For promising pro Saunders, it’s good to have the King
An 80-year-old man looked at his television screen and might as well have been staring in the mirror.
Believing he needed a birdie to earn a spot in the PGA Tour event the following week, rookie professional Sam Saunders pulled the driver from his bag in the fairway of the final hole of the Honda Classic and took a mighty wallop, trying to reach the par-5 hole in two.
Sam Saunders is playing at Bay Hill having made two cuts in four pro events. (Getty Images) What, you expected him to lay up?
His grandfather, watching on national TV, didn’t. Saunders made a mess of the hole and didn’t quite muster his first top-10 tour finish, but the look on the mug of one of the game’s iconic visages was priceless nonetheless.
“I have to admit that, whatever anybody else thinks, I had a big grin on my face when he pulled the driver out,” Arnold Palmer said, laughing. “I was very proud of him doing that.”
Had Saunders, 22, hitched up his pants like his granddad did when he carried the sport on his back in the 1960s, fans might have lapsed into a full-blown reverie.
On the calendar, the generation gap between Saunders and his Hall of Fame grandfather is nearly six decades wide. Facts are, after the promising prospect turned pro last year, they are closer than ever.
Playing this week in the Arnold Palmer Invitational among guys who call David Leadbetter, Butch Harmon and the game’s top instructors their swing coa the most popular man in the history of the game.
“Nobody knows more about the game of golf than Arnold Palmer,” said Roy Saunders, Sam’s dad and A.P.’s son-in-law.
In his first year as a pro, Saunders over the winter asked Palmer to become his full-time coach, a first for the latter. The King, who has two daughters, had been awaiting that question … for years. He had mentored Sam since the latter seriously took up the game a decade earlier as hilarious as that might sound to us civilians.
“That was something that I had hoped would happen,” Palmer said this week. “I wasn’t sure it would. But we started working together, and he has really just come along.”
After leaving Clemson last year, Saunders moved back to Orlando, where Palmer makes his winter home, and asked Palmer if he could help raise his game to a new level. Turns out that their relationship was elevated, too.
Now they relate personally, professionally and as adults. Saunders, who takes a mighty rip at the ball, already inherited the DNA. Now he’s tapping into the rest.
“If we can get a positive on the psychological aspects of it, get him where he’s positive and he has a system that he can use, I think it’s going to work, and that’s what we are working for right now,” Palmer explained. “It’s already proven to do pretty well. He’s only played in four events and he’s made two cuts. Hell, that’s pretty good for a young guy coming up.”
No question, being a scion of the Palmer seed has been beneficial for Saunders, who has no tour status and can accept a maximum of seven sponsor exemptions. Saunders has had more offers than he has exemptions remaining. He also can take seven exemptions on the Nationwide Tour.
He’s playing this week in his own front yard. His parents, Roy and Amy Saunders, run the Bay Hill Club & Lodge, which Arnold bought decades ago. It has hosted a tour event since 1979, so Sam was forever immersed in the game like a baby at a baptismal bath.
When Palmer agreed to be more than a paternal figure or part-time mentor, he had only a few stipulations. One was a deal-breaker.
“I remember my father saying, ‘When you go out on the tour, you just listen to everyone that you talk to out there, and they will help you,’” Palmer said, setting up the joke perfectly. “‘They will help you get back here to Latrobe and drive tractors.’”
In other words, Saunders eschewed all outside instruction and signed on full bore with P hell, there are about a million golfers out there who would pay a fortune for the same privilege.
True, the coaching game has changed a little bit since Deacon Palmer once told his soon-to-be famous son, “Hit it as hard as you can.”
“He’s been really good,” Palmer said of his grandson receptiveness. “He has stuck with the things that we’ve talke minor adjustments along the way when he has a little problem, he’ll just say, ‘Can I see you on the tee for a little bit?’ and I go out with him.
“And it’s worked. And if he keeps doing that, it will work.”
In their first session, they spent three hours on the Bay Hill range.
“It’s fun to watch him give Sam the lessons,” Roy Saunders said. “He does it quietly and there’s not a lot to it. it’s very subtle. He does not like a lot of folks standing around watching him do it. It’s a very private situation.”
Saunders has done some growing in h Saunders was a little shy around his grandfather in his younger years. Palmer, who enjoys giving and receiving a good barb, can now trade the needle with Sam, too. The kid’s all grown up.
“He likes that,” Sam said. “He likes when you show some toughness. When he used to be hard on me, I would kind of back down and be afraid to say anything. “I would never say anything back to him in a mean way or in a disrespectful way, but he likes me to step up and kind of show that I’ve got some guts and not be afraid to shoot something right back at him. He want me to be tough and he always tries to toughen me up.”
Four years ago, Saunders played in the Bay Hill event when he was still an amateur. While watching Saunders play off the air, veteran NBC broadcaster Bob Murphy watched the kid aggressively roll a birdie putt about 5 feet past the hole, then hammer the comebacker home with nary a worry.
Murphy laughed, “I must have seen his grandfather do that a thousand times.”
That was probably a low estimate. Interestingly, as much as anything, Palmer is preaching course management to Saunders these days.
“Part of the process is working on his game management,” Roy Saunders said. “You can always have the physical talent, but you have to learn how to hit the right shot at the right time, becoming a little more refined. Sam is a quick study.”
He could have been as dense as a rock and he would have long ago realized how lucky he is. His grandfather is a largely untapped trove of counsel and experience, wrapped in a warm, familial embrace.
“There is no question,” Amy Saunders said, “they have a very neat rapport.”
