A Date in Golf History--Masters Style

Taking a pause one more time on November 16 to highlight special dates in Masters history, with a focus on four-time winner Arnold Palmer: At the 68th Masters, on April 8-11, 2004, Arnie played his final Masters tournament. It would make another good Palmer book to do his career in the Masters only. The final playing chapter would be this tournament, his 50th straight and final time as a competitor. It seemed much earlier that he had been talking about calling it quits at Augusta, but he may have had 50 in mind all along, a number he reached at age 74. Arnold was regularly scoring in the 80s by now; 83-83 in 2003, 84-84 in 2004. It wasn’t known at the time, but this was his final event on the regular PGA Tour schedule too. He left with a pair of rounds in the 80s: 84-84—168, missing the 36-hole cut by 20 strokes.