Arnold Daniel Palmer passed away Sunday evening in his home town of Latrobe, Pennsylvania. He was 87 years old. He had been in ill health of late. While his death was certainly no surprise, Palmer’s passing became worldwide news. He was a great golfer, a sporting icon and most importantly, he was every man. He transcended the game of golf.
The sports side of his story is familiar to not only fans of the game, but to folks who didn’t follow golf but were avid fans of Arnie. He was born in western Pennsylvania at the start of the Depression in 1929, the son of a combination club professional and keeper of the greens. His father, Deacon, was one of those strong and silent types who instilled lifelong virtues in his son. An outstanding junior golfer who also did manual labor at Latrobe Country Club, Arnold played collegiate golf at Wake Forest, left after three years to enter the Coast Guard, and returned to school upon the completion of his service.
Arnold’s Ryder Cup teammate and partner, Johnny Pott, played college golf at LSU at the same time Palmer competed for Wake Forest. Pott recalled that he “played with him in college in the early ‘50s, just after he was out of the Coast Guard. He hit it all over the place but still managed to win the event.” In the summer of 1954, Arnie won the U.S. Amateur at the Country Club of Detroit. He had the confidence at that point in his game, turned professional in late 1954, and made his first impact statement on the golf course by winning the prestigious Canadian Open during his rookie campaign of 1955. From that point on, he would win 62 Tour events, seven majors, and his streak of at least one win every year would extend all the way to 1971.
Palmer caught the attention of the sporting world when he won the 1958 Masters. He would win it three other times – in 1960, 1962 and 1964. His single most important golf win was a dramatic come-from-behind triumph in the 1960 U.S. Open when a three-generation convergence of golf’s past, present and future dueled it out at Cherry Hills. Palmer beat Ohio State amateur Jack Nicklaus and the aging Ben Hogan. He gave a great boost to the British Open when he went to St. Andrews in 1960 in his quest to win the newly invented grand slam of professional golf. Arnie came up short at the Old Course, but he did win back-to-back Opens at Birkdale and Troon in 1961 and 1962.
Palmer was instrumental in the formation of the PGA Senior Tour in 1980 and was the impetus behind the amazing popularity of the new tour for the over-50 set. Palmer won 10 senior tournaments. He became the first golfer to win the U.S. Amateur, the U.S. Open and the U.S. Senior Open. He also was a Ryder Cup hero, posting a combined record of 22-8-2, winning five Cups as a player, one as a player- captain, and a final one as a non-playing captain.
And while I could continue to go on and on about Arnold Palmer’s accomplishments and exploits, his place in golfing history as a member of the game’s Mount Rushmore has a whole lot to do with Arnold Palmer the man, not Arnold Palmer the great golfer.
Palmer used his dynamic personality and aggressive style of play to attract a new and young, post-war generation of fans to the game during the 1950s and 1960s. Palmer took advantage of the newest medium, television, to make golf exciting to millions of American households sitting around the family television in the living room. He won a lot, he crashed and burned a lot, he had movie-star good looks, and he became golf’s matinee idol.
He promoted a standard of professionalism that still plays out among the game’s top pros. Some quality Palmer-isms included making a neat signature so your fans can read your autograph, taking off one’s hat indoors, being clean shaven, and most importantly being gracious to the sponsors and to the fans. I was always amazed at the way Arnold could look into the galleries, wave and wink at fans, give the thumbs-up sign, and truly soak in the unique spectator ambiance of thousands of members of Arnie’s Army surrounding the green. To his eternal credit, Arnold Palmer was extremely comfortable living the life of Arnold Palmer. He seemed to have time for everyone and he had a most impressive ability to make people feel special. While he was an equal sporting icon during the time of Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays, Johnny Unitas and Paul Horning, Bill Russell and Jerry West, he remained in the public view for more than 50 years after winning his seventh and final major at the 1964 Masters. He was a pitchman for a variety of products and a golf course architect of note with more than 300 courses to his credit. He worked tirelessly for a number of philanthropic projects and was most proud of his efforts to open the Winnie Palmer Hospital for Women and Babies in Florida.
Arnold Palmer received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2004 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 2009. With the exception of this past spring of 2016, he was the honorary starter at the Masters alongside Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player, golf’s Big Three of the 1960s. It was a role he filled since 2007.
A final thought comes from five-time PGA Tour winner Johnny Pott, who told me that he “had a bunch of experiences with him (Palmer) over the 63-plus years on and off the golf course. He always had time for me when the occasion warranted it. He will be missed but never forgotten because he was the one who touched so many in so many ways.”
I first saw Arnold Palmer as a 10-year-old as he won an 18-hole Monday playoff over Julius Boros and Jack Nicklaus in the 1963 Western Open. He returned to Beverly County Club again in 1967 and 1970. I was in the corner of the locker room when he was promoting the idea of the 1970 British Open to his fellow pros during a rain delay. I watched him walk the fairways at Silverado during Senior Tour events in the 1980s and 1990s. He was still entertaining, he was still most iconic and yet remarkably he was still a man of the people.
Golf has lost its greatest ambassador as well as its biggest star. He will be remembered for his talent and for his character. We are all better off for having known Arnold David Palmer.
