Arnold Palmer’s Daughter Revealed What Her Dad Really Thought Of Trump

Peg Palmer Wears, the daughter of golf legend Arnold Palmer, once said her late father was “appalled” by Donald Trump’s “lack of civility” and character ― comments that have garnered fresh interest after the GOP nominee crudely remarked on Palmer’s penis size at a Pennsylvania rally over the weekend.
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.
She recalled her father’s “sound of disgust” as he watched Trump speak on television ahead of 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.
“When he took the showers with other pros, they came out of there. They said, ‘Oh my God. That’s unbelievable,’” Trump said 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 told The Associated Press on Sunday that there’s “nothing much to say” about Trump’s remarks, and 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.
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Wears emphasized that Palmer, who was a staunch conservative and Republican donor, believed in the GOP. She said “a day doesn’t go by” that she doesn’t think about what he’d say “about something or what’s happening.”
“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 father’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,” she said. “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.”