The secrets uncovered in a U.S. Open visit to Arnold Palmer’s home

LATROBE, Pa. — An hour up the road from Oakmont Country Club, down the long hallway of a white ranch house on the outskirts of an old steel town, Arnold Palmer’s bathroom sits frozen in time.

The space was a late-life addition for the Palmers, added to the family home in his years after golf (and around the time his financial fortunes took off). It is the size of a small apartment — with a massive, built-in shower, two large sinks footed by a shag carpet, a pair of walk-in closets and an en-suite cubbyhole for the toilet wallpapered in old covers of The New Yorker. An enormous glass block window frames the room, casting beams of sunlight, and providing vistas of the magnolias just beyond.

This is as close as Arnold Palmer ever arrived to opulence in his 87 years in Latrobe — a lifetime that brought him from the son of a hardened golf-course caretaker to a global phenomenon and the benefactor of a $735 million estate. Palmer never left his hometown, even as his world rapidly expanded beyond the one-lane highways and rolling hills of Western Pennsylvania. His house grew from a starter-home into a much wider floor plan, but never lost its original sense of modesty — save, perhaps, for the square footage of the bathroom.

It feels invasive to enter the home of a celebrity, let alone the dwelling of perhaps the most beloved golfer who ever lived. But for those of us who have forgotten (or never knew) Arnie, the journey into the white-shuttered ranch house is a glimpse into the soul of the man as he truly was. After all, Palmer played as he lived: forcefully human and strikingly free of vanity. The people loved him because they knew him.

This turns out to be the most melancholy piece of a visit to Latrobe during the week of the U.S. Open: A glimpse into the soul of Arnold Palmer serves as a strange reminder that this week’s festivities feel quite empty without him. Palmer, after all, may be the one man alive qualified to speak to the strange discomfort of Rory McIlroy — whose greatest achievement appears to have closed one void and opened another — or the wistful last licks of Phil Mickelson — who may leave this week’s U.S. Open a winner of all-but-one of the majors, just like Palmer (four Masters, two Open Championships, one U.S. Open).

The U.S. Open has returned to Pittsburgh this week for another round at Oakmont, a glorious golf course that Palmer loved but never conquered. (His most famous memory at the course was a gut-wrenching loss, in a playoff to Jack Nicklaus in 1962.) The major championships held at Oakmont (and its neighbor to the north, Laurel Valley) were as close as Palmer ever got to a home game, so much so that he made the 1994 U.S. Open at Oakmont his last. When Palmer shot 81 on Friday to miss the cut in ’94, he wept from the press room with a towel wrapped around his neck.

“I suppose the most important thing is the fact that [golf] has been as good as it has been to me,” Palmer choked out. “They call this a little bit of being sun-whipped and tired, and ready to take a little rest. Hopefully, a few more golf tournaments along the way. I think that’s about all I have to say, thank you very much.”

He left the national championship for good on that Friday, 34 years after his sole victory in the event, but he did not rest. A second life awaited Palmer as a soft-drink and television channel and apparel and golf club and golf course mogul. By the time Arnie left life as a golfer to enter life as a businessman, his shadow was large. By the time his life ended on Sept. 26, 2016, it had ballooned into an enterprise all its own.

But he never lost Latrobe, and today, it serves an enduring image of Arnold, the man. The house remains much as Palmer left it when he hopped aboard his Cessna to play in tournaments a half-century ago, carrying the distinct must of carpeted floors and wood-paneled walls. Legend has it that when Palmer’s plane neared home, he buzzed the tree tops above his residence to alert his family of his return, rattling the floorboards.

The airport downtown is named after him now, with a large brass statue sitting out front. The golf course up the road long stewarded by Palmer’s father, Latrobe Country Club, remains in the Palmer family’s possession. The graves for Deacon and Doris Palmer rest just feet from the clubhouse, only a stone’s throw from the final resting place for their son, Arnold, whose ashes were scattered near the 10th tee box. The course is looked after by Marty Repko, a superintendent of 50 years and no vacations. When he is asked to take a break, Repko is known to ask a question in return.

“Where else would I go?”

Evidently, Palmer asked himself the same question and arrived at the same answer. He could not leave Latrobe behind, just as he could not leave behind any of the mementos that now fill his home, his office and a charming farmhouse on the side of a busy road. These souvenirs are Palmer’s legacy in ways both big and small — his Rolex collection helped chart the brand’s enduring support of the college competition named in his honor, the Palmer Cup, and fueled a lengthy relationship with the Arnold and Winnie Palmer Foundation that led to our visit. They, like Arnold, belong in the only place he ever called home.

The U.S. Open returns this week to Western Pennsylvania, the home of The King. He isn’t here, but you don’t have to travel far to learn he hasn’t left.

His legacy endures quietly from an old steel town just up the road. In Latrobe, finally, Arnold Palmer rests — frozen in time and still pulsing with life.

You can reach the author at james.colgan@golf.com.