NOTHING much seems to have changed. The hand stooped, silver-haired grand-father still fills, as if by divine right, the practice ground area at the Bay Hill Golf and Country Club in Orlando, Florida.

The king is in his courtyard and no one has eyes for anyone else; which is to say that Arnold Palmer, perhaps the best-loved man ever to play the game, is back on the golf course.

Eight weeks ago he went under the surgeon's knife for prostate cancer. This week he played in the tournament he loves above all others outside the major championships, the Bay Hill Invitational. ,He founded the event, and he owns the course.

It was one of the most emotional sporting comebacks of this or any other era. Arnie's Army, who have bombarded their General with their best wishes, were on the march again at Bay Hill and, it seems, will be again at Augusta.

For them, and for their leader, the journey was but a sentimental one. At 67, Palmer is long past winning, even on the Senior Tour, but he remains one of the few players in world golf capable of increasing the size of a gate.

Not only that, he remains one of the game's blue chips; a man who can name his own price for appearances and who, in the programme for the Bay Hill event, has full-page advertisements associating him with no fewer than nine products. They range from Rolex to office and home furniture, from banking to lumber, and there is also, perhaps appropriately, one for Rayovac, a hearing aid company. You have to speak up to get Arnold's attention these days.

That is hardly surprising, though. If ever a golfer has been deafened by a lifetime of cheers, Palmer is that man. He gave the game sex-appeal, he attacked it ferociously, and, had he been a boxer, which his wide shoulders and wasp waist forever suggested, he would have been Rocky Marciano.

At his peak, husbands had no difficulty getting their wives to come with them to tournaments, but the greatest of problems in getting their attention once they were there.

There had been nothing like Palmer before Palmer and the nearest thing since has been Seve. Two years ago they put up a bronze plaque to Palmer at Augusta, celebrating, in part, his four wins there, but mostly the manner of them. After recounting a few relevant details, the plaque reads: "Arnold Palmer had changed the game of golf with those heroic charges and appreciative legions of fans formed around him. They were called `Arnie's Army'."

The plaque is attached to a water fountain near the back of the 16th tee, and last year, spotting a woman taking a drink, Palmer, waiting to play, called out: "Is the water in that fountain any good?" The woman, with one of those replies that normally only occur half-an-hour later, said: "Sure, you made it holy didn't you?" Palmer grinned, birdied the 16th for the second round in succession, missed the cut for the 12th year in succession, and said: "If only they would put up a plaque at every hole, then I could really play."

Such behaviour comes naturally to Palmer. A colleague, taking a holiday at Bay Hill with his wife and two children, went off to play golf at the crack of dawn. The family, in more leisurely fashion, had breakfast around nine in the Bay Hill clubhouse, and who should walk in but the man himself. Not having even the vaguest idea who they were, Palmer walked over to the table, ruffled the hair of the kids, asked if he could join them for breakfast - and won three more fans for life.

He had made what is, these days, a rare foray from Bay Hill to attend the PGA Tour player awards banquet in Carlsbad California, when the telephone call came. It was from his wife, Winnie, and the fact that Palmer had been half expecting it made it no less of a shock. For nearly two years tests had shown that he had a higher-than-normal level of prostate specific antigen, a protein in the blood that is an indicator of prostate cancer.

But 12 biopsies had shown up negative before; in a series of six more, three were positive. Decision time.

Palmer, all his life an ardent pilot, flew his Citation 10 jet from California to Minneapolis, to the Mayo Clinic, where he opted for surgery over any other form of treatment. That took place on January 15th, the first day of the Bob Hope Classic, which just happens to be the last US Tour event won by Palmer, back in 1973.

He is, seemingly, winning this battle too. Last week, according to Larry Dorman, golf correspondent of the New York Times, he was back on his beloved practice ground and happy to talk about his experiences. He had not, he said, been frightened.

"I would say that I had some very serious concerns about my health. Frightened, no, but concerned, yes." Then, after the operation had been successful, Palmer had to live with the immediate after-effects, not an easy thing for a man who has been on the move his entire life.

"The first 21 days," said Palmer, "you're running around with a catheter. You've got drains coming out of your stomach for a week. But the catheter, that was for three weeks, and that's no fun."

Nevertheless, Palmer behaved himself. He had been told that unless he let the surgery heal properly it could by a year before he was back to normal, and that, to a man like Palmer, was an unthinkable length of time. Barely a day in his whole long life has gone by without him beating balls somewhere and no man has loved it more.

Now he is back at Bay Hill and doing just that. Last week, according to Dorman, Tiger Woods showed up for a practice round for this week's tournament and went out to watch Palmer hitting balls. Arnie was launching himself at them in familiar fashion: the abbreviated backswing, the desperate lunge for the ball and the high, swirling finish which, despite itself, has made him one of the best drivers in golfing history.

He hit one particularly well and, conscious of the youthful, powerful, towering talent watching him, roared: "Watch out Tiger," and the two fell about.

Woods, of course, could eclipse completely what Palmer has done on the golf course, but it is not possible, simply because he is coming into the game after Arnie, to match what the great man has done off the course.

But one exchange between the two showed that the heritage could be in good hands. Palmer asked Woods if he was enjoying his new life on the Tour. "Yeah," said Woods, "because the thing is, I love to play golf."

It was exactly the right thing to say and Palmer loved it. "Well," he said, "that's good. I know something about that. It's a problem I've had for about the last 60 years."