His plane carried his cremated remains for a wide sweep over the airport that bears his name and the town he always called home, the farewell flyover ending with a full-throttle blast over the runway and a steep climb into the sky. It was the same maneuver Arnold Palmer always enjoyed doing when he piloted his aircraft for 55 years.
Less than an hour later, the remains of the most famous golfer of all time were spread on a bluff behind the swimming pool at Latrobe Country Club, not far from the 10th tee, right next to where the remains of his first wife, Winnie, were spread when she died 17 years earlier.
Almost magically, on a gray day when even the heavens were sad about the death of golf’s most iconic hero, a brilliant rainbow stretched across portions of Latrobe, letting everyone know the King was playing through.
READ MORE: PG Interactive: Remembering Arnold Palmer
Today, five days after his family said goodbye in a private ceremony, friends, associates and the public that adored him will remember and celebrate the life of Arnold Palmer at 11 a.m. at a memorial service at the basilica on the Saint Vincent College campus. Even though he was Presbyterian, Palmer would occasionally attend Sunday Mass at the basilica because of his long friendship with Archabbot Douglas Nowicki.
Jack Nicklaus, his longtime friend and chief rival in the 1960s, will be among the speakers who will remember Palmer for the manner in which he popularized their sport and the impact he had on countless golfers in the United States and around the world. Also speaking at the service will be PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem, former LPGA Tour commissioner and longtime friend Charlie Meacham and former LPGA Tour star Annika Sorenstam. The service will be televised live by the Golf Channel.
The runway at the Arnold Palmer Regional Airport, located directly across Route 30 from the Saint Vincent campus, is expected to be littered with private jets carrying people from the world of golf who will come to celebrate the life of the King, a nickname Palmer once said he never really liked.
“I’m no more a King than Doc is a doctor,” Palmer said in a 2005 interview, a reference to his longtime press secretary and right-hand man, Donald “Doc” Giffin.
Giffin, a Crafton native who left a job with the PGA Tour to join Palmer in 1966, is among the many people who are trying to adjust to life without the seven-time major champion. He, along with the three secretaries in Palmer’s Latrobe office, were the only non-family members at the private service Thursday.
“The office feels different,” Giffin said. “We would always be here waiting for him to come down to start the day.”
Giffin said that until Palmer’s health began to decline, his daily routine was basically the same: He would come to the office at approximately 8:30 a.m., spend a couple of hours at his desk handling business, head to the workshop at approximately 10:30 a.m. to work on golf clubs, have lunch at the club and head to the course to either hit balls or play golf with his buddies.
That, though, all changed several years ago, after a series of health and physical problems, including spinal stenosis, began a slow decline. When he fell and dislocated his shoulder in December 2014, Palmer never really played golf again, even though he would ride around the course with his bag on the back of the cart.
Palmer showed up four months later and still hit the ceremonial first tee shot at the Masters, a ritual he had performed since 2007. But that was the last time he performed the honor.
This year, he had to be driven in a cart to the first tee at Augusta National Golf Club to accompany his friends, Nicklaus and Gary Player, as the honorary starters. But, weak and unsteady on his feet, Palmer never hit a shot. He even declined a suggestion from Nicklaus to merely putt a ball on the first tee, just to give the patrons an opportunity to see him a strike a ball one more time.
Such was Palmer’s popularity.
“He was a man who liked people,” Giffin said. “That’s why he had such a great rapport with everybody, with commoners and kings. He was that kind of warm individual. I never ran into a personality like him.
“I often shook my head how he tolerated fools when nobody else would. It was crazy sometimes some of the people he put up with. It didn’t bother him. He didn’t look at it the way I would.”
Giffin was a sports writer with The Pittsburgh Press when he met Palmer for the first time in 1959 at a cocktail party before the Western Open, a PGA Tour event that was being played that year at Pittsburgh Field Club. In 1962, Giffin went to work as a media official for the PGA Tour and remained in that role for five years.
At the Florida Citrus Open in Orlando, Fla., in March 1966, Giffin was walking through the dining area when Palmer, sitting alone in the corner, called him over.
“It was very unusual for him to be by himself; there was always a ton of people around him,” Giffin said. “He called me over and asked if I’d be interested in working for him. He said they needed another person in the office and offered me the job. I accepted quickly, but not on the spot. I wanted to be sure I wanted to leave the tour because I enjoyed that job, too.”
But not like this.
In July 2015, Giffin celebrated 50 years since he accepted Palmer’s invitation and began working for the player who won 62 times on the PGA Tour. That relationship ended 10 days ago when Palmer, 87, died while awaiting heart valve replacement surgery at UPMC Shadyside
It has not been easy for Giffin. Last week, the night before the private funeral, he attended a dinner for Dennis Darak, who was retiring after 43 years as executive director of the Tri-State section of the PGA of America. Giffin read a congratulatory letter to Darak that Palmer had written weeks earlier.
“From a professional standpoint, the best description I can use is integrity,” Giffin said of his boss. “He was successful in business because he was totally a man of integrity in all of his business dealings.”
Gerry Dulac: gdulac@post-gazette.com.
First Published: October 3, 2016, 4:27 p.m.
Updated: October 4, 2016, 4:05 a.m.
