READ TODAY'S STORIES AND E-EDITION SUBSCRIBE |  CONTACT US |  SIGN IN
Sports Extra!



SPORTS EXTRA BLOGS

FOR THE RECORD
LOCAL PROS

ALL SPORTS

PHOTOS & VIDEOS

OUTDOORS

FIND A STORY

EMAIL ALERTS

SOCIAL MEDIA

RSS FEEDS

CONTACT US
BUY PHOTOS & PAGES

ADVERTISE ON SPORTS EXTRA


Print story only Print story with comments Email Twitter Facebook Pinterest
Arnie Speaks
Published: 6/13/2007 4:31 PM
Last Modified: 6/13/2007 4:31 PM

Arnold Palmer, golf icon and retired general of Arnie's Army, took a turn in the interview room on the eve of the 2007 U.S. Open.
Palmer, who is from Latrobe, Pa., first played Oakmont Country Club before he was a teen-ager. He predicted that much of the field is not ready for Oakmont.
"There are courses that I've played over the years that I could play a practice round or two and feel pretty comfortable that I knew how to play it," he said.
"In this case, Oakmont just doesn't happen to be that kind of golf course. It's the kind of golf course that I've played, well, since I was 12 years old. And I'm not even sure now that I know every shot that I should hit if I could hit it.
"This golf course particularly is one that if you haven't played it and played it enough to understand it, which I just said I'm not sure I understand it totally in all these years. But if you haven't (played it enough), then your chances aren't very good. You're not going to just come here in a day or two and play this golf course under the conditions that you're going to be playing under and eat this golf course alive. If you do, two things are going to be happening. You're going to be playing good and lucky as hell."
Palmer also weighed in on a few other subjects during a question and answer session that lasted nearly 40 minutes.
--On strategy at Oakmont: "If you stay below the hole -- generally if you're below the hole or uphill at the hole -- you have a pretty good shot. And if you can do that for 72 holes, I would give the guy that can do that, hit the fairways and stay below the hole most of the time, the best chance to win this tournament."
--On whether Oakmont is the hardest or greatest golf course in the country:
"I don't always consider a golf course that is hard a great golf course. I think that Oakmont just happens to have that characteristic of being a great golf course and a very hard golf course.
"I don't think this golf course is going to be probably even close to as hard as they could make it. It won't be, because then it wouldn't be much fun and it wouldn't be as entertaining of a golf tournament as we want to see."
--On whether the USGA sets up U.S. Open courses to be too difficult: "I think sometimes they don't set it up as tough as they should, and I'm serious about that. When I was playing, I felt even stronger about that. And I've heard some players say today to me 'the golf course is tough. I wish they would have made it tougher.' "
--On how the course set-up will affect the 156-player field: "They didn't pick anybody out and say 'we're going to set this golf course up for you.' It's the same for everybody that tees off. You could say that Tiger Woods is the favorite. Hey, I'm not going to disagree with you. But he still has to play the golf course. He has to do it the same as Joe Porridge who has never been here. He has the same opportunity as Tiger Woods. All he has to do is hit that ball in the right place, put it in the right place and then putt it in the hole."
--On whether Phil Mickelson can bounce back from last year's final-hole collapse at the U.S. Open: "He played pretty well for most of the tournament at Winged Foot. I can't tell you how Phil's going to react. I've talked to him, the other night for some time, and he seemed pretty confident that he was hitting the ball well. And I would say that he'll brush away last year and go into this tournament with the thought of winning, much as he did last year.
"I don't think that what happened last year at Winged Foot is nearly as serious as how well he played at the Players Championship. I think any insecurity he had was wiped away by his play at Ponte Vedra."
--On how he managed to cope with failures like the one Mickelson experienced last year: "One thing that I've always tried to keep in my mind when I was playing and living through the disasters that I had, and I had plenty of them, was that my father once said to me when I had a little problem with my game and wasn't doing very well, he said, 'Arnie, just remember one thing. It's a game. Play it like a game.' I tried to do that.
"If you're going to suffer over disasters, heck, I wouldn't be here today. I would be gone because I've had so many of them that I can't count them. I look at my Open record and you can see a few of them there."



Reader Comments


To post comments on tulsaworld.com, you must be an active Tulsa World print or digital subscriber and signed into your account.


Games People Play

Tulsa World sports writer Jimmie Tramel is a former class president at Locust Grove High School. He graduated magna cum laude from Northeastern State University with a journalism degree and, while attending college, was sports editor of the Pryor Daily Times. He joined the Tulsa World on Oct. 17, 1989, the same day an earthquake struck the World Series. He is the OSU basketball beat writer and a columnist and feature writer during football season. In 2007, he wrote a book about Oklahoma State football with former Cowboy coach Pat Jones.

Follow Jimmie Tramel on Twitter

Subscribe to this blog


Archive

 
Jimmie Tramel's Blog Archive:

2/2013  1/2013  12/2012  11/2012  10/2012  9/2012  
8/2012  7/2012  6/2012  5/2012  4/2012  3/2012  
2/2012  1/2012  12/2011  11/2011  10/2011  9/2011  
8/2011  7/2011  6/2011  5/2011  4/2011  3/2011  
2/2011  1/2011  12/2010  11/2010  10/2010  9/2010  
8/2010  7/2010  6/2010  5/2010  4/2010  3/2010  
2/2010  1/2010  12/2009  11/2009  10/2009  9/2009  
8/2009  7/2009  6/2009  5/2009  4/2009  3/2009  
2/2009  1/2009  12/2008  11/2008  10/2008  9/2008  
8/2008  7/2008  6/2008  5/2008  4/2008  3/2008  
2/2008  1/2008  12/2007  11/2007  10/2007  9/2007  
8/2007  7/2007  6/2007  5/2007  4/2007  3/2007  
2/2007  1/2007  12/2006  11/2006  10/2006  9/2006  
8/2006  





Home | Contact Us | Search | Subscribe | Customer Service | About | Advertise
Copyright © 2013, World Publishing Co. All rights reserved.