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Arnold Palmer gives a thumbs up before the ceremonial first tee shot at this year's Masters.
Arnold Palmer gives a thumbs up before the ceremonial first tee shot at this year’s Masters.
Randy Youngman Staff columnist mug for The Orange County Register

The King is dead. Long live the memories.

Arnold Palmer, arguably the most popular and most charismatic golfer in history, is gone, but he will never be forgotten. As Jack Nicklaus, his longtime friend and rival, said during Arnie’s memorial service in Latrobe, Pa., “Remember when Arnold Palmer touched your life, touched your heart. And please don’t forget why.”

That process began for the pros on the PGA Tour Champions during the Toshiba Classic last month at Newport Beach Country Club, the first Champions event since Palmer’s death on Sept. 25 at age 87.

Fittingly, there was a moment of silence in the opening round, when play on every hole was suspended for one minute and all 81 pros opened and raised one of Palmer’s four-colored Bay Hill umbrellas.

It was an emotional day during an emotional week for Jay Haas, a longtime friend of Palmer’s who went on to win the Toshiba Classic several days after joining a group of tour pros who flew to the memorial service on a private jet chartered by the tournament. Haas said the service was uplifting and moving and inspired his superlative play on the way to his 18th Champions tour victory, at age 62.

“It was an amazing day for an amazing man,” Haas said in Newport Beach. “I’m not eloquent enough to come up with anything original, but it was just a wonderful day to celebrate his life, and I was glad I was there to see it firsthand.”

Haas and Hale Irwin, who also attended the service, each got emotional talking about how Palmer’s private jet – with the famous tail number N1AP – flew above Saint Vincent Basilica for an hour before the service and made a final pass after it concluded.

“When we came out of the church, it kind of flew in front of us and banked; it couldn’t have been more than a couple thousand feet off the ground,” Haas told me. “Then it went behind the church, came back around again and went straight up (and disappeared). It was like, you know …”

Like it was on its way to heaven?

“Yeah, it went off out of sight,” Haas said. “I’m just getting chills talking about it.”

“The airplane went up through the cloud and never emerged again,” Irwin said. “It’s like the cloud absorbed it. … I get goose bumps right now thinking about it.”

Even in death, Arnold Palmer continues to touch lives.

“He was golf’s greatest ambassador,” said Peter Jacobsen, another longtime friend and one of a dozen Champions pros who attended the memorial service and returned to play in Newport Beach. “There have been better players, but nobody had more of an impact on the game than Arnold. He was an uncommon superstar, because he never acted like one. He was a close friend of everybody’s – everybody out here (on tour) and everybody in the game of golf. There will never be anybody like Arnold Palmer. Ever.”

A trendy debate among golf cognoscenti has centered on whether Nicklaus or Tiger Woods is the greatest golfer in history, but what golf historians will never argue is that it was Palmer and his magnetic personality that popularized golf in the 1960s, helping turn the gentleman’s game into a major television and participatory sport.

In short, Palmer thrilled the large galleries that became known as “Arnie’s Army” because they could relate to him. He was a chain-smoker with a herkyjerky homemade swing; he was good-looking and personable; and he wore his exhilaration, anger and frustration on his sleeve. Most important, he interacted with spectators as he played, making eye contact, smiling and waving as they applauded, always staying long after a round to sign autographs.

“He made everybody feel like you were his best friend,” said Champions pro Paul Goydos of Coto de Caza. “I don’t think we’re ever again going to have someone with that kind of charisma, that kind of presence – an ability to walk into every situation and feel comfortable, an ability to talk to heads of state and the guy mowing the fairway, the guy who shoots 80 wearing shorts at Rec Park and the guy who’s a member at Augusta National.”

Yes, Arnold Palmer was truly special, one of kind, but he will never be forgotten.

“We’ll all miss him, but he’s not gone,” Irwin said. “People that you admire and love, they’re still in your heart and in your spirit.”

Amen. Long live the memories.