8. Why Arnold Palmer Won’t Hit Ceremonial Shot
The Masters is obviously a tournament rife with traditions from top-to-bottom, but one of the coolest modern traditions has been the honorary start to the tournament with three of the greatest to ever play the game taking a ceremonial tee shot in Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, and Arnold Palmer all taking to the tee box at No. 1 and blasting one out into the fairway.
Sadly, one of those three all-time greats won’t be taking part in that great tradition at the 2016 Masters, though.
Midway through March, Arnold Palmer informed Billy Payne—the head honcho over at Augusta National—that he was going to be unable to hit the tee shot to get The Masters underway this year. It has nothing to do with any kind of bad blood or anything of that sort. Instead, it sadly is because Palmer is too old and not in good enough health to be hitting tee shots at Augusta in front of crowds.
Palmer is currently 86 years old and will turn 87 later in 2016. Given that and the fact that he’s already hinted that his health just simply won’t allow him to hit these kinds of shots, it stands to reason that we’ve seen the last of Palmer hitting the ceremonial tee shot at The Masters.
Next: No. 7 Last Masters for Another Great