U.S. Cup Captain Palmer Stresses Fear’s Finer Points

Arnold Palmer knows what he wants to see when he looks into the eyes of his players at the Presidents Cup - fear.

“I remember my first Ryder Cup at Lytham St. Annes,” Palmer said Tuesday at Robert Trent Jones Golf Club. “I was nervous, anxious.

“I remember when they played the national anthem,” he said. “I got choked. That told me something.”

Palmer, America’s most successful Ryder Cup player, knows one of his most important jobs as captain of the U.S. team is to teach his players how to use fear in a positive way.

“I was like a bull charging out of the cage,” Palmer said about his first Ryder Cup in 1961. “I was young.”

In David Duval, Justin Leonard, Steve Stricker, Mark Brooks and Kenny Perry, Palmer has players who’ve never competed in a Ryder Cup or a Presidents Cup. Palmer sees a strength in that.

“I really like when they tell me they’re nervous,” Palmer said.

Palmer said his main job as captain is “to keep the emotion high.”

He apparently did that Tuesday morning at a team meeting.

“Arnold gave a real rabble-rousing speech,” said one person who was present when he addressed the players. “He really wants to win this.”

While Palmer said the best thing that could happen to the Presidents Cup probably would be for the United States to lose, he said “I would personally take it as a disaster.”

Peter Thomson, the five-time British Open champion who took over as International Team captain when a players revolt forced David Graham out, said this is a crucial match for the International Team.

“I think it is imperative that this International Team show itself to be at least the equal of the U.S. Team,” Thomson said Tuesday. “We have to show there is a third team in the world that can take on the other two.”