Woods caught Palmer, but King's record still unique

text size

• Hauser: Career numbers don't tell story | • Buick Invitational: Win No. 62 for Woods
• Graphic: Hogan's 64 next for Woods | • Photos: Palmer, Woods tied
• PGA TOUR Career Win Lists: Woods | Palmer | • Ross: Swing change taking effect

As the late author David Gemmell might have said, revisionists have a proclivity for dismantling the great, and so Tiger Woods' latest triumph on the PGA TOUR might be an occasion for undertaking such an exercise at the expense of Arnold Palmer.

Palmer walks with Woods during last year's Par-3 Tournament at The Masters. (Getty Images)

Less than a month past his 32nd birthday, Woods claimed his 62nd career victory Sunday at the Buick Invitational and tied the legendary Palmer for fourth place on the TOUR's all-time list. Palmer's final triumph had come 35 years earlier, also in California, at the 1973 Bob Hope Desert Classic. The victory, by two strokes over Jack Nicklaus and Johnny Miller, was his fifth in the event begun in 1960. He was 44 years old.

That Woods, who won his sixth Buick Invitational, has equaled Palmer's total in 12 fewer years speaks unequivocally of his impeccable command of the unpredictable competitive parameters of tournament golf. However, it does not shroud the talents of the man he has caught and, inevitably, will pass, possibly at his next stroke-play event in the U.S., which is expected to be the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by MasterCard, held in Orlando, near his home.

Woods has won it four times.

Palmer, he won over long ago.

"Well, I think it's obvious that Tiger has played tremendous golf, and he's lived up to all the expectations," Palmer, 78, said last week in his office at Bay Hill Club & Lodge, site of the tournament that now bears his name. "Am I surprised? No. I am not surprised," Palmer said. "We've seen for a long time that he is capable of playing at a high level, and that should continue."

Palmer could play at a high level, too. He is forever talked about as the man who brought the masses to golf, emerging at the dawn of television with his charisma and swashbuckling scoring ability. In one respect this is unfortunate, because such an inevitable turn down this historical avenue tends to overshadow the road he paved with his abilities.

Photos: Palmer, Woods tied at 62 victories

Palmer and Nicklaus were the first to win $100,000 in a season, in 1963, but it was Arnie who took the money title, his fourth and last. Palmer was the first to win $1 million in a career, a level he passed in 1968 -- 13 years after his first TOUR title at the 1955 Canadian Open. He was the first to win four Masters titles. Twice he won eight times in a season, in 1960 and '62. In the modern era is he one of just five men to win the first two legs of the Grand Slam. Nicklaus, Ben Hogan, Craig Wood and Woods are the others.

But the record he shares with Nicklaus -- 17 straight seasons with at least one PGA TOUR victory -- best exemplifies Palmer's excellence, for it reflects a consistency that eludes all but the most impeccably accomplished golfers.

Palmer's annual PGA TOUR stop at Bay Hill attracts an elite field every March. (Getty Images)

If it seems as if Woods has snuck up on Palmer's career victory mark, it is an accidental byproduct of the Woods mission statement. As a boy he set his sights on Nicklaus' Olympian record of 18 professional major championships, and his focus has narrowed the prism of context among those who have been chronicling the long ascent and a fan base too easily distracted by decibel-laden contact sports.

Palmer, who this year celebrates the 50th anniversary of his first Masters triumph, is seemingly viewed as a weigh station when he should be assessed as a benchmark. Woods was careful to note that he hasn't overlooked The King, saying last year, "To even be mentioned in the same breath as Arnold Palmer, you know you've done something special."

Palmer's last victory came in his 473rd tournament, while Woods has needed fewer than half -- 231 -- to reach 62 wins, but Palmer didn't turn professional until he was 25 years old, after his service in the Coast Guard following matriculation from Wake Forest University.

To compare eras or competition or life experiences is futile. Suffice it to say that Palmer emerged at a time when financial payoff for victory was still an endorsement deal away as opposed to there at his fingertips with a trophy. It was an era of few extravagances, though Palmer had one, introducing private aircraft to the landscape. Keep in mind, however, that blue-collar Arnie co-piloted his voyages -- and still does.

His swing wasn't a thing of beauty, foregoing instruction on the advice of his only teacher, his father, but it produced power to complement his innate scoring abilities, especially with the putter.

"My father told me when I got out on TOUR, 'When you need help you just go ask somebody out there and get all the help you need, and I have a tractor here you can drive when you have to come home,'" Palmer said. "His philosophy was once you start getting too many theories into your game, your chance of success isn't very good."

Also consider that he not only had to contend with the rise of Nicklaus, but also the excellence of Gary Player, Billy Casper, Lee Trevino and Ray Floyd as the 1950s rolled into the turbulent '60s.

Woods reached the 60-victory mark before his 32nd birthday. (Getty Images)

When Palmer joined the PGA TOUR not long after his 1954 U.S. Amateur victory, the competitive landscape was equally forbidding, given the presence of Hogan and Sam Snead, the all-time TOUR victory leader with 82.

"Of course, Snead played for 100 years ... or just shy," Palmer says with a gleeful, wry grin.

Those two legends were on the descending arc of their careers, but they were still formidable, and they further populated an era filled with heavies: Cary Middlecoff, Tommy Bolt, Lloyd Mangrum, Jimmy Demaret, Jackie Burke, Doug Ford, Dow Finsterwald.

"They were household names, those guys ... it was a tough environment," Palmer said. "And then I can think of a bunch of guys who never get any mention at all who were contenders every week. We were not at a loss for good players."

Eventually, Palmer separated himself from the class, propelled by a workmanlike proficiency that was all the more attractive to his legions of fans because it regularly circumvented efficiency. His strength was in understanding himself and the metrics of his ability to score.

"I got off to a late start, but I have no regrets about any of that," he said. "It helped me mature and handle anything that came my way. I'm proud of what I was able to do."

As for Woods, Palmer would enjoy watching the world's No. 1 player break his victory mark at his tournament. But if it doesn't happen, Palmer has no illusions about the possibility of it occurring elsewhere.

"Anybody that plays as well as he has and has the desire and the drive to keep going, I think we can expect him to continue to win golf tournaments and perhaps set an all-time high for victories," Palmer said. "I don't think you can predict anything as to what he might do. But he has the potential to keep going, and we just have to see. I've said before, he might double my win total."

That would be something because Palmer's record, stripped of its romanticism and all the talk of how he changed the popularity of the game, is impressive in any context and stands on its own as a unvarnished representation of remarkable resolve and sheer passion to simply play as well as he could.

And he's still trying, you know. He still fiddles with clubs, still tinkers with his swing. These days, like anyone else, Palmer is trying to eke out a few more yards with the driver.

"Sure, I'm always working on something. I'll go out this afternoon here and hit it," he said, his voice hopeful, his eyes gleaming. "I'm just trying to get a little more oomph out of the shot. I'm always looking for that."