Taming the Shrew

"I don't know what's wrong," muttered Defending Champion Arnold Palmer on the eve of last week's British Open at Troon, Scotland. "My back hurts. My drives are straying off to the right. I don't know if I'll ever learn how to putt again. I'm just terrible--and I don't even want to talk about it." A photographer caught Palmer in a rare moment of pique (see cut), after a 4-ft. putt went awry during a practice round. But his complaints cut few divots with Britain's bookmakers, who installed him as the 2-to-1 favorite, or with his fellow pros. "Don't you worry about old Arnie," drawled Sam Snead. "'There ain't nothin' wrong with him that a two-stroke lead won't fix. He's just trying to sweet-talk that tough old course into lyin' down and playin' dead."

Hard by the Firth of Clyde, the 84-year-old Troon course has the teeth of a tiger and the temperament of a capricious shrew. It was at Troon in the 1923 British Open that 21-year-old Gene Sarazen, cocky 1922 U.S. Open champion, teed off into a howling gale sweeping in unannounced from the slate-grey firth, shot a horrendous 85, and caught the next boat home. Even in the sunniest of weather, the championship 7,045-yd. course is a clutching jungle of harsh gorse, spiny Scotch broom and impenetrable whin bushes. Ditchlike burns and sheerfaced bunkers dot the threadbare fairways; the postage-stamp greens are stubbly and unpredictable. Commuter trains clatter past while golfers sweat over tricky putts, and yowling jet airliners swoop low to land at Prestwick, only two miles away.

"It's Impossible." Britain's best golfer, 49-year-old Dai Rees. who lost to Palmer by one stroke last year, failed to survive the 36-hole cut; so did Gene Littler, the 1961 U.S. Open champion, and South Africa's Gary Player, winner of the 1961 Masters. Complaining bitterly about the smaller British ball.*young Jack Nicklaus, conqueror of Palmer in the U.S. Open (TIME cover, June 29). sprayed himself out of contention with a first round 80. "An 80?" he moaned. "It's impossible. I can't shoot 80."

But if Nicklaus and the rest were be wildered by Troon, Palmer was not. Wearing longjohns, his sore back swabbed with liniment, he fired a first-round 71 that left him tied for third. "I'm leaving putts hanging all over the map." he groaned as he headed for the clubhouse. And if that was the kind of sweet-sour talk old Troon liked to hear, it certainly worked.

Next day, Palmer's cold putter suddenly turned hot: he shot a three-under-par 69 that put him two strokes ahead of the fast-fading pack. The critical play came at the fearsome. 485-yd. eleventh hole--"the worst hole I've ever played," said Palmer--where three players already had scored sextuple-bogey elevens and Nicklaus later staggered to a ten. Splitting the narrow fairway with a No. 1 iron. Palmer sent a No. 2 iron shot whistling onto the green, just 20 ft. from the pin. Coolly, he stepped up and sank the putt for an eagle 3.

"It Was Shocking." On the final day, Palmer took a lesson from his wife. "You're moving your head when you putt," she said. "I am?" "Yes, you are."

Then he strode jauntily to the first tee, and launched the finest exhibition of championship golf that Britain has ever seen. It was typical Palmer golf, a mixture of brute strength and tender finesse: his drives boomed out 320 yds. from the tee, his approaches dug fiercely into the greens, and every putt had eyes only for the cup.

Excited fans swarmed down the fair way, trampling greens and slugging cops in their eagerness to get a glimpse of the broad-shouldered American. Said one Scot galleryite: "It was shocking. He never played anything safe." Said Palmer; "I have never--I mean never--played better golf." In the morning round he fired a 67; in the afternoon, a 69. His 72-hole total of 276, twelve under par, gave him a six-stroke victory and clipped two strokes off the British Open record. British sportswriters spent their superlatives. Pocketing a $3,920 check that ran his unofficial 1962 winnings to $75,034. Palmer said: "I'm just praying I can keep this up for another two weeks." Just ahead: the Professional Golfers' Association championship in Newtown Square, Pa., the only one of golf's four major tournaments that he has never won.

*:' It measures 1.62 in. in diameter v. the U.S. ball's 1.68 in. Although the difference is minute (both balls weigh 1.62 oz.), its effect is large, particularly on putting and driving: Palmer and Nicklaus averaged an extra 40 yds. on tee shots with the British ball, but Nicklaus had trouble controlling the extra-long drives. * Rarely mastered by amateurs, the flat-faced No. 1 iron is often used for tee shots by pros when accuracy is more important than distance. Palmer hits a No. 1 iron about 250 yds., v. 280 with a driver.

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