AS I SEE IT COLUMN: Trump beclowns himself talking about golf icon Arnold Palmer

Legendary golfer Arnold Palmer was one of the most beloved figures in American sports history. Charismatic and telegenic at precisely the time in the 50’s and 60’s when golf was first shown on TV, Palmer had legions of fans, affectionately known as “Arnie’s Army.”

Recently in Latrobe, Pennsylvania – Palmer’s birthplace – Donald Trump once again made a fool of himself, showing the world his cognitive decline is accelerating rapidly. He opened a rally with a hugely inappropriate talk about Palmer’s genitalia.

We have become desensitized to the former president’s lewd words and utter vulgarity, but this was a tasteless new low in the apparently bottomless pit of his grotesque crudeness.

Palmer’s daughter said in a 2018 interview that her dad – a lifelong Republican donor and ardent conservative – was not a fan of Trump. She said her dad was “appalled” at Trump’s lack of civility and character. Asked what she felt about Trump’s comments about her dad at the recent rally, she told ABC News they were “disrespectful” and “unacceptable.”

Palmer, whose father was a greenskeeper, was more than just an ambassador for the game of golf. He was one of the best who ever played it. In a career that spanned six decades, he won seven majors, 62 PGA tournaments and he won at least one PGA event every year from 1955 to 1971. Incredibly, Palmer played in the Masters for 50 consecutive years.

It is critically important to put Arnold Palmer’s disgust of the former president into its proper context. Palmer’s revulsion of Trump only goes as far back as 2016 – the year Palmer passed away.

That was before Trump separated babies from their parents at the border, before he called the deadly January 6th insurrection a “day of love,” before he echoed Adolf Hitler in calling immigrants “vermin.”

Given the multitude of noxious, hateful things Trump has said in the eight years since her legendary father passed away, Arnold Palmer’s daughter said this when asked what her father would think of Trump now: “He’d cringe.”

For younger sports fans who were not around in Palmer’s day, it’s difficult to explain just how big of a superstar he was. Palmer was basically Tiger Woods before there was Tiger.

For the buffoonish and cosmically stupid Trump to speak about a cultural and sports legend like Arnold Palmer in such a distasteful manner at a public event attended by women and children, proves, for the 758th time, that he is a sick, repulsive man who is manifestly unfit to be president.

Sports fans of a certain vintage will remember “The King” – as he was known to his fans around the world – as a man of class and integrity.

“He didn’t like it when people were nasty and rude. He didn’t like it when someone was disrespectful to someone else,” Arnold Palmer’s daughter said about how her dad felt about Trump. “My dad had no patience for people who demean other people in public. He had no patience for people who are dishonest and cheat.”