On the second day Palmer's 73 gave him the lead at the halfway mark with a total of 140 but only after a weird technicality had changed Finsterwald's total from an apparent 139 (69-70) to 141. It came about this way. On his first round, after holing out on the fifth, Dow had dropped his ball and putted it off the green. He never gave this a second thought until the second round when, after completing the first hole, he dropped his ball on the green and was about to putt it off when Bill Casper, his playing partner, yelled to him not to do it, it was against the rules. A diligent student of the rules, Dow had somehow not realized that the PGA two-stroke penalty for practice putting obtained as well in the Masters and was, in fact, printed on the back of the scorecard. Remembering then that, he had violated this rule on the fifth the previous day, he reported this immediately to the officials. At the finish of his round he was advised of the Rules Committee's decision: a two-stroke penalty but not disqualification. The committee, aware that this was the first time in golf history that a penalty was assessed the day after the infringement occurred, had decided that disqualification was not in order since the breach of the rules had not affected the actual play of the ball. Dow's 70 on his second round with all this weighing heavily on his mind was really quite remarkable.
As the tournament moved into the third round and the pressure mounted, strong play by Casper and Julius Boros brought them into contention and only his lamentable work on the greens prevented Ben Hogan, the old lion himself, from roaring out in front at one juncture. On the final day, however, it was really all Palmer, Venturi and Finsterwald — Arnold losing the 1-shot lead he started with by bogeying two of the first five holes after Ken had rushed out in 33 and Dow in 34; then fighting back till all he needed to draw even again was a birdie on one of the two inward par-5s; missing his opportunities on the 13th and 15th, and then, when even a tie seemed beyond him, somehow summoning those dramatic birdies on the last two holes. In winning the Masters a second time and in such a way, Arnold Palmer, that most considerate and pleasant young man, has arrived, it would seem, as nothing less than a great golfer.
