PALMER IN THE DESERT
In 1973, on the fifth day of the Bob Hope Desert Classic, Arnold Palmer stood in the rain eight feet from the hole on the 18th green at Bermuda Dunes, staring down a chance at birdie and victory. Playing without his rain suit, which he’d ditched earlier in the day, Palmer made the shot for a closing round 69, hurled his visor over the crowd and celebrated what turned out to be his 62nd and last win on the PGA Tour’s regular season (see sidebar: “Palmer’s 62nd”). It was a fitting setting—and a fitting audience.
Over its history, “The Hope” was known primarily for the celebrities who attended to play or to watch, and 1973 wasn’t short of those: executives Oscar Mayer and Harold Florsheim; singers Frank Sinatra and Glen Campbell; athletes Al Kaline and John Hadl; Bob Hope himself, of course, and numerous others were on hand to see history made in the rain. Vice President Spiro Agnew—a former pro-am partner of Palmer’s at the event—was meant to be there but had to be away to deal with the cease-fire in Vietnam. “I think my not playing is part of the cease-fire,” the Vice President said, according to a PGATOUR.com article by Jim McCabe, while Hope joked that Agnew’s absence helped Palmer’s great play.
But then Palmer had always played well here—when he was able. In his rookie year of 1955, Palmer hitched the trailer to his car and drove to the desert with Winnie, with whom he’d eloped just days before the Christmas of
It was the setting for one of his biggest collection of wins, the site of interactions with celebrities and U.S. Presidents. It holds a restaurant named for him, some of his best golf course designs, and even a place he called home. Arnold Palmer won in the desert, he worked in the desert, he lived in the desert, and he played in the desert. A world away from his homes in Pennsylvania and Florida, Palmer made his mark in the sand, but it might as well have been in stone
1954. He wasn’t eligible to play what was then called the Thunderbird Invitational but he wanted to see what it was all about. The following year he was in the tournament, and in 1959, one year after winning the first of his four Masters titles, he took his first victory under the desert sun, with a thrilling final round 62, tying the course record.
Palm Springs Life magazine reported that the Thunderbird Country Club, host to the Invitational and to the 1955 Ryder Cup, saw nearly 5,000 people show up to see Palmer play that year—2,000 more than had showed to watch the Ryder competition.
The following year the tournament changed its name to the Palm Springs Desert Golf Classic and Palmer won the inaugural version of that, then took it again in 1962. Three desert victories under his belt, Palmer kept going after his friend Bob Hope took over as host in 1965. Victories in 1968 and ’71, and his final win in ’73, brought his Desert Classic total to five and his desert victory total to six. No one else has equaled five victories here, and Palmer won no other event as many times.
An ambassador for the tournament as much as he was a competitor in it, Palmer played in 42 Desert Classics over 43 years, missing it only in 1997 when he underwent surgery for prostate cancer. In 2001, the second-to-last year in which he appeared in the tournament, Palmer became the first pro in 22 years to shoot his age, making a 1-under 71 on the course he designed at PGA West.