Early & Best

When he is hot, he can wind up on the tee and belt the ball a country mile. He can putt as if the ball had eyes. But nearly any pro, when he is hot, can do the same. The difference is that this year, sharpshooting Arnold Palmer, 30, has stayed happily heated up almost all the time. Ever since January, when golf pros began chasing a fast fairway dollar eastward from Los Angeles toward the big-time championships of spring and summer, Palmer has been cashing in at a record rate. By last week he had earned $24,226, more than any pro ever has this early in the season.

Palmer's high-priced performance required both steadiness and flash. It took sure hands on the sun-baked courses of the Southwest, where the ball rolls forever if it is hit down the middle; and Palmer was on target often enough to win the Palm Springs Classic and the Texas Open. It called for a spectacular change of pace at Pensacola, where he came from behind on moist, slow Gulf Coast greens, banked on long, bold putts to rack up a seven-under-par 65 in the second round to take the tournament by a single stroke.

The bronzed, broad-shouldered man from Latrobe, Pa, has been curling his fingers around golf clubs ever since he was seven, when his golf-pro father taught him the correct grip. By 13, he had entered his first tournament. At Wake Forest College he was No. 1 on the golf team. In 1954, he got married, and won the National Amateur, but passed up a honeymoon in Europe in order to turn pro and start making money.

By now, Palmer's intense attention to his trade allows him to go through the motions of relaxation. When the going is good, he has been known to trade wisecracks with the gallery. But even at home with his family (two daughters, 4 and 1 1/2), in the inevitable motels of the tournament circuit, he devotes every spare moment to grooming his collection of clubs. "Keeps you out of mischief," says Palmer.

It also keeps him in his high rank--a rank his fellow pros concede. Said one last week, with more admiration than envy: "Arnold is the greatest since Sam Snead."

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