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Arnold Palmer’s grandson 'disappointed' in missing stars, says playing's ‘about paying respect to history’

March 16, 2016

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Jordan Spieth, Rickie Fowler and Phil Mickelson are not playing in the Arnold Palmer Invitational this week and Palmer’s grandson Sam Saunders, who is playing, is “disappointed,” Edgar Thompson of the Orlando Sentinel writes. “I know guys make every effort to play,” Saunders said. "You have all these World Golf Championships and the majors, and I know the money and points are big in those. But it’s bigger than money and points. It’s about paying respect to the history of the game. The truth, this week is not about any one of those guys. It’s about Arnold Palmer and what he's done for this game.”

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“It’s much more enjoyable, is it not, when drama unfolds naturally rather than it being almost forced on people. Which is why it has been so refreshing in golf over the past months to have gone from a position where we were being told the so-called ‘New Big 3’ were set to have a stranglehold on the majors this year to suddenly having a wheen of genuine contenders heading into The Masters in just over three weeks’ time,” Martin Dempster of the Scotsman writes, noting that the winners of the last five Masters (Charl Schwartzel, Bubba Watson, Adam Scott and Jordan Spieth) already have posted victories this year.

Matt Every is the two-time defending champion of the Arnold Palmer Invitational, inexplicably, even for him, given that these are his only two PGA Tour victories and have been “sandwiched by an alphabet soup of MCs and WDs,” ESPN’s Jason Sobel writes. “Ask him and he candidly replies, ‘I don't know. I wish I knew, you know.’”

“The most famous dinner in golf used to feature a traditional menu with a main course consisting of beef, chicken or seafood,” John Boyette of the Augusta Chronicle writes in this story on the Champions Dinner at the Masters. [T]he Tuesday night tradition has become more exotic in its offerings as more winners hail from overseas. Lyle, the Scot who served haggis at his dinner in 1989. ‘That seemed to make quite a statement,’ Lyle said of the delicacy. ‘The older guys, like (Jack) Nicklaus, had been to Scotland and knew what haggis was. But the newer ones, guys like Lar­ry Mize, they weren’t too sure about that.’”