For Cole, first Bay Hill start fulfills a teenage dream

ORLANDO, Fla. – Before there were PGA TOUR cards and six-figure checks and even attempting putts for victories, before the globe-trotting began in pursuing a vocation that can be far more maddening than invigorating, there were just two young teens, some daylight, a bonus nine holes at Arnold Palmer's Bay Hill Club & Lodge and a welcoming, grandfatherly figure in an upstairs office that would help feed their dreams.

The guy in Bay Hill’s upstairs office was Arnold Palmer, Sam Saunders’ granddad, who had played a little golf himself, legend has it. Eric Cole, or "EJ," as a lot of Bay Hill folks call him, was the tag-along, golf-crazed buddy often by Sam’s side in Palmer's office. At Bay Hill, Sam and Eric were an inseparable package.

Cole and Saunders heard about one other while playing high school golf on the south end of Orlando in the early 2000s, but neither had seen the other’s game up close. Until they met up in a match at Bay Hill’s extra Charger nine. They were about 14. Both got hot and started pouring in birdies, shooting “30 or 31” as Saunders recalls. Born that day was not only a deep mutual respect for one another’s emerging talents, but a friendship that remains strong to this day.

“He’s like a brother to me,” Saunders said of Cole.

The stakes have changed, but the two were together again Wednesday at Bay Hill, home to the $20 million purse of the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard beginning Thursday. Cole is in the field after receiving a sponsor exemption, so it will be his biggest start to date. He is the hot new face on the PGA TOUR, a 34-year-old rookie who pushed Chris Kirk to a playoff at the Honda Classic last week, rising to 33rd in the season’s FedExCup standings.

Saunders, 35, has been climbing back from injury, competing on the Korn Ferry Tour this season. He is back home to help Bay Hill's owners- and his parents, Amy (Arnold’s daughter) and Roy Saunders- run the tournament. Sam is a polite and gracious host, as his grandfather was. He can (and can't) believe that Cole finally is here as a competitor.. The last time Cole was inside the ropes at Bay Hill on tournament week, he had a bag on his shoulder as Sam’s caddie.

Arnold Palmer with his grandson Sam Saunders. (Sam Greenwood/Getty Images)

“I can’t wait for tomorrow to get here,” Cole said on Wednesday. “I’m so ready.” He will be in the last threesome off the first tee Thursday afternoon at 1:34. He's waited forever to get here; what’s a few more hours?

As cameras followed them, Cole and Saunders took a nostalgic walk up the steps outside the pro shop to the second floor above, where they used to plop down in chairs and visit with Palmer. "Why don't you win two more?" Palmer would ask them. They laughed as they checked out the classic wooden driver and small-headed 2-iron that Palmer had played in high school. Palmer’s office is immaculate today, but years ago. there would be golf equipment strewn around, drivers and wedges and putters– always extra putters. Today, walls feature portraits that display famous moments of the game’s legendary golfer. A Presidents Cup replica rests on a table There is a red cardigan sweater, his many player badges, and a Wheaties! box with Palmer on it.

This life was foreign to these two teens twenty years ago. To Saunders, Palmer was just “Dumpy,” a grandfather who at times could show tough love, but always cared. To Cole, he was Mr. Palmer, so friendly and personable you forgot what he did for a living.

Cole has a memory filled with great times with Palmer, who had filmed commercials with his mom (Laura Baugh) and took a nice liking to the youngster. Cole and Saunders got to visit with Palmer at his home outside Pittsburgh one year while playing in the Frank Fuhrer tournament. The three even played golf at Latrobe, the place where young Arnold Palmer had learned the game, where Palmer's dad, Deacon, was pro and superintendent.

“I had played some rounds with him here at Bay Hill,” Cole explained, “but to play up there, in his element, that was really cool. And then we got a chance to spend time with him after we were done playing. To listen to him tell stories, it’s just something that’s really special.

“It’s one of those things, it feels very special in the moment ... but looking back on it, even though I never took it for granted or anything, I still just wish I had taken even more time, and valued it even more. I know how special that was.”

Cole is the oldest child of two golf professionals– PGA TOUR winner Bobby Cole and former LPGA Rookie of the Year Laura Baugh– and had some experience being around top pros. But time with Mr. Palmer? New level stuff. This was different, and just added to pieces that would make Cole a terrific player.

Cole injured his back and tried teaching for a while (he enjoyed it enough to think he could do it) and had doubts whether he ever would get to golf’s biggest stage. Maybe he was destined to be a mini-tour legend, having won 56 times on something called the Minor League Golf Tour. Cole won an event in January on that tour, taking home $1,300 from a purse that was less than $9,000. At Bay Hill this week, the winner’s take is $3.6 million of $20 million. Cole got a nice reminder how good life can be on the PGA TOUR while standing on the range at Bay Hill on Wednesday. He was scrolling through his phone when his runner-up check from Honda ($915,600) hit his account. Ca-ching!

With the pro-am going on at Bay Hill and Cole not part of it, he drove a few miles away to Orange Tree Country Club, where he teed it up with former PGA TOUR pro Robert Damron, a longtime Bay Hill member. Damron knew at some point Cole was destined to strike it big.

“I couldn’t wait to tell people about Eric,” said Damron, who does some broadcast work on PGA TOUR Radio. “He’s just a natural. You watch him play, and Eric is an athlete. A natural. I liken him to a baby shark. A baby shark is born, and he swims away... nobody taught him how to that. He just does it."

Sunday at Honda, as Cole and Kirk matched each other down the stretch and Saunders watched nervously rooting for his buddy, Cole appeared poised, a natural in the setting, a man well-trained by one-day mini-tours and lots of Monday qualifiers, where the foot never leaves the pedal.

“I think it's good prep, because when you play a lot of one-day tournaments, you have a chance to win a lot of tournaments,” Cole said. “So even though it's only one day, on the back nine you get a feeling of ‘If I birdie three of these last five holes, then I'll win this tournament today.’ That's a good mindset to just kind of have, whether you're playing four-day tournaments or one.”

As Cole battled for his first PGA TOUR title on Sunday, Saunders was living and dying with every shot and every putt, just as his own grandfather had when Saunders was in a playoff at the 2015 Puerto Rico Open, over a before Palmer’s death.

For Saunders, Cole’s “introduction” to the golf world was something that was long, long overdue. It also provides fuel to Saunders to complete his journey back to the PGA TOUR. That always was the dream, after all, Saunders and Cole, the two of them, traveling together and playing against each other trying to get their names on trophies. For now, they have to settle for the Men’s Club Championship board in the Bay Hill locker room:

2003: Sam Saunders

2005: EJ Cole

2006: Sam Saunders

“Honestly,” Saunders said as he departed his grandfather’s office Wednesday to get to a television production meeting, “people probably got tired of me talking about Eric, because I would tell everyone not only what a great guy he is, but how good a player he was.

"To see that come to fruition, to see him achieve success, well, it wasn’t surprising to me at all. That was all that I cared about, is that he finally got out of it what he has put into it, and finally he showed the world how good he is. This is just the start.”