“It’s pretty much the way Arnold left it,” Doc Giffin says as he settles into a comfy chair beside Arnold Palmer’s desk on a rainy spring afternoon in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. “It’s almost as if nothing here has really changed.”
Indeed, though four and a half years have passed since Arnold Palmer departed the scene, the intimate, memorabilia-filled office he left behind feels as if the King of Golf merely stepped out five minutes ago.
Arnold Palmer, Bobby Jones and Clifford Roberts during the 1950s Augusta National, Getty Images
The room’s high walls remain freighted with memorabilia from the most celebrated life of modern golf, highlighted by iconic family photographs of Arnold’s father, Deacon, and a young Winnie Palmer in the blush of youth, not to mention their daughters, Peggy and Amy, and the King’s beloved six grandchildren. There are vintage photos of young Arnie with Masters deities Bobby Jones and Clifford Roberts, his various honorary degrees and prestigious awards, framed and favorite pieces of original art, notably four paintings of Augusta National. One could spend half a day just taking it all in.
The big desk in the middle of the room, where he autographed up to a million flags and photographs sent by friends and fans from across the planet, is neatly arranged with Arnold things, including an empty inbox, as if – like T.H. White’s mythical Arthur – the king may return at any moment.
An unfinished driver lies on the workbench, just where Arnie left it. The workroom at his home in Latrobe is where he spent many mornings tinkering with equipment. Barbara Ivins-Georgoudiou, Global Golf Post
Adding to this bittersweet illusion, no more than a 20-foot putt away, is Arnie’s beloved workroom where he spent most mornings whenever he was at home on Legends Lane working on clubs and rewrapping grips. A driver in need of his attention still lies on the workbench. Across the room, his famous wall of putters rises from floor to ceiling, aweing the eye of visitors to his inner lair.
Though time for the rest of us may have moved on, out in the stately foyer of the building, where tournament trophies and replicas of Arnie’s Masters and the British Open triumphs remain on display in a lighted alcove, a pleasant young fellow named Jake Clark has been busy labeling and organizing thousands of photographs, date books and diary entries in 2,400 manila folders – neatly arranged in 11 large plastic reference bins – for the past four years. “When I started, I really didn’t know that much about Mr. Palmer,” explains the recent history graduate from nearby St Vincent’s College. “But this has been a great education and the most rewarding work I’ve ever done.”
Back in Arnold’s office, Doc Giffin’s visitor wonders out loud how many people made pilgrimage to this special place over the years.
“Oh, goodness,” says the quiet man who served as Arnold’s personal assistant for half a century, keeping his schedule and shaping his public and private words via a dozen books, business correspondence, personal letters and casual notes, “I can’t even begin to guess. Probably thousands.”
Probably tens of thousands.
If he had a mind to do so, Giffin, who has been on the premises since 1966, could tick off an impressive list of presidents and politicians, sports stars and Hollywood celebrities who found their way up Legends Lane just to bask in the glow of Arnie.
Instead, he perfectly channels his old boss.
“It was really ordinary folks and everyday fans who came here over the years who meant the most to Arnold and the staff here,” Giffin says. “He loved the fact that anybody could walk in and say hello. Some couldn’t believe that it was that easy. But that was Arnold. We always insisted on making them feel welcome. They were still coming right up to the end. So many over the years, I honestly couldn’t say.”
If Arnold was a King, Doc was his wise Home Secretary. The combination of Palmer’s everyman charisma and Doc’s high professional standards helped make Palmer arguably the most accessible – and beloved – sports superstar in American history.
Shortly after Palmer’s passing in September 2016, Doc Giffin – then 87 – and the rest of the longtime Latrobe staff officially laid off, allowing remaining aspects of Arnold Palmer Enterprises to fully transition to Arnold’s Bay Hill office. Daughter Amy and her husband Roy Saunders have spent the past few years quietly working with input from Doc, golf historian David Normoyle, and others to develop plans that celebrate the vibrant career and enduring legacy of Arnold Palmer in dedicated interactive spaces at Bay Hill and Latrobe and possibly other venues close to Palmer’s heart.
“When I look back on the life my sister and I enjoyed by growing up in Latrobe,” says Amy, “my mother and Doc Giffin are the two figures who insulated us from much of my father’s demanding business life – and all the things that went with that. I never realized until I was much older what a wonderful normal life we had thanks to Doc and my mother. Nobody ever understood Arnold Palmer better than them. Doc was like our kindly uncle who not only looked after my father’s home office but quietly stayed above the fray, a wonderful sounding board to my mother who stabilized life on the home front for both my father and us. In that way, nobody was more important than Doc. He was there almost from the beginning.”
Giffin’s own professional story is something of a throwback to sports journalism’s golden years thanks to a gravel-voiced, hard-drinking sportswriter named Bob Drum, who gets the assist for bringing the team of Giffin and Palmer together.
By 1960, Donald Webster “Doc” Giffin, former Crafton [Pa.] High School sports editor, had worked his way from a desk job for United Press International to the position of second-string golf writer at the Pittsburgh Press behind Drum. “That spring, he suggested that I join the Golf Writers Association of America so I could use vacation time to play in its annual golf tournament at Myrtle Beach, then go with him to the Masters,” Giffin said.
The first time Doc Giffin walked onto the grounds at Augusta in 1960, it was as Drum’s unpaid assistant. “It was as magical then as it was now.”
A year before, Doc was introduced by Drum to Arnold and Winnie Palmer at a cocktail party the “Drummer” put on during the Western Open at the Pittsburgh Field Club. “Arnold and I had a nice rapport from the beginning,” Doc recalls. “So, I was naturally eager to see how he did at Augusta on my first trip there.”
It was the start of Palmer’s greatest season, nine victories that included a second Masters title and the U.S. Open at Cherry Hills. Save for 1979, the inaugural year of Arnold’s Bay Hill tournament, Doc wouldn’t miss a Masters until 2004, the final year Arnold competed for a green jacket before beginning duties hitting the ceremonial first tee shot in 2007.
… Palmer waved him over. “Hey Doc, you getting tired of traveling by car around the tour?” he asked. “I’m thinking of hiring someone as a traveling secretary. You interested? …
Ben Hogan and Arnold Palmer during the 1966 Masters Augusta National, Getty Images
After his second trip to Augusta in 1961, when Palmer lost to Gary Player by a stroke, Giffin was offered a job as the PGA Tour’s second press secretary by tournament manager Jim Gaquin – a job Giffin accepted only hours after it was offered. He spent the next five years on the road working as a one-man media coordinator, setting up and running press tents for the tour.
Among his many duties, Doc compiled all statistics and provided player information to a generation of veteran sportswriters like Jim Murray, Furman Bisher and Charlie Bartlett, for whom one the GWAA’s most coveted awards was eventually named.
During a break in the action at the 1966 Florida Citrus Open in Orlando, Giffin was walking through the players’ lunchroom when Palmer waved him over. “Hey Doc, you getting tired of traveling by car around the tour?” he asked. “I’m thinking of hiring someone as a traveling secretary. You interested? Why don’t you think about it and let me know.”
Days later, the two sealed the deal with a handshake. That was Arnold’s way.
By the next season, it was agreed that a better use of Doc Giffin’s considerable organizing skills was to open Palmer’s first office at the end of the short road across from Latrobe Country Club where Winnie and Arnold built their first home.
“It was really just an A-frame building with a workshop and a lean-to on the side where Peggy and Amy once kept ponies given to them by a family friend,” Doc recalls with a chuckle. “I started there with a rustic desk, my portable typewriter and a file cabinet. Arnold’s secretary, Patty Aikens, worked out of the house in those days. We were connected by an intercom. I called it my isolation booth.”
Starting in 1968, the office was steadily expanded to its current footprint at the end of Legend’s Lane.
Doc Giffin and Jim Dodson in front of Arnie’s wall of putters. Courtesy James Dodson
Over the next four decades, among his varied roles, Giffin served as de facto Chief of Staff and the gracious voice of Arnold Palmer in print, his royal guardian of language and letter-writing, not to mention principal fact-checker and copy editor of all his books.
If Arnold was a King, Doc was his wise Home Secretary. The combination of Palmer’s everyman charisma and Doc’s high professional standards helped make Palmer arguably the most accessible – and beloved – sports superstar in American history.
During Masters week of 2015, his fellow members of the GWAA showed their appreciation by presenting Giffin the distinguished William D. Richardson Award for long-time service to the game. That same year, Jack Nicklaus’ Memorial Tournament presented him with its coveted Memorial Golf Journalism Award. A host of national and regional honors followed.
Remarkably, this gentle soul who shaped a King’s words for half a century, now 92, is still faithfully at the game, writing for the annual World of Professional Golf Year Book started by the late Mark McCormack in 1966.
“That was a pretty good year for me,” says the quiet voice of Legends Lane with his usual understatement. “That was the year Arnold asked me to go to work for him. Looking back, I think it was a pretty good decision.”
Indeed, it was – for Arnold, his family, and the world of golf.
Top: Doc Giffin in Arnold Palmer’s office (Photo: James Dodson)
