Arnie Palmer and Bucky Worsham

Above: Arnold Palmer, Golf Coach Johnny Johnson and Buddy Worsham

Below: Arnie and Buddy

Even in 2011, when Charlie Rose asked Palmer about Wake Forest and Buddy, Palmer choked up when talking about it, over sixty years later. - BK billkelly3@gmail.com

Charlie Rose Interviews Arnold Palmer:

Arnold Palmer: Well I worked for dad on the grounds and I was in high school and I said I wanted to go to college, and he said, well, you figure it out. He said I will pay for your college but you’re going to go to St. Vincent. St. Vincent College right here. That’s about as much as I can afford, you work here, right here at home. I said, what if I can get somewhere else? And he said if I can get there, that’s your call.

So I played high school golf, I played amateur golf and I started getting officers. The offers started coming in. I was playing pretty good, won amateur tournaments as a junior, and the whole thing. I was playing in the national juniors in Los Angles, with a buddy of mine who was from Washington DC. His name was Marvin “Bud” Worsham, and his brother was Lew, the pro at Oakmont who won the Open in ’47.

That was the year we graduated. We were out there playing in the juniors. And he said, Ernie, where you going to go to college? And I said I was looking at a couple, I had some officers, I had feelers from Penn State and Pitt, and Miami, and I like the Miami because I could play golf all winter.

He said, “Hey, if I get you a scholarship will you go with me?”

And I said, where?

And he said Wake Forest.

I said, where’s that?

He said it’s in North Carolina.

And I said, that’s great, you can play golf all year.

He said if I contact them and they give you a scholarship, will you go?

I said, “You bet.”

The athletic director was a guy named Jim Weaver. Did you ever hear that name? You should, as he’s the guy who founded the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Charlie Rose: Exactly. And I grew up as you know some 30 miles from Wake Forest.

You should have because he founded the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Arnold Palmer: Well Jim Weaver, I had no idea who it was. I didn’t even know where Wake Forest was. I came home from that tournament, played another one and then got on a bus and went on a bus to Wake Forest. I’ll never Jim Weaver became one of the best friends I ever had. He was athletic director, golf coach, he did the whole thing. And that’s how I ended up at Wake Forest.

Charlie Rose: So you were there, and Bud Worsham was there, and Jim Flick was there too, was he not?

Arnold Palmer: He and I roomed together after the accident. Bud got killed in an automobile accident our senior year and my roommate then became Jim Flick.

Charlie Rose: Bud’s death had a big impact on you.

Arnold Palmer: Terrible. (Pause, choking up) He was…..(pause)….he was like a brother. We did everything, we played golf against each other, we did everything you could do… and when he got killed, it was for me about as bad as you could get. I finished the semester and I couldn’t stand it, so I decided I had to do something else, and get my mind cleared up, so joined the Coast Guard. And spent three years in the Coast Guard after that.

Charlie Rose: So you got out of the Coast Guard and you were ready to be a golfer?

Arnold Palmer: Yea. What the Coast Guard did for me in three years was as much as what Wake Forest did for me as a school. It matured me and allowed me grow up. When I went back to Wake Forest for my final year I knew then that things were better. Meaning I knew I could handle myself.

Charlie Rose: More mature.

Arnold Palmer: Exactly. I enjoyed it. I went back after school, after my senior year I went back to Cleveland to work there for the summer and that’s when things started happening, the amateur and so.....

Read the transcript of the entire interview: http://kellysgolfhistory.blogspot.com/2011/10/charlie-rose-interviews-arnold-palmer.html