Subsonic At the time of his death, Arnold Palmer had an estimated 14,000 golf clubs, including 2,500 putters, but since then the number of clubs in his estate has grown. That’s because the R&D people at Callaway and a good number of basement inventors across the world already had equipment en route to Palmer at the time of his death last Sept. 25.
Palmer was a rare blend of personality types, some of them conflicting. In dress and manner he was conservative. (He once gave me two of his old-school hard-collar shirts from his massive stockpile; fearful that the shirts would stop being manufactured, he had loaded up.) But in all things mechanical, he loved innovation. Palmer was, and no one would say this is common, a sentimental person who had little attachment to objects. Yet he could not throw things away. As the elder of his two daughters, Peg Palmer, said recently, “In western Pennsylvania, the attitude is, ‘Never know when you might need that.'” Hence, the 14,000 clubs.
Palmer owned three houses on the fringes of the Latrobe Country Club, ostensible real-estate investments that over the years became depositories for his ever-growing club collection. Kitchens, living rooms and bedrooms were lined with clubs. More recently, the majority of the equipment was moved to an enormous warehouse on the outskirts of the course. Walking its Walmart-like aisles is like being in a museum devoted to club manufacturing, circa 1940 to the present.
Check out the shaft puller. The one the patent was granted for(hydraulic pullers).
