SPORT: For Love & Money

There, on the sixth tee, he waited: a towheaded, barefoot boy with a cowboy pistol dangling at his hip and a sawed-off ladies' driver in his hands. Everyone around the Latrobe, Pa. Country Club knew Arnie Palmer, the club pro's five-year-old son. Coming up to drive, the women players would chuckle at the kid, then look with dismay toward the drainage ditch that lay 120 yards down the fairway. At that point, Arnie would make a sound business offer: "I'll knock your ball over the ditch for a nickel."

When he got takers—and he generally did—Arnie would carefully apply the overlapping grip that his father had been teaching him for two years, dig in his toes, draw back his undersized driver, and cut loose with a swing of such violence that the momentum often sent him sprawling on the ground—even as the ball headed out over the ditch. Pocketing his nickels, Arnie would confide to steady customers: "Some day I'm going to be a big golfer, like Bobby Jones."

New Leader. In 1960, Arnold Palmer, now 30, has fulfilled his childhood promise: he is widely recognized as golf's top player. And he got that way by developing to a rare degree the same qualities he showed as a cocky kid on Latrobe's sixth tee. He still swings all out, still is confident he can make any shot, still is frankly ambitious, still loves to play for money.

But he no longer plays for nickels. His $17,500 purse for his eyelash victory at the Masters Tournament in Augusta, Ga. this month boosted his 1960 tournament earnings to $44,256, a record for so early in the season. With six victories already this year, Palmer towers above the pack as the strong favorite for this summer's major pro tests: the U.S. Open at Englewood, Colo, in June, the British Open at St. Andrews and the Professional Golfers' Association tournament at Akron.

New Era. As golf's new leader, Palmer is also the brightest star of a new generation of professionals—a generation that seems likely to dominate the game for the next decade or more. By nature, professional golf has always been a nerve-shaking test of the individual, who must face and face alone the task of knocking a stationary little white ball into a stationary little round hole, with his livelihood depending on a true stroke.

Since World War II the biggest names in golf have belonged to a pair of truly rugged individuals: hard-bitten little Ben Hogan, a Texan who laboriously constructed his game to a point of mechanical perfection, and Sam Snead, a shrewd hillbilly playing out of West Virginia, with a natural swing that was the sweetest anywhere. Both 47, Hogan and Snead still play the big tournaments, but their reigning days have clearly ended.