Citizen Hughes - Michael Drosnin [48]
So the golf tournament had been transferred to Moe Dalitz’s California resort, Rancho La Costa. In the years since, however, Hughes had grown increasingly worried that he would be blamed for the loss of this prestigious event. And now, in April 1969, Maheu was at La Costa on a do-or-die mission to bring the tournament back—not back to the Desert Inn, but back to Las Vegas.
The plan had been to close the deal and announce the coup on national television. But Maheu had failed in his mission to La Costa. Failed to recapture the golf match, and ruined the entire plot.
The plot against Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer. Hughes had been scheming against them ever since the two top pros had refused to participate in the uprooted Tournament of Champions in early 1968. He saw it as a deliberate slap in the face and a grave peril.
“I think it would be the very worst public relations for these men to cancel out,” Hughes had written when the crisis began. “A lot of people may feel that this is the very first setback we have suffered. At best, you may be sure the newspaper writers will be very hostile about it and they will blame us in print all over the country.”
National disgrace. But it was more than that, more even than a good excuse to pick another fight with Maheu. Golf was a sensitive subject for Hughes. He had once dreamed of himself being a Nicklaus or Palmer, indeed had put it at the top of his list. While still in his early twenties, Hughes told Noah Dietrich: “My first objective is to become the world’s number one golfer. Second, the top aviator, and third I want to be the most famous movie producer. Then, I want you to make me the richest man in the world.” Only the golfing crown had eluded him. And now he was not willing to let Palmer and Nicklaus also slip away.
At first he plotted to snare them both. “It will be considered by everybody here that this is a terrible insult to me personally,” wrote Hughes. “I had already come to the conclusion that some kind of a special deal will have to be made with N. and P. So I have decided to offer the two players a contract to appear in a feature motion picture.”
After more brooding, Hughes changed his mind. He would make only one of them a star.
“Re: golf,” he wrote, “I am willing to forget Nicklaus, but I am not willing to forget Palmer. I insist we take steps, more than ever, to insure Palmer’s participation.
“Now, look, Bob, I am going to get Palmer some way, so why not save us both a lot of grief and help me with it,” he cajoled Maheu, who kept pressing him to bring the tournament back to the Desert Inn. “I am not willing to move it back here. I am not going to be pressured into it by Nicklaus’s refusal.
“I am willing to talk movies to Palmer. In some ways it would be easier to handle than with the two Prima Donnas in one film. Since we are only shooting for one player, I think a short subject (about ½ hour) should be enough. I very definitely do not think we should tell him it will be a short subject, but I also do not feel we should tell him it will be a full length motion picture.”
The more he brooded, however, the less willing Hughes became to offer Palmer even a short subject. Why make either Nicklaus or Palmer a star, when instead he could make it hot for both of them?
“I have just worked out a plan for doing without Nicklaus permanently—as to Palmer, I dont know,” wrote the billionaire, unveiling his latest scheme.
“I want to consider opening a massive book on the P.G.A. Golf Tour and certain other selected sporting events. I want our book to become the bible in determining odds. That is the key to the deal. I want our book to be the last word in determining the odds on any player, and thus the determining factor in the standing of that player in his sport.”
The plot