Arnold Palmer Still on Top of Tournament Organization Despite Shoulder Injury

There’s a tradition on the PGA Tour that active players, even legends, do not have tournaments with their names in the title. So when Arnold Palmer considered himself retired in 2007, he put his name on what had been the Bay Hill Invitational. It became the Arnold Palmer Invitational, complete with his recognizable script as the tournament logo.

However, that didn’t change his involvement with the event. He’s always been a hands-on host, looking for ways to improve each season. This year, though, he’s been slowed down a bit by a dislocated shoulder.

“I was going to speak at the Father/Son, and I slipped on a carpet in my house and did a 360, landed on this shoulder (the right one),” Palmer explained about the accident. “I’ve been doing physical therapy ever since.”

Palmer said he can almost raise his arm up over his head, but not quite. As soon as he is able, he will get back into the gym. (He has skipped his regular workouts for eight weeks.) After that, he will most likely return to the golf course.

“I’ve always exercised from the day I started playing golf,” the legendary golfer continued. “I have every intention of keeping in shape and you know, I’ll be old one of these days.”

The injury has not stopped Palmer from planning some course renovations at Bay Hill. Bulldozers will take to the course in two months.

“I have every intention of—on May 16—closing the golf course and redoing all 18 greens,” he explained. “The course will be closed most of the summer, and we’ll have nine holes open, which is the Charger 9.” Golfers will have to play the nine-hole course twice to get in 18.

When Bay Hill returns to play, the greens will not be overseeded for the winter. That is a trend that gained steam in Florida when the PGA Tour elected not to overseed TPC Sawgrass after redoing the entire course a few years ago.

“In the past, many years ago, when I first got to Bay Hill, I was going to try to do Bermuda through the winter, and we got a little scared about not overseeding in the winter for the tournament,” Palmer said.

“We continued for all the years, 39 or 40 years, and we now decided that we have a strain of Bermuda that will resist the winters, and we’re going to attempt to do the golf course with new greens for next year’s tournament.”    

The grass for the greens is TifEagle.

Palmer may also attack the 16th hole.

“As you all know, it’s a very weak par five, and I will lengthen it a little and maybe change the green a little, but nothing way out,” he said.

He won’t be done there, either.

“I expect to make some changes in the golf course in the years to come, make it more difficult but not change it dramatically at this point,” he added. “We’ll add a little length, maybe, and do some things that are normal for a championship golf course.”        

Palmer has been involved with the Bay Hill event since businessman Frank Hubbard asked if Palmer would lend his name to what was then the Citrus Open. There was also a need for raising funds for a local hospital.

As Palmer had a firsthand look at what had been done to raise money for the Eisenhower Hospital in Rancho Mirage, California, with the Bob Hope Desert Classic (the name at the time), he could see the vision.

“I thought about it,” Palmer explained,” I gave him my rules for my name being on the hospital and the tournament.”

That has grown into the Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children and the Winnie Palmer Hospital for Women and Babies.

Kathy Bissell is a golf writer for Bleacher Report. Unless otherwise noted, all quotes were obtained firsthand or from official interview materials from the USGA, PGA Tour or PGA of America.