Golfdom, April 2013

32 Golfdom April 2013 Golfdom com PHOTO COURTESY THE ARNOLD PALMER COLLECTION Arnold Palmer and Matt Beaver S ure its called the Arnold Palmer Invitational But we never thought that Mr Palmer would actually invite us If the King invites you to his tournament you go And we did Over the course of the tournament we got a lot accomplished For a complete rundown of the action visit www golfdom blogspot We talked to Tour players we talked to superintendent Matt Beaver we got a lot of great photos and we even saw a few old friends But the singular most exciting moment was getting to meet Palmer in person In a strange bit of coincidence that meeting between Golfdom and Mr Palmer somehow got a brief mention in an Associated Press story that ran around the country see page 11 for more on that bit of trivia While we had the ears of Mr Palmer and Mr Beaver we asked a few questions of both men Here are our conversations Golfdom Mr Palmer thanks so much for your time its truly an honor Arnold Palmer My pleasure thank you G My first question is in regards to the founder of this magazine Mr Herb Graffis I have the good fortune of sitting in his chair today but I never had the opportunity to meet the man Can you tell me a little about him AP Herb was a good friend We spent a lot of time together mostly just kibitzing and talking about golf and what Golfdom does and the things that were important for people to read about in the game of golf and how superintendents react to the various situations that arise in the process of being a superintendent G I hear he was quite a character AP Oh he was a character he always had a good joke G I was speaking with an architect recently and he told me that golf isnt as down as the media is trying to lead everyone to believe Whats your take on that statement AP Ive been reading a little bit about the economy and what is happening to golf The only place Ive seen an appreciable downturn is the construction of new golf courses New course constructions are starting to rev up a little I think well be building some courses and redoing some courses And rounds played are increasing and will increase in 2013 G Good good I think were both in the right business AP Ha Good Me too G Can you tell me how things are going for your design company right now AP Mostly right now were doing repairs or upgrading courses We have some potentials in Mexico South America China and a couple of very likely prospects in the United States The business is not that bad G You have a long history with superintendents since your father was one AP My father was a golf course greenkeeper a superintendent He started digging ditches when they were building the course Latrobe CC Latrobe Pa So he learned the job from the bottom up and he was there all his life That was over 50 years of work on the course And he did THE GOLFDOM CONVERSATION BY SETH JONES