One-man money making machine
Oozing sex appeal, he was the world’s first sporting superstar. But golfer Arnold Palmer’s greatest talent was as a . . .
STRIDING down the fairway, a cigarette dangling from his mouth as he smiled and waved at his legion of cheering fans, Arnold Palmer had the sort of magnetic personality and rough-hewn good looks that would have been the envy of Hollywood.
A star in an age when sportsmen were far from the multi-millionaire international celebrities they are today, Palmer would even break off to chat with a friend he had spotted in the crowd.
Then, biceps bulging under his polo shirt and clutching his club between bear-like hands, he would hitch up his trousers, flick out his cigarette ash, and smash off a shot with a ferocious swing.
For all the swashbuckling, smash-bang-wallop style, his aim was invariably true — and, if it wasn’t, he would grimace winningly and march on.
The 5ft 10in son of a greenkeeper and head pro from Pennyslvania, who died on Sunday at 87, wasn’t just the world’s first golf superstar, popularising a sport that was seen as aloof and elitist.
He was the world’s first superstar of any sport, a charismatic, hard-drinking and smoking sex symbol who was envied by men and admired by women. The affable Palmer loved his fans in return, shaking every hand that was thrust at him and famously never writing an autograph that wasn’t clearly legible.
Unlike some larger-than-life sportsmen who never quite live up to their reputation, Palmer earned his nickname as the King Of Golf by notching up no fewer than 95 professional titles, including two Open Championships, four Masters and one U.S. Open, in a 50-year career.
However, his electrifying performance on the course was eclipsed by his achievements off the fairways. On the back of his popular appeal and extraordinary financial know-how, he built a fortune of £520 million, along with 400 Arnold Palmer leisurewear stores worldwide.
It was entirely fitting that on the same day that Palmer died of complications from heart problems, the Northern Ireland golfer Rory McIlroy won £9million by taking the FedEx Cup in Atlanta.
Not only McIlroy but hundreds of top sportsmen and women owe Palmer a huge debt of thanks for transforming their world into the vast cash cow it is today. The absurd sums made by Wimbledon winners, Premier League footballers and Formula One drivers are — for better or worse — all down to Arnie, his charm and his astonishing business savvy.
AT A time when golf’s exclusivity in the U.S. — the preserve of snooty, members-only clubs — looked set to relegate the sport to minor league status, Palmer’s appeal suddenly gave it the common touch.
Not only did he have good looks but, in a sport infamous for fashion atrocities, he dressed well.
GQ magazine made him one of the ‘50 most stylish men of the past 50 years’, and Esquire put him in a list of the 75 ‘best-dressed men of all time’. ‘It was not something I planned,’ he said. ‘I liked a sharp crease in my slacks, my shoes polished to a shine, while my shirts were conservative with a straight collar.’
Huge crowds turned up to watch him play and became known as Arnie’s Army. The advent of TV ensured the audience was far bigger than any sportsmen had previously enjoyed. Although he made almost £5.5 million in prize money, experts estimated he made at least 50 times that sum off the course.
Even aged 86, his £30 million income last year made him the fifth-highest earner in the sport.
Palmer, whose sunny smile hid a fierce ambition that had been forged by a driven father and a strong sense of his class, didn’t become the daddy of modern-day sports marketing on his own.
He had a key ally in the form of Mark McCormack, a lawyer he met during a three-year stint serving in the U.S. Coast Guard. McCormack, founded the International Management Group (IMG), the world’s foremost sports agency. The golfer was his first client.
In the year after Palmer took on McCormack as his agent with a simple handshake in 1960, the golfer’s endorsement earnings reportedly soared from $6,000 to $500,000. He signed lucrative deals to endorse everything from tractors to Japanese robes.
He appeared in TV commercials for Hertz car rentals, the oil company Penzoil and Coca-Cola. He was paid to pour Heinz ketchup on steaks, smoke L&M cigarettes, and wear particular brands of cardigans and dinner jackets.
His usefulness to the companies he plugged was borne out by the fact that when the deal came up for renewal, their rivals would often charge in with a higher offer. And so Palmer went from endorsing Qantas to United Airlines, from driving Cadillacs to Ford Mercurys, and from enjoying a good night’s rest in the Holiday Inn to the more upmarket Westin chain.
In 1967, he was earning $7,500 for a single appearance fee. The following year, the same year in which he became the first professional golfer to earn more than $1 million in prize money, Palmer trademarked his name and his now famous umbrella logo.
Last year, Palmer — though now behind the wheel of a golf buggy rather than sauntering across the green — made a TV commercial for Xarelto, a blood-thinning drug.
As president of Arnold Palmer Enterprises, he supervised the design and construction of more than 300 golf courses.
His golden touch extended even to making drinks. His wife Winnie used to make iced tea for lunch but, unsatisfied, Palmer suggested mixing a little lemonade with it. He would take the refreshing concoction on to golf courses with him inside a Thermos flask.
In the late Sixties, he ordered the drink from a waiter at a restaurant in Palm Springs, California. A woman overheard and ordered an ‘Arnold Palmer’ for herself. It became a staple at every golf club bar and, in 2001, Arnold Palmer Enterprises began bottling the stuff. By 2015 it was taking £150 million from tea in annual sales.
Palmer worked hard for his success. At a time when many U.S. golfers didn’t bother to travel outside the country, he insisted on competing in the Open in Britain, ensuring his army of fans and the TV cameras went with him.
An avid pilot, who in 1976 set a small-jet flying record when he circumnavigated the globe in just over 57 hours, Palmer often flew himself to tournaments.
But his head was never turned by success. He understood and respected ordinary people. After all, he grew up in a working class home in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, living in a little house on the edge of the small golf club where his father worked.
Deacon Palmer drove his son hard after introducing him to his beloved sport when he was three. He was the only coach his son ever had. ‘Hit it hard, boy,’ he told him. ‘Go find it and hit it again.’
In his Fifties and Sixties heyday, Palmer had a reputation as a heavy drinker — vodka was his favourite tipple — and a party animal, although the media colluded in keeping this secret to all but golf world insiders.
He was a shameless flirt, seeking out pretty women among the crowd watching him play. ‘I’ve got sex written all over my face,’ he’d say.
Rumours dogged him that — like other professional players — he wasn’t entirely faithful to his wife while travelling away from home on the golf circuit.
Palmer had married Winnie Walzer, a 19-year-old student, in 1954. For years, she handled the finances as they toured the competitions together, allowing Arnie to concentrate on his golf.
They remained a devoted couple, until her death from breast cancer in 1999. In 2005, he married his second wife, Kathleen, in Hawaii.
Palmer, who leaves two daughters and six grandchildren, was a businessman right up to the end, he was working on plans for a new golf course in the Highlands when he died.
When Rory McIlroy met Palmer last year, he told him: ‘Mr Palmer, I will never want for anything at all in life. That’s because of you.’
Indeed he won’t. As tributes poured in from golf fans, it is the world’s great athletes who should be thanking Palmer the most fervently. He made them rich.