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intent to seek vindication for what happened in 1962, Palmer was as much a threat as anyone. And for those who saw him in the flesh, he still conveyed the robust athletic magnetism of a true champion, the same dynamic figure they had admired so often during the past decade and a half on magazine covers and newspaper pages.
    “Palmer still is the well-muscled piece of talent he’s always been,” Bill Nichols of the Cleveland Plain Dealer wrote that week. “His bronzed arms still ripple with every swing. He stalks the fairway as though he’s trying to beat everyone to the end of the rainbow. And he forever hitches his trousers as he prepares to assault the unprotected flagsticks.”
    But others viewed Palmer very differently, agonizing that the chiseled hero—a model of athleticism-had unfortunately not been frozen in time. Readers of the New York Times opened their morning editions on the first day of the 1973 U. S. Open to find a column by the noted sportswriter Dave Anderson, entitled “The Last Stand.” Anderson not only didn’t share Nichols’s optimistic appraisal; he didn’t even see the same Palmer:
    “But he’s 43 years old. When he crouches over a putt, his jowls thicken. So does his belly. The charisma isn’t quite the same. Jack Nicklaus is the most feared golfer now. Lee Trevino is more respected too. And now Tom Weiskopf, with three victories in his last four tournaments, appears to be maturing. But for many people golf still means Arnold Palmer, nobody else. Especially here, where he is Pittsburgh’s most exalted sports idol.
    “Maybe the electricity will begin to flow in him tomorrow,” Anderson continued. “But maybe there is no electricity in him anymore, not even in his last stand.”
    Remarkably, on the dawn of Oakmont’s fifth U.S. Open, all anyone could talk about was the aging King of golf, Latrobe’s Arnold Palmer.

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    The Big Three Reborn

    P almer’s “last stand” began at 1:52 p.m. Thursday afternoon, as he stepped to the first tee with eighteen-year-old Vince Berlinsky, who drew the honor of carrying his bag that week. (Until the U.S. Open in 1977, local caddies were randomly assigned by the host club; the pros were not allowed to use their regular tour caddies.)
    The gallery roared wildly when Palmer’s name was called, and for nearly five hours Arnie’s Army remained at fever pitch, yelling, jostling, and running ahead for position to catch a glimpse of their hero. Over half the fans that afternoon followed Palmer, unconcerned about being still or silent in fairness to his playing partners, two-time tour winners Johnny Miller and Lou Graham. And, with a vintage-Palmer display of peaks and valleys, the King’s opening round consumed the crowd’s emotions.
    Palmer stumbled on the relatively easy 343-yard, par-four second hole when his short-iron approach to the green landed in a bunker and he two-putted for bogey. He immediately rebounded on the next two holes, sticking a five-iron to inside two feet on the famous Church Pews third hole and then a wedge to two feet on the par-five fourth hole. Landing irons off the tee into bunkers on the par-three sixth and par-three eighth yielded bogeys, canceling out the two early birdies to return to one over par.
    A strong drive and a crisp four-wood allowed Palmer to easily birdie the par-five ninth and return to par, only to give the stroke right back by three-putting the perilous tenth green. Ten holes, just three pars; not the ideal way to play a U.S. Open.
    But Palmer righted the ship, first with pars over the next five holes, then by lasering a four-wood to within eight feet of the flagstick on the challenging par-three sixteenth. Following pars on numbers seventeen and eighteen, Palmer met with reporters, eager to dissect his first-round score of par 71.
    “I was happy with the score but I’m not particularly happy with the way I played,” Palmer said. Most distressing was his inability to get down in two from