Golfer’s Masters dream came true — playing with Arnold Palmer made it more incredible

He remembers Arnold Palmer’s forearms. They were massive.

And the sound a golf ball made — that “click” the good players talk about — when Palmer’s driver cracked it, well, it is a noise Jim Stuart can still hear a quarter-century later.

Stuart, a Macon insurance agent, played alongside the legendary Palmer in the opening round of the 1991 Masters.

Palmer, a four-time Masters champion who died Sunday at age 87, was 61 back then. But even though his best years as a pro were behind him, his game was still sharp.

“He was pretty damn competitive,” Stuart said when asked about his memories of playing with Palmer. “He didn’t putt like he once did, but he still hit the ball a long way.”

Stuart, now 57, was 31 when he first qualified for the Masters after winning the U.S. Mid-Amateur Championship. As was tradition then, he was paired with Palmer, golf’s ambassador.

Before the tournament began, Palmer greeted Stuart’s family and friends.

“He asked all about them,” Stuart said. “He was a different breed of cat.”

Even at age 61, Palmer, who in his early years was once described by The Associated Press as “the Wake Forest College muscle man,” could clobber a golf ball.

“The click off his club, you could tell from listening, the click the ball makes off somebody who hits it extremely solid, there’s a different sound than most people make. And his ball still had that click,” Stuart said.

“He hit it in the dead center of the club just about every time. … He was just naturally, raw-boned strong. … Some people have God-given gifts. And he could muscle a golf ball. That’s not easy to do.”

The opening Thursday of the 1991 Masters coincided with the first-ever Macon Braves game, which was played before a standing-room-only crowd at Luther Williams Field.

Up the road at Augusta National, Stuart had his own crowd to contend with: “Arnie’s Army,” the adoring throng that followed the iconic Palmer for 18 holes. The gallery proved somewhat distracting for the amateur Stuart.

“There were massive amounts of people out there following. They followed his every step, and rightfully so. … One thing that was amazing was how many people he knew in the galleries. He’d go over and say, ‘Hey, Meredith,’ or whoever. … He related to everybody. He genuinely felt the affection and support,” Stuart said.

“He was very accommodating, very encouraging, just a real genuine person. … He knew the position he was in, and he did everything he could to make anybody that he was playing with feel comfortable. Because, quite frankly, the galleries didn’t care about who was playing with Arnold Palmer. They cared about Arnold. If he putted out and you still had a 3- or 4-foot putt, the gallery’s moving all over the place trying to get a better view for the next hole. … It’s not an easy pairing.”

Stuart shot a disappointing 9-over-par 81 that day.

As the Telegraph’s sports page put it in the next morning’s paper: “The dream of his life — playing in the Masters — was methodically transformed into a hellish, bent-green nightmare.”

Palmer bested him by three strokes.

Afterward, Palmer said, “We both were snakebit on the greens today. Jim didn’t play all that badly, it’s just that his putting was less than he liked, as it was for me.”

Their scores were too high to recover from. Even though Stuart, who is now in the Georgia Golf Hall of Fame, fired an even-par 72 the next day, he didn’t qualify for the weekend’s final rounds.

Though a generation of golfers have just about come and gone since then, Stuart has not forgotten Palmer’s graciousness.

“He is what everybody’s been saying,” Stuart said. “He’s as good a guy that was ever put on the planet. He made golf really what it is today. … I think that playing with Arnold Palmer in the Masters, there’s no way there’s a better pairing than that. … The thrill of a lifetime.”

Stuart had heard that Palmer was in poor health.

“The life he led, he got 87 years out of it,” Stuart said. “He pretty much went out on his terms.”

Stuart doesn’t play much competitive golf anymore.

But he still has the bulky old TaylorMade clubs from his Masters round with Palmer. They’re in his garage.

“I look at them from time to time,” Stuart said. “It’s hilarious. … They look like antique cars.”

This story was originally published September 28, 2016 at 5:04 PM with the headline "Golfer’s Masters dream came true — playing with Arnold Palmer made it more incredible."