That Day 21 Years Ago, Casper Got Plenty of Help From Palmer

There was a brief, curious conversation on the 10th tee at the Olympic Club that summer Sunday 21 years ago.

“It looks like I’m going to have to work pretty hard for second, Arnie,” Billy Casper told Arnold Palmer.

Palmer recognized the comment for what it was--a plea for help. Often, in golf’s great championships, good play is contagious. A superior performance by one man can infect his playing companion.

That was the situation at about 3 p.m., when Casper and Palmer went to the 10th tee in the final round of the 1966 U.S. Open Championship.

Casper was playing with placid indifference; Palmer, golf’s most popular player, was at his swashbuckling best.

The scoreboard told the story:

Palmer, coming off his fourth birdie of the day, had completed the front in 32. He was beating Casper by seven shots with nine holes to play and was concerned only with breaking Ben Hogan’s Open scoring record.

Casper, sometimes called “The Ghost,” and more frequently “Buffalo Billy” because of an exotic diet, was one over par on the front nine and had no thoughts of winning.

“I was playing for second,” he recalled. Even that was in jeopardy. Jack Nicklaus, playing ahead of Casper and Palmer, was on the move and only 2 shots behind Billy.

And that is why Palmer interpreted Casper’s comment to mean: “Play well, Arnie, make birdies and maybe some of it will come my way, too. Maybe I can ride your coattails to second.”

“I’ll do what I can to help, Bill,” Palmer said.

Twenty-one years later, Palmer says: “Boy, I helped him plenty, didn’t I?”

Though it is well documented on film and in print, it still seems hard to believe that Palmer blew the record and the tournament.

His loss at Olympic is perhaps the best-known collapse in the history of this ancient game. And that’s the way it is usually recalled: not the Open that Billy won, but the Open Arnie lost.

“I don’t think he was ever the same after that,” Casper said.

Palmer, then 36 and at the top of his game, never again won a major although he came close a few times at the Open, Masters and PGA.

Palmer needed only a one-over-par 36 on the back nine to beat Hogan’s Open scoring record of 276. A bogey on the 10th, where Palmer missed the green, made the record even more enticing.

“I was thinking about Hogan,” Palmer said. “I held the British Open scoring record and I thought it’d be nice to have them both.”

Palmer and Casper parred the 11th. Palmer, trailed by a howling mob known as “Arnie’s Army,” birdied the 12th. So did Casper. But it didn’t seem to matter--Palmer still led by six with six holes left. And the record was still within reach.

“That birdie could have been the worst break I had,” Palmer said later. “It convinced me I could break the record.”

He was still convinced though he hit a 4-iron into the rough and bogeyed the par-3 13th. Casper made par and cut Palmer’s lead to five with five holes to play.

Both made par on the 14th, and Palmer had only to par out to win his second Open title. But Arnie, ever the charger, wanted the record. And that’s when things fell apart.

The 15th also is a par-3. Casper played a safe shot to the middle of the green. Palmer hitched up his britches and chose to challenge the bunker that guarded the green and the pin. As usual, he boldly went for the pin. “I was trying to play the perfect shot,” he wrote in “Go for Broke.” “I was going for the record, not just the title.”

The shot hesitated on the edge of the green, then trickled into the bunker. Palmer made bogey. Casper holed a 20-foot putt, and the lead was three with three to play.

“That hole changed everything,” Casper said. “I think he realized then that he could lose the Open. He had been swinging free and easy. After the 15th, he tightened up. I remember thinking, ‘Now I have a chance.’ ” The 16th is a monster of a par-5, 604 yards long.

Casper, first off the tee, played a cautious shot safely away from trouble.

“I knew I could play it safe and shut him off completely,” Palmer wrote. “I could take out a 1-iron and bump and nudge the ball down the fairway, keeping it under control.

“Then I thought of how I’d look to myself. ‘There goes Arnold Palmer, playing it safe with a 1-iron when he’s got a three-stroke lead with three holes to go.’

“I couldn’t do it.” Out came the driver.

He hooked his shot, hitting a tree some 150 yards out and dropping into deep rough. The second shot advanced it--into even deeper rough. His third was with a 9-iron, back to the fairway. He was still more than 250 yards from the hole and had played three shots. His fourth was with a fairway wood, which found a bunker. Casper, meanwhile, played a 2-iron second and what he called “a magnificent 5-iron” third to within 13 feet of the flag.

Palmer got up and down for bogey; Casper made the putt. There was a one-shot lead.

“It was about that time that some of Arnie’s Army were becoming Casper Converts,” Casper said.

On the par-4 17th, Palmer again hooked his drive into trouble. Casper pushed his tee shot. Each failed to reach with their seconds. Casper pitched to four feet. Palmer, in deep rough, got it to about eight.

From his knock-kneed putting stance, Palmer, the go-for-broke guy himself, stroked the putt dead at the heart of the cup. It stopped short. “One lousy inch short,” Palmer said. Another bogey.

Casper made par, and they were tied.

On the final hole, Palmer again hooked into the rough.

“And the way the ball was sitting,” Palmer wrote, “I figured that I wouldn’t hit it more than halfway to the green with that club (a 9-iron). But I put everything I had--every muscle that could be brought to bear--into that shot.”

He got the ball within 25 feet. Casper had played two shots to about 17 feet. Palmer’s first putt stopped short, about three or four feet. Under a continuous play rule then in effect, Palmer was required to putt out.

“I remember looking at that putt and thinking, ‘Everything is on the line here. My pride. My business. My livelihood.’ ” He made it. Casper two-putted for par, and they were tied.

In the anticlimax of a Monday playoff, Casper beat Palmer by four shots. But it all turned on those three holes--15 through 17--where Billy made up five shots, where Arnie let it all come apart.

“Everybody’s different. I don’t think I ever met anybody, or heard of anybody, who could handle the heat every day,” Palmer said afterward.

“But if anybody ever thinks about it, or remembers, I hope they’ll remember they were watching a guy trying just as hard as he possibly could.”