Michael Smurfit’s fond memories of the legendary Arnold Palmer

“A lovelier man never walked this earth.”

Michael Smurfit's words when asked to describe Arnold Palmer to someone who had never met, or spent time in, the company of the iconic American golfer, who died, aged 87, on Sunday night, offer a warm, heartfelt epitaph.

Their initial acquaintance may have been a business collaboration when Smurfit invited Palmer to design a golf course at The K Club – it would become two when the Smurfit Palmer layout opened in 2003 – but it shifted easily to a friendship that spanned over a quarter of a century. What is now known as the Palmer course, home to the 2006 Ryder Cup, opened for play in July, 1991.

Smurfit spoke of his “devastation” on learning of Palmer’s death and a “deep-rooted sadness” that has lingered since but recalled fondly the man affectionately known as ‘The King,’ in the golfing world.

"When I first decided to develop the K Club, I put the design out to tender to about 12 or 14 people. I was a very close friend of Gary Player, am a very close friend of Gary Player but I couldn't give it to Gary because of the Apartheid situation at the time.

The topography

“I was playing golf in

Orlando

when I received a call from Arnold Palmer [stating that] he’d like to come and see me. He said he wanted to design the club; he’d seen the land, knew about the topography and thought he could do a great job. I was really impressed that he took time off, the only one, to come and see me.”

Palmer flew down by helicopter and following a discussion over lunch was handed the remit. Smurfit continued: “That was the first time I met him and boy did I really like the cut of his jib. I got to know him very well in the years ahead and when I decided to develop a second course, I called him up and said, ‘Arnold I’m not going to have anybody in the world compare the Arnold Palmer golf course with some other person’s designed golf course. I want you to do my second golf course.’”

Around that time Smurfit had also made a decision to rename the layout for the 2006 Ryder Cup, the Palmer course, in honour of its designer.

“He was overawed and thrilled, particularly as the Ryder Cup was played for the first time, and only time, on a Palmer-designed golf course at The K Club.

“Over the years we got to know each other and stayed in touch on a regular basis. In fact we were only in touch about three months ago on doing some redesign work for the club. He wanted to revisit the club with his new designers.

“Ed Seay, his previous head designer who did the K Club for us, he passed away some years back and he [Palmer] said, ‘golf course design has improved, bunkering has improved, drainage has improved; there are a lot of improvements that have taken place in the intervening years and I think it is time for a technological upgrade.’

“So I was looking forward to meeting him in the spring, which was the plan, to go over that. We will now meet his team instead.”

Smurfit chuckles when he recalls one or two differences of opinion during the creative process. “When I gave him the K Club job, I said, ‘now Mr Palmer, as it was back then, you can use 150 acres of my 250 acres on the site’. What did he do? He used 195 or 215 of them.

“I didn’t know what was going on because when you see mountains of earth being moved, bulldozers on site, you don’t have any idea of what the finished product is going to be like. I had no idea what he was doing. It was only at the end that I found out he used all my land.

Their rooms

“He had designed one golf hole right in front of the hotel, looking down over the Liffey, so I had to move that. I said, ‘Arnold I don’t want guests coming here who are not golfers, having to look down on golfers from their rooms all the time.’

“We changed that hole and moved it back from there to where the current holes are, the 16th and 17th.

“I truly loved the man. I thought he was an exceptional human being. He was charismatic, humble at the same time, attentive, just an absolute gem of a human being.

“He’d a fund of stories from his enormously successful career. He might not have been the best golfer in the world of all time but he would certainly be in the top 10 to 15 but he was the most charismatic golfer in the world. That’s for sure.”

Palmer's golf course legacy in Ireland also stretches to Kerry, creating a superb links for Tralee Golf Club in 1983, the first course he designed in Europe. The American said: "I have never come across a piece of land so ideally suited for the building of a golf course. I designed the first nine but surely God designed the back nine."

Tralee golf club Men’s captain, Liam Nolan, said yesterday: “We are very sad at his passing and we would offer our condolences to his family and friends. From our perspective he has left us with a wonderful legacy.”