It was the year 1958. Arnold Palmer had arranged to play a practice round with Ben Hogan on the Monday before Masters week, early in the morning. A luxury that cannot be refused. There is no excuse that can prevent enjoying a day of training at Augusta with an absolute legend who had already been crowned there twice. Not even winning a tournament the day before. Exactly what happened to Palmer…
Hogan was then 45 years old, while the King of golf was 28. One was already a legend who had conquered the Grand Slam, while the other’s legend was just beginning to form. Palmer had not yet won any Major.
Let’s go back to the day before the meeting. Palmer was playing the final round of the St. Petersburg Open Invitational at the Pasadena Country Club course in Florida. The golfer from Latrobe, Pennsylvania, excelled and ended up winning the tournament with a total of eight under par. It was his eighth victory on the American circuit. As you can imagine, after the triumph, the trophy presentation and so on, it got very late for Palmer. But of course, he had an arrangement with Hogan…
He didn’t hesitate, got in the car and drove all night to reach Augusta National. About eight hours of travel. He was exhausted. Tired from the tournament, the journey, and mentally drained. But he went out to play. He had to. Right on time. Palmer’s round, as you can imagine, was a disaster. Every shot went in a different direction, always in trouble, from side to side… A nightmare.
They finished the practice round and went to the clubhouse to have something to eat. It was then that Palmer got up to wash his hands and heard Hogan in the distance commenting to the other two playing partners: “And this boy, how did he get into the Masters?” Imagine how Palmer played that day…
The story was told by Phil Mickelson, who heard it from Palmer himself. “Arnie told me that Hogan never called him by his name that day, neither Arnold nor Arnie, he always called him ‘boy’ and that he didn’t like it, it infuriated him. In fact, it was what motivated him the most to try to win the Masters and show what kind of player he was,” Phil recounts. Thirteen days after that practice round with Ben Hogan, on April 6th, Palmer won the first Masters of his career, his first Major.
