LATROBE, Pa. — It was a mild winter here, about 40 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, so the golf season started early at Latrobe Country Club, well in advance of Saturday’s annual Kickoff Classic.
There has already been a much different feel to the season, though, as it is the first in more than 80 years that Arnold Palmer is not part of.
His absence is felt most deeply at the course his father helped build as a 17-year-old in the early 1920s, where Palmer learned the game and where he returned as an adult every summer to his home, office and workshop on the hill overlooking the club entrance.