Arnold sent for Joe Dey, the executive secretary of the golf association. Joe naturally ruled that a ball be dropped from alongside the spot where it had originally entered the stream.

``I knew it all along,'' confessed Arnold with a grin, ``but I just happened to think how much nicer it would be to drop one way up there.''

For a serious young man who plays golf with a serious intensity, Palmer has such an inherent sense of humor that it relieves the strain and keeps his nerves from jangling like banjo strings. Yet he remains the fiercest of competitors. He'll even bull head-on into the rules when he is sure he's right. That's how he first won the Masters in 1958.

It happened on the twelfth hole, a 155 -- yarder. Arnold's iron shot from the tee burrowed into the bunker guarding the green, an embankment that had become soft and spongy from the rains, thereby bringing local rules into force.

``I can remove the ball, can't I?'' asked Palmer of an official.

``No,'' said the official. ``You must play it where it lies.''

``You're wrong,'' said Arnold, a man who knows the rules. ``I'll do as you say, but I'll also play a provisional ball and get a ruling.''

He scored a 4 for the embedded ball, a 3 with the provisional one. The golfing fathers ruled in his favor. So he picked up a stroke with the provisional ball and won the tournament by the margin of that stroke.

Until a few weeks ago, however, Arnold Palmer was some god-like creature who had nothing in common with the duffers. But after that 12 at Los Angeles he became one of the boys, a bigger hero than he ever had been before.