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" Arnold Palmer was sitting near a table of crackers and dip at a Callaway Golf press event yesterday evening when I approached him. Popular Mechanics, I explained, had come down to the product launch to take a look at the latest in golf club design and technology. &amp;quot;You did that already,&amp;quot; Palmer said. &amp;quot;Must have been 1963 or 1964. I was in there testing what was considered the new technology at the time\u2014steel shafts\u2014against the old hickory types.&amp;quot;  &amp;quot;Is that right?&amp;quot; I asked, jotting the dates in a notebook. &amp;quot;You wouldn&amp;#039;t happen to know what issue that was in, would you?&amp;quot; &amp;quot;I don&amp;#039;t know, it was a long time ago,&amp;quot; Palmer said. &amp;quot;You weren&amp;#039;t even born yet!&amp;quot; As it turns out, he was right. It was the July 1964 issue of PM. (Read the full article here.) Palmer was always a tinkerer, adjusting his clubs and creating new ones, and so the magazine asked him to play a round with hickory-shaft clubs from 30 years prior to see just how much better the modern steel-shafted clubs of the 1960s performed. The King looked annoyed that I, an editor of Popular Mechanics, did not know that he&amp;#039;d graced our pages. He shook his head. &amp;quot;Back then, you know, some men even took their hats off indoors.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Yes, Mr. Palmer!&amp;quot; I immediately reached to remove my tweed cap. Palmer guffawed upon seeing my bald head. &amp;quot;I see why you didn&amp;#039;t take it off!&amp;quot; He laughed so heartily that his lustrous 82-year-old hair sort of vibrated.  (It must be stated that, riding New York&amp;#039;s A train downtown to the event, I had written in my notebook &amp;quot;I hope Arnold Palmer likes my caddy hat.&amp;quot; It was apparent that he did not.)   Clearly losing this round to the King, I explained, &amp;quot;If my dad were here, he&amp;#039;d have already told me to take the hat off.&amp;quot;  &amp;quot;Oh yeah? Where are you from?&amp;quot; Palmer asked.  &amp;quot;Georgia,&amp;quot; I replied. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ve got some friends down in Georgia,&amp;quot; said Palmer. No kidding: He won the Masters Tournament at Georgia&amp;#039;s Augusta National Golf Club in 1958, 1960, 1962, and 1964. &amp;quot;Say hello to my people in Georgia, will ya?&amp;quot; I agreed, and Palmer was summoned to the next room to give a speech about a familiar subject\u2014advances in golf club technology. He spoke a few words on Callaway&amp;#039;s new Razr Fit Driver, a $400 club with a forged composite crown and an adjustable face angle. The face&amp;#039;s three positions, along with adjustable clubhead weights, can be used to correct a player&amp;#039;s slice or hook. Palmer&amp;#039;s talk is reminiscent of what he&amp;#039;d said in PM in &amp;#039;64: that the old-time hickory clubs offered too much room for error, especially for the non-pro. &amp;quot;What would feel like a good shot during the downstroke and at the moment of impact could well be a bad slice or a yardage-gaining hook, but he&amp;#039;d never be sure what caused the difference,&amp;quot; he wrote then. Palmer then recalled the time spent customizing clubs in his own shop, working with a hacksaw to shape their faces, and using a rasp to modify the tools further. &amp;quot;I knew that if I could put together the perfect club, I could just put the ball right where I wanted it,&amp;quot; he said. His statement could have been quoted from the story that Palmer and PM produced for our July 1964 issue\u2014one that I&amp;#039;ll now never forget. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/adventure/sports/a7345/arnold-palmer-talks-golf-tech-with-pm-in-1964-and-2011/>