Charles and Diana, on Last U.S. Stop, Bring New Gloss to Palm Beach

Finishing a whirlwind American visit, Prince Charles scored a goal Tuesday to help his polo team win a friendly match, and the crowd of 12,000 cheered as his wife, Diana, presented the trophy to the winning team.

Charles shrugged off an errant shot that hit him in the right shoulder to score a second-half goal for the Palm Beach polo team, which defeated an all-star squad, 11-10. Early in the match at the posh Palm Beach Polo and Country Club, he almost fell off his horse, but he managed to recover and pull his mount upright.

The prince, wearing a bright green shirt displaying a No. 4 and playing defensive back, used a string of thoroughbred ponies chosen for him by his polo manager.

The prince, who plays with a 4 handicap out of a possible 10, is “sort of a good-to-very good player,” said Michael Shea, press secretary for Buckingham Palace.

Diana, the Princess of Wales, watched from a grandstand box under a yellow-and-white-striped canopy and presented the captain of the winning team with the two-foot Princess of Wales Trophy, topped with a figure of a player aboard a rearing horse. She gave her husband and the other players smaller trophies.

Between every period--called a chukker--the billboard flashed “it’s divot-stopping time,” and members of the sellout crowd rushed onto the field with their binoculars for a view of the princess.

Overhead, small planes flew two banners. One read, “Charles and Diana, Please Help to Free Ireland” and gave the phone number of the Irish American Unity Conference, a Texas-based organization that supports unification of British-administered Northern Ireland with the Irish Republic.

Several minutes later, another banner, saying “Tennis Tomorrow, Diana?” flew by. The second banner listed the phone number and name of a local newspaper columnist. A helicopter soon appeared to ward off the airplanes.

After a brief rest, the royal couple went to the plush Breakers Hotel for a dinner in honor of Armand Hammer, chairman of the Occidental Petroleum Corp.

Sales from the $10,000-per-couple tickets raised more than $4 million for Hammer’s United World College of the American West in Montezuma, N.M.. The prince is the international president of the college, which brings together gifted students from around the world for studies that emphasize world peace and public service.

The dinner master and mistress of ceremonies were Merv Griffin and Eva Gabor. The dinner’s guest list included Bob Hope, former California Gov. and Mrs. Edmund G. (Pat) Brown, Victor Borge, film executive Sherry Lansing, actor Gregory Peck, television and sports magnate Ted Turner and actress Joan Collins and her new husband, Peter Holm.

However, the dinner--which included a menu of salmon and fresh vegetables and a dessert called Coupe Diana--was not without its problems. When local residents became upset that very little of the money raised from the event was staying in Palm Beach, college trustees voted to give $75,000 to the Palm Beach community.

Hammer, whose longstanding belief in better relations with the Soviet Union rubs against the conservative views of many local people here, was also criticized for sending most of the 500 invitations to non-Palm Beachers.

Mary Sanford, Palm Beach’s chief society arbiter, was reportedly miffed at the controversies surrounding the dinner and resigned as a key organizer and left town.

To complicate things a bit more, Patricia Kluge, 36, wife of former Metromedia Chairman John Kluge and general chairwoman of the event, resigned and left the country after it became public that she had posed nude in a British magazine in the 1970s.

But Hammer, who with his wife, Frances, flew here this morning in a corporate jet, seemed to take it all in stride.

“I have faith in the people of Palm Beach that everything will go well,” he said. “I’ve been a resident of Palm Beach for 50 years. I know the people of Palm Beach.”

The royal couple spent the night at the Palm Beach Polo Club, where club president William Ylvisaker gave the couple the use of a villa as a wedding present in 1981, according to British Embassy spokesman Andrew Burns.

The exclusive club includes about a dozen polo fields as well as expensive homes and an airfield where residents can park their planes next to their homes.

Charles and Diana arrived in this East Coast Florida resort of the super-rich on a Royal Air Force VC-10, with the flags of Britain and the United States flying from the top of its cockpit.

They were greeted by Florida Gov. Bob Graham and several hundred invited spectators, some of whom had waited more than two hours in the bright sun.

Graham said he chatted with Charles about polo and quoted the prince as saying he hopes to come back to Florida and play more. In 1980, during a match here, Charles was treated for heat exhaustion.

Among the spectators was Elizabeth Watts, of Carl Springs, who came with the “Wedgwoods”--a local chapter of a national group of people who are natives of Britain. The British Embassy gave the faithful 10 tickets for the arrival ceremony.

“I’ve just got to go,” Nancy Alpert, 13, told her mother. “I’ve been keeping a scrapbook since they got engaged. I’m so excited about seeing her.”

Today, the royal couple leaves on a flight home--ending more than two weeks in Australia and the United States.

On Tuesday in Palm Beach, though the crowds were smaller than in Washington, interest still centered on Diana. Said one British woman quietly: “The Royal Family has been quite dowdy. We’re hoping that with Diana we’ll get some good genes in the family.”