Hasta La Ideas

Imagine yourself today at the offices of Sports Illustrated, sorting through all the possible photos and illustrations to use for a U.S. national edition tribute cover to Arnold Palmer. In the end, as managing editor Chris Stone affirmed via Twitter, “there really was no other choice but this beauty from Jerry Cooke, shot for the magazine in 1960.” As the publication sometimes does when warranted, it has revealed its next cover a little earlier than usual.

That’s caddie Tip Anderson in the background, on Palmer’s bag, watching as the golfer tried to win at St. Andrews that year the third leg of the sport’s modern Grand Slam. Cooke, who shot dozens of SI covers over the year, passed away in 2005.

The same image was also once used by Palmer for the cover of Issue #23 of his quarterly golf lifestyle magazine, Kingdom. Check out The King’s previous SI covers here. And this is how SI senior writer Michael Bamberger led off an obituary, a version of which will appear in the Oct. 3 print issue, on newsstands beginning Wednesday:

Arnold Palmer, who died Sunday in Pittsburgh at age 87, led an American life that will never be duplicated, so rooted was it in a lost time and a place and the sui generis chemistry of the man.

Image courtesy: Sports Illustrated