Arnold Palmer’s daughter once said her late father was “appalled” by Donald Trump’s “lack of civility” and character years before the GOP nominee crudely remarked on the golf legend’s penis size at a Pennsylvania rally over the weekend.
Peg Palmer Wears — in a 2018 interview with author Thomas Hauser — said that Trump looked up to her father, “so I suspect he was on his best behavior when they were together.” But during the 2016 presidential race, she said her dad saw a “different side” of the former president.
Advertisement
She recalled her father’s “sound of disgust” while watching Trump speak on television prior to that year’s election.
“Like he couldn’t believe the arrogance and crudeness of this man who was the nominee of the political party that he believed in,” Wears said.
“Then he said, ‘He’s not as smart as we thought he was,’ and walked out of the room. What would my dad think of Donald Trump today? I think he’d cringe.”
The remarks resurfaced after the former president’s vulgar comment on Saturday about Palmer in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, the golf legend’s hometown.
Advertisement
“When he took the showers with other pros, they came out of there. They said, ‘Oh my God. That’s unbelievable,’” said Trump of Palmer, who died in 2016.
“I had to say. We have women that are highly sophisticated here, but they used to look at Arnold as a man.”
Trump has been criticized and questioned by both Republicans and Democrats over his remarks.
Wears, in an interview with The Associated Press on Sunday, said there’s “nothing much to say” about Trump’s remarks and noted that she isn’t “really upset.”
“I think it was a poor choice of approaches to remembering my father, but what are you going to do?” said Wears. She said her father and Trump primarily bonded over a shared love of golf.
She emphasized that the golfer, who was a staunch conservative and Republican donor, believed in the GOP and “a day doesn’t go by” that she doesn’t think about what he’d say “about something or what’s happening.”
Advertisement
“We didn’t always agree on things, but he was a quintessential American who believed fervently in this country, even when he questioned its direction,” Wears said.
In the 2018 interview, Wears also cited her dad’s desire to be a “good role model.”
“He didn’t like it when people were nasty and rude. He didn’t like it when someone was disrespectful to someone else,” Wears said.
She continued, “My dad had no patience for people who demean other people in public. He had no patience for people who are dishonest and cheat. My dad was disciplined.”