I have an Arnold Palmer story, too

my car — goes to the person with the highest score.

Rob was in a unique position to explain those traditions, having won the inaugural Bag with a 102 at Aubrey’s Dubbs Dred, back when the Butler County course only had nine holes. Rob would wear the green jacket two more times, including returning as defending champion this past summer. Discretion prevents me from revealing his 2015 score.

• the same. In the early years, Mr. Zip and his buddies played with us, acting as masters of ceremony.

About 200 different people, not all of them North Catholic grads, have played in the Bag, now a multi-day affair, since 1971: lawyers, accountants, financial advisers, a golf course superintendent, engineers, a dispatcher and journalists. Several of us have been lucky enough to have had three generations from our families play.

Brother Don was a Jack Nicklaus fan, but Arnie was my man. I adopted his pigeon-toed putting stance. I vividly remember watching his double bogey on 18 that cost him the 1961 Masters. Not to mention his collapse at the 1966 U.S. Open and what it did to a certain eighth-grade fan of his.

I was never introduced to Mr. Palmer. I ran into him on a number of occasions: when he and Mr. Nicklaus won the PGA’s national team championship at Laurel Valley in the early 1970s; at Oakmont in 1973, when Johnny Miller caught fire and ruined Mr. Palmer’s bid for a second U.S. Open title; at Bay Hill in Orlando in the mid-90s, when I detoured from a job interview for a pilgrimage to his course.

But from everything I’ve learned about Mr. Palmer, I’m convinced the tradition of the Bag, the idea of friends getting together year after year for bad golf and better beer, was what made him respond to Rob’s request.

• Mr. Palmer wrote.

Mr. Palmer must have known something, for Rob relinquished the jacket to six-time champion Eric Tegethoff.

At the end of another great Bag week, Rob collected all of our signatures and sent a thank you note to Mr. Giffin and Mr. Palmer. I meant to do the same.

Then our aunt died Aug. 2 after nine days in UPMC St. Margaret. At the same time, our daughter spent two weeks at UPMC Passavant and UPMC Presbyterian with what doctors thought could be lymphoma or liver cancer. It wasn’t. It was a severe case of the Epstein Barr virus that she is recovering from.

You could say those were legitimate excuses not to say thanks to Mr. Palmer. But they weren’t when you consider how much time he gave of himself, even during the last months of his long, rich life, to everyday Joes who lived and died on his every shot, whose love for this great game was inspired by his actions on and off the course. It’s what made him the King.

Thanks, Mr. Palmer, for making the day of some dedicated hackers. Sorry for being a few weeks late in saying it.