USA TODAY International Edition
‘ The King’ was golf, U. S. icon
Palmer revered for playing style, charm, charity
Before accepting the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2004, Arnold Palmer shared a few laughs with President George W. Bush and gave the commander in chief a few golf tips in the East Room of the White House.
Eight years later, when honored with the Congressional Gold Medal, Palmer, who again offered golf tips to some of the most important politicians in the country, jokingly thanked the House and the Senate for being able to agree on something.
After receiving the highest civilian awards given in the United States, Palmer went outside each of those days, at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. and the U. S. Capitol, and signed autographs for hundreds of people.
That was Palmer, a man who connected with the masses, who related to kids, the hourly wage employee, the CEO — and presidents.
Palmer, who died Sunday in Pittsburgh at 87, was the accessible common man who would become “The King” and lead his own army. Along the way he became one of the sport’s best players and a successful businessman,
philanthropist, trailblazing advertising spokesman, talented golf course designer and experienced aviator.
Alastair Johnson, CEO of Arnold Palmer Enterprises, confirmed that Palmer died Sunday afternoon of complications from heart problems. Johnson said Palmer was admitted to the hospital Thursday for cardiovascular work and became weakened over the last few days.
“We are deeply saddened by the death of Arnold Palmer, golf’s greatest ambassador, at age 87,” the U. S. Golf Association said in a statement. “Arnold Palmer will always be a champion, in every sense of the word. He inspired generations to love golf by sharing his competitive spirit, displaying sportsmanship, caring for golfers and golf fans, and serving as a life- long ambassador for the sport. Our stories of him not only fill the pages of golf’s history books and the walls of the museum but also our own personal golf memories. The game is indeed better because of him and, in so many ways, will never be the same.”
While his approach on the course was not a model of aesthetics — the whirlybird followthrough, the pigeon- toed putting stance — it worked for him. With thick forearms and a thin waist, Palmer had an aggressive risk- reward approach to golf that made for compelling theater. He hit the ball with authority and for distance and ushered in an aggressive, hitch- up- your- trousers, go-for- broke, in- your- face power game rarely seen in the often stoic and staid sport.
Palmer, part of the alluring “Big Three” with Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player, won 62 titles on the PGA Tour, his last coming in the 1973 Bob Hope Desert Classic. Among those victories were four in the Masters, two in the British Open and one in the U. S. Open. He finished second in the U. S. Open four times and was runner- up three times in the PGA Championship, the only major that eluded him. He was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1974.
Palmer became one of the best- known sports figures and, at 5- 10, 175 pounds, a telegenic golfer who burst out of black- andwhite television sets across the country in the late 1950s and into the 1960s and took the game to the masses.
“Arnold meant everything to golf. Are you kidding me?” Tiger Woods said. “I mean, without his charisma, without his personality in conjunction with TV — it was just the perfect symbiotic growth. You finally had someone who had this charisma, and they’re capturing it on TV for the very first time.
“Everyone got hooked to the game of golf via TV because of Arnold.” FRIEND TO PRESIDENTS Palmer won the Vardon Trophy for lowest scoring average on the PGA Tour four times, played on six Ryder Cup teams and was captain twice. He received virtually every national award in golf and was the “Athlete of the Decade” for the 1960s in a national Associated Press poll. Palmer, who helped found the Golf Channel decades later, also helped usher in the senior tour, where he won 10 times, including five majors.
He was a magnetic star who attracted legions of fans who had never played golf as the television boon exploded across the land.
Those fans included U. S. presidents.
Dwight Eisenhower, who loved golf, was one of Palmer’s best friends. Richard Nixon asked Palmer about the Vietnam War. Palmer played golf with both Presidents Bush.
Eisenhower painted Palmer’s picture — as did Norman Rockwell. There is a drink named in Palmer’s honor, as well as an airport, a golf tournament, hospitals, streets, charity initiatives and 19th- hole grill rooms.
And from start to finish, Palmer signed as many autographs, posed for as many pictures and chatted with as many fans in the galleries as any golfer who hit a golf ball.
“There are two things that made golf appealing to the average man — Arnold Palmer and the invention of the mulligan,” actor- comedian and good friend Bob Hope once said.
Palmer was a folk hero with a driver in his hand and a handshake after the round. From 2007 through 2015, he served as the honorary starter for the Masters, creating one of the best moments of the tournament every year on Thursday morning.
“Arnold Palmer was the everyday man’s hero,” Nicklaus said. “From the modest upbringing, Arnold embodied the hardworking strength of America.” ORIGINS OF ‘ ARNIE’S ARMY’ Palmer was the oldest of four children born in 1929 to Deacon and Doris Palmer. He received his first set of golf clubs from his father, who worked at Latrobe ( Pa.) Country Club from 1921 until his death in 1976. Growing up near the sixth tee of the club, Palmer learned the grip and the swing from his father, as well as manners, empathy, integrity and respect.
Palmer worked nearly every job at the club before heading to Wake Forest University, where he became one of the top collegiate players. But when his close friend, Bud Worsham, was killed in a car accident, Palmer quit school and enlisted for a threeyear hitch in the U. S. Coast Guard.
While stationed in Cleveland, his passion for golf was rekindled. Then, while working as a paint salesman, Palmer quickly got his game back in order and won the 1954 U. S. Amateur Championship. On Nov. 18, 1954, at 25, he turned pro and signed a contract with Wilson Sporting Goods.
His greatest stretch of golf began in 1960 and lasted four years, with Palmer winning six major championships and 29 titles on the PGA Tour. It was in 1960, at the Masters in Augusta, Ga., that a local newspaper coined the phrase “Arnie’s Army,” when soldiers from nearby Camp Gordon followed Palmer. Soon, non- uniformed fans across the land enlisted.
Palmer’s defining moment, one that embedded the word “charge” into the minds of his adoring fans, came in the 1960 U. S. Open at Cherry Hills. Palmer had won the Masters two months earlier, with birdies on the final two holes to edge Ken Venturi by one shot. But Palmer began the final round of the Open seven strokes and 14 players behind and was told by Bob Drum of The Pittsburgh Press that he was too far behind to win.
Angered by the remark, Palmer drove the first green 346 yards away and made the first of four consecutive birdies. He added birdies on the sixth and seventh and shot a final- round 65 to complete the comeback victory.
A month later, Palmer made a pilgrimage to St Andrews for the British Open, and his presence helped salvage the game’s oldest championship and elevated it back among the game’s best tournaments.
Palmer won eight times in 1960, the year he signed with pioneering sports agent Mark McCormack, and quickly became a marketing giant for products ranging from golf equipment to jackets and slacks to automobile oil and rental cars. Palmer became the first pro golfer to earn $ 1 million for his career. Even into his 80s he was pulling in an estimated $ 20 million a year.
“Arnold was the epitome of a superstar,” fellow Hall of Famer Raymond Floyd said. “He set the standard for how superstars in every sport ought to be, in the way he has always signed autographs, in the way he has always made time for everyone. On the golf course, all I ever saw was a mass of people. He was able to focus in on everyone in the gallery individually. It wasn’t fake.
“And man, could he play the game.” GIVING BACK THROUGH CHARITIES But as dramatic as his victories were, so, too, were Palmer’s losses in majors.
In 1961 he lost the Masters by one stroke when he made doublebogey on the 72nd hole after accepting premature congratulations from a friend to the right side of the 18th fairway.
Palmer lost three playoffs in the U. S. Open, to Nicklaus in 1962, Julius Boros in 1963 and Billy Casper in 1966, when Palmer blew a seven- shot lead with nine holes to play in regulation.
But the masses never deserted him. Palmer’s appeal was so large, so wide that he even gave origin to a beverage that soon became a hit across the land. One of his favorite drinks was a mixture of iced tea and lemonade.
It is now available in grocery stores and is simply called the Arnold Palmer.
“A guy came up to the bar, and he ordered an Arnold Palmer, and the barman knew what that drink was,” three- time major champion Padraig Harrington recalled about a visit to an Indian restaurant in Orlando in 2009. “Now that’s getting to another level. Think about it, you don’t go up there and order a Tiger Woods at the bar.
“When the guy ordered it, I thought, maybe you could do it in a golf club, but he’s ordered it in a random bar. And the guy, who probably wouldn’t know one end of a club from the other, knew what it was.”
Palmer’s accomplishments were widespread, his influence wide ranging. He helped raise hundreds of millions more for charities.
In 1989, after Palmer played a major role in a fundraising drive, the Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children & Women in Orlando opened. The first baby was born within hours after the ribbon cutting. Since, nearly 200,000 children have been born there.
In 2002, Arnie’s Army Battles Prostate Cancer was launched, and more than 2,500 tournaments across the country sponsored by the organization have raised more than $ 3 million for prostate cancer research.
Palmer also left his stamp on developing some 225 courses throughout the world.
“The game has given so much to Arnold Palmer,” Nicklaus said, “but he has given back so much more.”
This was evident when Palmer received the Congressional Gold Medal.
“Arnold Palmer democratized golf, made us think that we, too, could go out and play,” said House Speaker John Boehner, an avid golfer. “He made us think that we could really do anything, really. All we had to do was to go out and try.”