ARNOLD PALMER RECEIVES CONGRESSIONAL GOLD MEDAL

The King is headed to the White House today to receive his third, and perhaps his most prestigous, national award.

Arnold Palmer is already the receipient of the National Sports Award, presented by President Clinton in 1993 and the Medal of Freedom in 2004 presented by President Bush.

Today, Palmer will receive the Congressional Gold Medal from current First Golfer, President Barack Obama.

I imagine that getting the requisit co-sponsorship of two-thirds of the House and Senate was considerably easier than Health Care Reform. Aronld Palmer is only the second golfer to receive the award. Byron Nelson was awarded the Congessional Gold Medal posthumously after his death in 2006. So, this is somewhat of an "event" for golf. The surprising thing to me is that there has been very little mentioned about this accomplishment. The Las Vegas Review Journal pulled a blurb from the AP Wire and ran it buried deep on page 9C. Of course, golf seems to be benchmarked for the back pages unless the word "Tiger" appears somewhere in the story. I'm just guessing that Tiger would have picked up the phone and called Arnold's private number...unless the story was also buried in the back of the Orlando Sentinel. With all Arnold Palmer has done for Orlando I'm thinking he got better coverage there.

The lack of fanfare in no way minimizes the award. The iconic Palmer certainly will not find any luster lost. I'm sure that Arnie's Army (Oh, yeah, we're still around, Baby,) will still get a feeling of pride, and some goose-bumps, when they think about this honor. To be a fan of the King has always meant feeling a little bit like you shared every victory, every honor. That is what it means to be larger-than-life.That is the measure of  Arnold Palmer's greatness.

Long Live The King!