#88: 50th and Final Masters
In 2004, to the roar of an adoring crowd, Arnold Palmer played in his 50th Masters and bid goodbye to a tournament he’d won four times and with which he had provided the golfing world with some of its best memories.
At 74 his game wasn’t as strong as in his best Masters days, but the applause was as loud, the fans as loving. Three years later Palmer was the ceremonial starter, “a role that I regard as special as anything I have done in golf,” he wrote in his book “A Life Well Played.” A member of Augusta National since 1999—the first Masters winner invited to join—a plaque of Palmer sits behind the 16th tee, making him the only member so honored. “Whatever contributions folks think I have made to the club and the tournament pale in comparison to what I have gotten out of it,” Palmer wrote. “It’s been nothing short of magical.”
