President Nixon went to China, The Price is Right debuted on TV and the FBI hired its first female agents. It was 1972, and Arnold Palmer was in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, sitting for a portrait session with one of America’s most beloved artists, Norman Rockwell.

The two—both of whom ultimately were awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom—chatted and went for a bike ride together before Palmer returned home to Latrobe, Pennsylvania. The painting hung in the offices of Robert Bruce apparel (which had commissioned the work) until eventually finding its way to Palmer, who loved it. Rockwell’s painting wasn’t the first or the last of Palmer, but among the numerous portraits that exist, surely it is among the most treasured. Palmer hung it in his Latrobe office, where it remains today.

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