At a Pennsylvania rally Saturday, Donald Trump played a pro wrestling theme song just before taking the stage and discussed the late golf legend Arnold Palmer’s muscles and legendary, um, club.
Trump spoke in Latrobe, the golfer’s hometown, sharing Palmer’s story for the first 13 minutes of the rally. It was a long tribute to the player’s talent and strength, culminating with Trump praising his masculinity.
“Arnold Palmer was all man. And I say that in all due respect to women, and I love women. But this guy, this guy, this is a guy that was all man. This man was strong and tough,” Trump said.
“And I refuse to say it,” Trump continued, before immediately saying what he seemed to be helpless to avoid saying: “but when he took showers with the other pros, they came out of there — they said ‘oh my god, that’s unbelievable.’”
Trump and the crowd laughed before he added, “I had to say it. I had to say it. We have women that are highly sophisticated here, but they used to look at Arnold.”
You can watch the full rally here:
As he eventually concluded the portion of the speech discussing Palmer, Trump added, “And I had to tell you the shower part of it, because it’s true. What can I tell you? We want to be upfront, we want to be honest.”
Trump began his exploration of Palmer’s biography by saying, “I love Latrobe. You know why: this is the home of my friend Arnold Palmer,” Trump began. He continued to reminisce about Palmer’s roots, noting, “He started off very, very poor.”
But the talk of Palmer quickly turned to praise for the golfer’s athleticism, with Trump adding, “He had no money, just had a lot of talent and a lot of muscle — he was a strong guy.”
Trump continued to talk about Palmer’s strength and the way his father would carry sod at the local golf club, which led to the pair borrowing members’ clubs and playing golf together late at night.
“And then his son got older, and stronger, and then he got stronger, and stronger,” Trump said. He added that the Palmers were finally able to save up money for Arnold to buy clubs, “but they weren’t strong enough. Arnold was breaking them. He’d swing a regular club, and it’d break the hell out of it, because he was so powerful.”
That led the father and son to continue borrowing clubs from the members’ bags. Trump noted, “They’d use very stiff-shafted clubs, very strong — for those of you that aren’t golfers, that’s for like good golfers, with power. Very stiff-shafted.”
Trump talked about how the young Palmer went on to win high school championships while beating rich kids. “He’d beat them so badly. He loved beating them, even though he was a nice guy, but he was tough.”
The Republican candidate explained that he became friends with Palmer when the late golfer was 69 years old. Trump enthusiastically shared that once Palmer was 75 or 76 years old, he was able to hit the ball further than the professional.
“I said, Arnold, let me ask you — 30 years ago, 40 years ago — was I longer than you?” While noting Palmer “was still plenty long,” Trump added that his friend responded, “Donald, let me tell you a little secret: you weren’t even close.”
The lengthy story Trump shared about Palmer also included him discussing one of the opponents Palmer faced while Palmer attended Wake Forest University, future IMG founder Mark McCormack. Trump said, “He didn’t go to Wake Forest, he went to another college, another school. And I won’t say which, because honestly, I didn’t want to look it up. It wasn’t worth it.”
Trump explained how McCormack played Palmer and realized that he would never be a pro, due to how much better Palmer was than him even when McCormack was playing his best.
“He said [Palmer] was longer, straighter, chipped better, putted better and thought better. Other than that, they were very close,” Trump said, to light chuckles from the crowd.
McCormack went on to represent Palmer, with the golfer becoming the new agent’s first client.
Before taking the stage, Trump’s playlist featured former WWE wrestler the Undertaker’s theme song. Trump shared a video Friday with the former wrestler endorsing him, alongside his tag team partner Kane.
