Don't Ever Bet Against Arnold Palmer... or Donald Trump

It was September 1954, and Arnold Palmer, fresh off winning the U.S. Amateur Championship, had just finished playing a practice round in preparation for the Waite Memorial, an amateur golf invitational sometimes referred to as the Young Masters. The tournament was being held at the Shawnee Inn in Pennsylvania near the Delaware Water Gap and, as Arnie told the story later in his autobiography, A Golfer’s Life…

“As I was coming back into the inn, I saw a couple of pretty girls coming down the stairway that led to the main lobby. One of them was Dixie Waring, Fred’s daughter. But it was the quieter, prettier, dark-haired one that really caught my eye. She had smoky good looks, and her demeanor had a clear sheen of class.”

Her name was Winnie Walzer and Arnie managed to get Waring’s secretary to formally introduce them. That was on Tuesday and except for the time Arnie spent on the course, playing and practicing, they were inseparable that week. With the tournament coming to an end, Arnie realized he had to move quickly.

“At dinner on Friday, I reached under the table and took her hand and said, ‘What would you think if I asked you to get married?’” Startled, Winnie asked for a day to think it over… and then accepted Arnie’s brash proposal.

In case you lost count, that was three days from the time they first met to Arnie’s marriage proposal and one more day for Winnie to say “Yes”.

The lovebirds originally planned to get married in the spring and then honeymoon in England during the Walker Cup. However, when Arnie decided to turn pro, the timetable accelerated and the two eloped to Falls Church, Virginia. According to Arnie, “We spent our honeymoon night at a trucker’s motel off the Breezewood exit of the Pennsylvania Turnpike. It wasn’t terribly romantic, and in retrospect, it makes me realize what a true gem I had found in Winifred Walzer. Here was this classy, educated, beautiful girl who risked her father’s eternal wrath and gave up her girlhood wedding dreams, and goodness knows what else, to follow a guy who’d never made a plugged nickel as a professional golfer.”

And so, they hitched a trailer to their car like vagabonds and set out on the pro tour. The rest, as they say, is history.

I share that poignant love story to say that some whirlwind romances do indeed work out. Arnie and Winnie were married for 45 happy years until her passing in 1999 from ovarian cancer. However, not everyone has the charm, charisma, and rugged good looks of Arnold Palmer… which is what it took to convince a young debutante to marry a virtual stranger.

More often than not, rushing things turns a girl off and the prospective suitor is left out in the cold, holding a bouquet of wilting flowers and wondering where things went wrong.

And that, my friends, is the perfect segue to Donald Trump and his tariff wars.

There is no arguing that Uncle Sam has been the world’s economic patsy for the past 80 years. Under the Marshall Plan, the U.S. voluntarily paid more than $13 billion (the equivalent of $150 billion today) to help rebuild the countries that had attacked us... and whom we had just defeated. No other country in human history has ever treated its conquered foes with such benevolence and compassion.

And what did we get in return? A cold shoulder in the form of stiff tariffs and other unfair trade policies that made American-made goods prohibitively expensive in foreign markets. Meanwhile, saps that we are, we continued to import everything from pharmaceuticals to microchips to steel, sometimes from nations who are not our friends.

Donald Trump, the ever-enterprising entrepreneur, spoke out about the unfairness – and inherent dangers – of America’s trade imbalance as early as the 1980s. Now, as president, he finally has the power to do something about it and so, who can fault him for trying?

The only thing I question is why President Trump decided to engage the entire world in one fell swoop? Having scored a series of political victories including securing the southern border in record time, President Trump could have built on that positive momentum by focusing first on either our North American trading partners or better yet, China. Instead, he chose to take on more than 100 nations simultaneously and the markets have responded accordingly, losing as much as $6.6 trillion in value in a single 48-hour period.

Slow and steady wins the race, right?

And yet, there are some early signs that Trump’s strategy may be starting to pay off as Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche just announced a $50 billion commitment to expand U.S. manufacturing in response to new White House tariffs and incentives. Chip manufacturer TSMC followed suit, announcing a $100 billion investment in its Arizona plant, while Eli Lilly is doubling its U.S. footprint with four new pharmaceutical sites. Meanwhile, Apple recently pledged $500 billion toward AI-driven manufacturing and training, including building a new facility in Houston.

Not to be outdone, Nvidia is launching domestic production of its AI supercomputers in Texas and Hyundai plans to invest $21 billion to expand its U.S. auto production. And with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent hinting yesterday that trade tensions between the U.S. and China may be easing, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is back up today (at least temporarily).

Can Donald Trump, an avid golfer and course owner himself, channel his inner Arnold Palmer and pull off an economic miracle the likes of which the world has never seen? Time will tell. I still wish he had moved a little slower and more deliberately instead of shooting from the hip, but what do I know? His net worth dwarfs mine and his golf handicap is probably lower, too.

Meanwhile, it is worth pointing out that – despite being distracted by his whirlwind courtship of Winnie Walzer – Arnold Palmer still managed to win the tournament that week, after which he drove to Pine Valley, New Jersey, the most exclusive country club in the world. While there, Arnie bet and won enough money from his boss and a few friends to buy Winnie an engagement ring.

Arnold Palmer was known for his swashbuckling style on the golf course, an approach that may have cost him a few tournaments but won him the love and admiration of his devoted fans and followers who comprised “Arnie’s Army”. There is a reason why, nine years after his death, he is still referred to simply as “The King”.

Likewise, there hasn’t been a businessman or politician over the past century more willing to roll the dice than Donald J. Trump. Chalk it up to his New York origins or his casino background, but the man is willing to go “all in” when the stakes get high.

The moral of the story is don’t ever bet against Arnold Palmer… or Donald Trump.