This week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational is the first such tournament without Palmer, who passed away last fall. Palmer will be remembered for many things and was honored this week at Bay Hill with a statue of his likeness.

One of the enduring images when it comes to Palmer is that awesome umbrella logo. The idea for the red, white, yellow and green logo came from The King himself. Palmer and his team were trying to start his company in the 1960s and could not settle on a logo. Here is arnoldpalmer.com with the tale.

The frustration level in the meeting was rising and Arnie went to walk it off only to find it was raining outside.  He saw a lovely woman get out of her car and pop open a multi-colored umbrella. Arnie dashed back into the conference room.

“What about an umbrella?” said Arnie. Someone at the table shot back, “What kind of umbrella?’ Arnie suggested a multi-colored golf umbrella. A few heads bobbed in agreement. But nobody was even close to calling it a good idea, yet. Somebody told Arnie not to get his hopes up too high because it would be a miracle if someone hadn’t already trademarked it. Despite the odds, the group decided to have their lawyers investigate the symbol. 

A few weeks later their legal team was surprised and pleased to learn that nobody worldwide had trademarked the multi-panel umbrella symbol. Suddenly Arnie had his new company logo - an open golf umbrella done in four colors; red, yellow, white and green.

Now it is synonymous with the Palmer name. It will also be featured on several golfers’ clothing and equipment this week. According to Dave Shedloski of Golf World, the tournament sent the umbrella logo to equipment and apparel companies last year to use for this week if they wanted to.

Several have done just that.

Another golfer, Morgan Hoffmann, is paying his respects in a different way. Hoffmann is flying himself to the tournament from Jupiter to Orlando -- just like Palmer used to do when he was playing across the country.

This week will be memorable for several reasons, and it seems as if the players in the field are trying to make sure it’s as special of a week as it should be.