July 2015: An interview with Arnold Palmer on his last visit to Britain and only a few months before his death.
Palmer swept into the room like an ageing film star, a cardigan the colour of a pillar box around his neck and the sleeves of his jacket rolled up almost to the elbows. For a moment he didn’t like a man of 85 but the Palmer of old, one reminiscence following another, each a reminder of the forcefield of his personality and how attractive his golf had been to watch.
At one point the great man said: “I like you. You remind me of Pat Ward Thomas.” [The gifted golf writer for The Guardian who wrote lyrical essays in Country Life magazine.] I hummed with pleasure. No higher praise could be given by a golfer to a golf writer.
John Hopkins was Golf Correspondent of The Times from 1993 to 2010 and only the second non-American to be presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award in Journalism by the PGA of America.
Memory added on February 16, 2021
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