booth, invited me to the practice green, and somehow talked me into checking his putting alignment.
The Richard Archives preserves memories like this not because they made history, but because they made a life.
And for the record, I followed the King’s advice. I didn’t quit my day job.