Secrets discovered during an open visit to the United States at Arnold Palmer’s house

Latrobe, Pennsylvania – An hour on the road to Oakmont Country Club, in the long corridor of a white ranch house on the outskirts of an old steel town, the bathroom of Arnold Palmer is frozen in time.

The space was a late addition for the palmers, added to the family home during its years after the golf course (and when its financial fortune took off). It is the size of a small apartment – with a massive and integrated shower, two large sinks placed on a shag carpet, a pair of cupboards without an appointment and a cubbyne hole for toilets with old covers of blanket blankets The New Yorker. A huge glass block window frames the room, throwing sun beams and providing views of the Magnolias just beyond.

It is as close to that Arnold Palmer arrived in opulence in 87 years in Latrobe – a life that brought him from the son of a hardened golf goalkeeper to a global phenomenon and to the benefactor of an area of ​​$ 735 million. Palmer never left his hometown, even though his world quickly extended beyond the highways to a route and rolling hills from west of Pennsylvania. His house went from a start -up house in a much wider floor plan, but has never lost its original sense of modesty – except perhaps, for the square area of ​​the bathroom.

It is invasive to enter the house of a celebrity, not to mention the most loved golfer accommodation that has ever lived. But for those of us who forgot (or did not know) Arnie, the journey to the house of the Closed White Ranch is a glimpse of the soul of man as he was really. After all, Palmer played while he lived: human with force and striking vanity. People loved him because they knew him.

This turns out to be the most melancholy song of a visit to Latrobe during the Open of the United States Open: an overview of the soul of Arnold Palmer serves as a strange reminder that this week’s festivities feel quite empty without him. Palmer, after all, is perhaps the only living man qualified to speak to the strange discomfort of Rory McILroy – whose biggest achievement seems to have closed a void and open another – or the last melancholic blows of Phil Mickelson – who can leave the United States of this week, a winner of Tout -Petit de l’On).

The United States Open returned to Pittsburgh this week for another Tour in Oakmont, a magnificent golf course that Palmer loved but never conquered. (His most famous memory in the course was a heartbreaking lossIn a playoff series by Jack Nicklaus in 1962.) The main championships held in Oakmont (and his neighbor in the North, Laurel Valley) were as close as Palmer never took a home game, so much so that he opened the United States from 1994 to Oakmont his last. When Palmer pulled 81 Friday to miss the cup in 1994, he cried from the press room with a towel rolled around his neck.

“I guess the most important thing is the fact that [golf] Was as good as for me, “said Palmer.” They call it a little to be whipped in the sun and tired and ready to rest a little. Hopefully some additional golf tournaments along the way. I think that’s all I have to say, thank you very much.

He left the national championship for good this Friday, 34 years after his only victory in the event, but he did not rest. A second life was waiting for Palmer as a channel of the sweet and television drink and ancestor of the Club of Clothes and Golf and Golf. As Arnie left life as a golfer to enter life as a businessman, her shadow was great. When her life ended on September 26, 2016, she was skyrocketing in a company that is his own.

But he has never lost Latrobe, and today he serves a lasting image of Arnold, man. The house remains just like Palmer who left him when he jumped aboard his Cessna to play in tournaments half a century ago, carrying the distinct must from floor to carpets and wooden walls. Legend has it that when Palmer’s plane approached the house, he buzzed the top of the trees above his residence to alert his family with his return, making the boards vibrate.

Downtown airport bears its name now, with a large brass statue seated in front. The golf course on the road has long managed by Palmer’s father, Latrobe Country Club, remains in possession of the Palmer family. The tombs of Deacon and Doris Palmer rest a few meters from the clubhouse, just a stone throw from the last place of rest for their son, Arnold, whose ashes were dispersed near the 10th box of Tee. The course is supported by Marty Repo, a 50 -year -old superintendent and no vacation. When asked to take a break, Repko is known to ask a question in return.

“Where would I be else?”

Obviously, Palmer asked the same question and came to the same answer. He could not leave Latrobe behind, just as he could not leave any of the memories that now fill his house, his office and a charming firm on the side of a very frequented road. These memories are Palmer’s heritage in a large and small way – his Rolex collection helped draw the brand’s lasting support for the university competition named in its honor, the Palmer Cup, and fueled a long relationship with the Arnold and Winnie Palmer foundation which led to our visit. They, like Arnold, belong to the only place where he never called to the house.

The US Open returns this week in the west of Pennsylvania, the King’s house. He is not there, but you don’t have to travel far to learn that he has not left.

His heritage quietly continues from an old steel town just at the top of the road. In Latrobe, finally, Arnold Palmer rests – frozen in time and always pulsating with life.