Tom Callahan’s ‘Arnie: The Life of Arnold Palmer’ bursting with creativity, research

After reading Tom Callahan’s take on Arnold Palmer’s life, it makes you wish the veteran author was a more prolific writer. This is his eighth book, all sports related, and his first one since 2010.

Callahan’s new book, Arnie: The Life of Arnold Palmer, which came out Tuesday, is bursting with creativity and research, making it not just another of the Palmer biographies that have flooded the market since The King’s death in September.

Callahan somehow ties such literary and film references as Lost Horizon, It’s a Wonderful Life, Of Mice and Men and Winesburg, Ohio, into a book about an iconic golfer and makes it work.

He titles most of the early chapters by a year, listing the tournaments Palmer won that year and recapping a highlight of that season. The chapters are all chronological except the first one, 1960, when Palmer won the U.S. Open in dramatic fashion. Callahan chose to start there because he writes that was when Palmer “formally became Palmer.”

Callahan taps into his time with Palmer when he wrote for Time magazine and The Wash­ing­ton Post, and later researched this book to good use.

He deftly weaves stories that start with Palmer into great ones about other golfers such as Jack Nicklaus, Julius Boros and Doug Sanders.

It’s not just golfers. The long and hilarious interview with crusty old Tip Anderson, Palmer’s caddie when he played in the British Open, might be worth the price of the book itself. And there’s a heartfelt story about the kindness Palmer showed to former British Open champion Kel Nagle’s granddaughter at the 2015 British Open, the year Nagle died.

Of course, there are numerous references to the Masters, which Palmer won four times. They range from how much Arnie’s Army meant to Palmer to the rules controversy on the 12th hole in the 1958 Masters that Palmer went on to win.

My favorite came from the 1962 chapter, the year Palmer won his third green jacket. Callahan found a quote from Palmer after he had to birdie Nos. 16 and 17 to shoot 75 in the final round and get into an 18-hole playoff with Gary Player and Dow Finsterwald.

“I didn’t have any zip today,” he told the writers. “Does anybody know where I can get some zip?”

That quote summed up why Palmer was so popular – he made everyone feel like they could help him, when, of course, they couldn’t.

Thanks to letters Callahan had access to, it was clear how much Palmer loved his fans. In one, Jeff Roberts and Wally Schneider, serving in the Vietnam War, wrote Palmer for advice on bunker shots they would practice during downtime at their duty station. Palmer wrote back and sent them sand wedges and golf balls.

After both men came home, Roberts went to watch Palmer at the Western Open near his home in Illinois. After the round, he waited for Palmer outside the locker room.

“I walked up to him and told him, ‘I’m one of the guys you sent sand wedges in Vietnam,’” Roberts said. “He said, ‘Are you Jeff or Wally?’ Can you believe it? He remembered our names.”

There is much in the book about the early, sometimes contentious rivalry between Palmer and the younger Nicklaus.

Later in their careers, when Palmer was 60 and Nicklaus 50, they became friendly, sharing meals and playing practice rounds, including at the Masters. They even teamed up in senior team tournaments.

Nicklaus told Callahan that the tension started to thaw when Palmer asked Nicklaus to take a look at his swing at a senior event.

“Can you imagine?” Nicklaus told Callahan. “Me? We’d played 30 years and that’s the first time he ever asked me.”