The impromptu receiving line starts forming at the back of a cart near the 10th tee, where the pros begin their tournament round at Bermuda Dunes (California) Country Club. It isn't set up to be a receiving line exactly, but that's the way it turns out, because Arnold Palmer is sitting in the cart, legs crossed, and he's watching.

In fact, that's exactly what it was. Palmer is such a package, and more, even at 79—especially at 79. He hasn't played a regular Champions Tour event in three years or a PGA Tour event in more than five, but judging by the number of players who want to say hello or the fans who ask him for his autograph, Palmer stands tall among golf's elite.

He's a people magnet. It's as if asking him to sign a program, a ticket stub, a cap, a shirt or a scrap of paper, or even being near him, whatever power or magnetism or charm that fills him is maybe going to rub off.

And who's to say they're wrong?

If there was a position as Ambassador to Golf, Palmer would fill it, but it's a job he's already held unofficially for years—not that he's complaining.

"I do get tired, but it's not a burden," he told GolfDigest.com. "It's more of a pleasure than anything else. I think the fact that people have been so nice to me says a lot."

Palmer looks sharp, especially on this day, decked in razor-sharp gray slacks and a blue sweater. Once, when there was a break between groups, Palmer turned his head, looked down the fairway and said softly, to no one in particular:

"I know every blade of grass."

There are many courses where he could say the same thing, especially this week at Bay Hill Club and Lodge, where the Arnold Palmer Invitational is being played. It's a tournament that's been played at Palmer's Bay Hill since 1979, and a mainstay on the PGA Tour as one of the highlights of the Florida swing

For a man who turns 80 in September, Palmer's clout remains unshakable, his reputation more formidable than ever. That's what it means when you have four Masters titles, seven major championships in all, 62 victories on the PGA Tour, four Vardon Trophies, four earnings titles, a Hall of Fame membership, a Presidential Medal of Honor, the Patriot Award from the Congressional Medal of Honor Society and a charity fund-raiser for the Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children and Women in Orlando.

Palmer is still near the top of his game. Last year, he made an estimated $30 million to rank No. 4 in the Golf Digest 50, a list of the top earners on and off the course. Tiger Woods is No. 1, with a total of about $117 million, but Palmer's estimated earnings in 2008 were still more than Greg Norman, Ernie Els, Sergio Garcia and, yes, even Jack Nicklaus.

And yet, however important money may be, it's not the real Palmer story. According to Gary Player, the Palmer story is the people's story.

"Arnold has always had sort of a partnership with his fans and signing autographs and such," Player said recently. "I've seen dozens of players, how they treat people is frightening. Arnold has always behaved impeccably.

"He is the most charismatic golfer I've ever seen. He was lucky. He fell out of bed with it."

He also worked for it.

By now, the details of Palmer's rise to the top of his chosen field are well known, but seen put together, even through the distance of years, they're a fascinating piece of Americana from a time long since past. The eldest of four children, Palmer was born in Youngstown, Pa., and raised in Latrobe, in the foothills of the Allegheny Mountains, east of Pittsburgh. He was the son of Doris and Milfred Jerome Palmer. Arnold's father, known as Deacon, quit school at 15 and went to work for a steel company in Latrobe. Since the steel company owned stock in the new Latrobe Country Club, Deacon signed on as the course superintendent and later served as the pro.

Arnold was 4 when Deacon cut down a club and gave it to him.

And more than three quarters of a century later, Palmer remembers those days clearly.

"When I was a little guy, I used to go to work with him on the golf course. He cut me down a little golf club and I was set. I had two toy guns on each side and a golf club and I spent my time with him. I suppose I was 3 years old. And then I just grew up. I was a cowboy, I played cowboys and Indians in the early days, then I got onto the game and I started playing.

"I just played by myself and I played with my sister, Lois Jean, who was two years younger than I was. It was a natural thing. I played baseball, football with the guys, and part of that was because there weren't a lot of young kids playing golf. But then I started playing with the caddies in the caddie yard and I was caddieing. And that became major to me."