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Arnold Palmer
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Arnold Daniel Palmer (born September 10, 1929) is an American golfer who is generally regarded as one of the greatest players in the history of men's professional golf. He has won numerous events on both the PGA Tour and Champions Tour, dating back to 1955. Nicknamed "The King," he is one of golf's most popular stars and its most important trailblazer because he was the first star of the sport's television age, which began in the 1950s.
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Encyclopedia
Arnold Daniel Palmer (born September 10, 1929) is an American golfer who is generally regarded as one of the greatest players in the history of men's professional golf. He has won numerous events on both the PGA Tour and Champions Tour, dating back to 1955. Nicknamed "The King," he is one of golf's most popular stars and its most important trailblazer because he was the first star of the sport's television age, which began in the 1950s. He was part of golf's "Big Three" along with Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player who are widely credited with popularizing the sport around the world.
Palmer won the PGA Tour Lifetime Achievement Award in 1998, and in 1974 was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame.
Career outline
Palmer was born in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. He learned golf from his father Deacon Palmer, who was head professional and greens keeper at Latrobe Country Club, allowing young Arnold to accompany his father as he maintained the course. At age seven, Palmer broke 70 at Bent Creek Country Club. As a youngster, Palmer was only allowed on the Latrobe course (it was just nine holes then) in early morning or late afternoon, when the members weren't playing. He attended Wake Forest University, on a golf scholarship. He left upon the death of close friend Bud Worsham, and enlisted in the Coast Guard, where he served for three years and had some time to continue to hone his golf skills. Palmer gathered himself, and returned to competitive golf. His win in the 1954 U.S. Amateur Championship made him decide to try the pro tour for a while, and he and new bride Winifred Walzer (whom he had met at a Pennsylvania tournament) traveled the circuit for 1955. Palmer won the 1955 Canadian Open in his rookie season, and raised his game systematically for the next several seasons. With the help of his unfailing personality and lucrative business ventures, Arnold Palmer has almost single-handedly brought golf out of the elite country clubs and into the consciousness of mainstream America.
Palmer's charisma was a major factor in establishing golf as a compelling television event in the 1950s and 1960s, setting the stage for the popularity it enjoys today. His first major championship win at the 1958 Masters cemented his position as one of the leading stars in golf, and by 1960 he had signed up as pioneering sports agent Mark McCormack's first client. In later interviews, McCormack listed five attributes that made Palmer especially marketable: his good looks; his relatively modest background (his father was a greenkeeper before rising to be club professional and Latrobe was a humble club); the way he played golf, taking risks and wearing his emotions on his sleeve; his involvement in a string of exciting finishes in early televised tournaments; and his affability.
Palmer is also credited by many for securing the status of The Open Championship (British Open) among US players. After Ben Hogan won that championship in 1953, few American professionals had travelled to play in The Open, due to its travel requirements, relatively small prize purses, and the style of its links courses (radically different from most American courses). Palmer was convinced by his business partner Mark McCormack that success in the Open - to emulate the feats of Bobby Jones, Sam Snead and Hogan before him - would truly make him a global sporting star, not simply a leading American golfer. In particular, Palmer travelled to Scotland in 1960, having already won both the Masters and U.S. Open, to try to emulate Hogan's feat of 1953, of winning all three in a single year. He failed, losing out to Kel Nagle by a single shot, but his subsequent Open wins in the early 1960s convinced many American pros that a trip to Britain would be worth the effort, and certainly secured Palmer's popularity among British and European fans, not just American ones.
Palmer won seven major championships:
Palmer's most prolific years were 1960-1963, when he won 29 PGA Tour events in four seasons. In 1960, he won the Hickok Belt as the top professional athlete of the year and Sports Illustrated magazine's "Sportsman of the Year" award. He built up a wide fan base, often referred to as "Arnie's Army", and in 1967 he became the first man to reach one million dollars in career earnings on the PGA Tour. By the late 1960s Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player had both acquired clear ascendancy in their rivalry, but Palmer won a PGA Tour event every year up to 1970, and in 1971 he enjoyed a revival, winning four events.
Palmer won the Vardon Trophy for lowest scoring average four times: 1961, 1962, 1964, and 1967. He played on six Ryder Cup teams: 1961, 1963, 1965, 1967, 1971, and 1973. He was the last playing-captain in 1963 and captained the team again in 1975.
Palmer was eligible for the Senior PGA Tour (now the Champions Tour) from its first season in 1980, and he was one of the marquee names who helped it to become successful. He won ten events on the tour, including five senior majors.
Palmer won the first World Match Play Championship in England, an event which was originally organised by McCormack to showcase his stable of players. Their partnership was one of the most significant in the history of sports marketing. Long after he ceased to win tournaments, Palmer remained one of the highest earners in golf due to his appeal to sponsors and the public.
In 2004, he competed in The Masters for the last time, marking his 50th consecutive appearance in that event. After missing the cut at the 2005 U.S. Senior Open by twenty-one shots he announced that he would not enter any more senior majors. He retired from tournament golf on October 13, 2006, when he withdrew from the Champions Tours' Administaff Small Business Classic after four holes due to dissatisfaction with his own play. He played the remaining holes but did not keep score. Palmer's legacy was reaffirmed by an electrifying moment during the 2004 Bay Hill Invitational. Standing over 200 yards from the water-laden 18th green, Palmer, who is known for his aggressive play, lashed his second shot onto the green with a driver. The shot thrilled his loyal gallery and energized the excitable Palmer. He turned to his grandson and caddie, Sam Saunders, and gave him a prolonged shimmy and playful jeering in celebration of the moment.
Palmer has had a diverse golf related business career including owning the Bay Hill Club and Lodge, which is the venue for the PGA Tour's Arnold Palmer Invitational (renamed from the Bay Hill Invitational in 2007), helping to found The Golf Channel, and negotiating the deal to build the first golf course in the People's Republic of China. This led to the formation of Palmer Course Design in 1972, which was renamed Arnold Palmer Design Company when the company moved to Orlando Florida in 2006. Since 1971 he has owned Latrobe Country Club, where his father used to be the club professional. Palmer's ability to win with boldness and charisma was the single biggest factor in the game's explosive growth after 1960.
In 2000, Palmer was ranked the sixth greatest player of all time in Golf Digest magazine's rankings.
He now resides near his golf course, Arnold Palmer's Bay Hill Country Club and Lodge, in Orlando, Florida.
Miscellaneous
- Palmer is a major contributor to health and wellness, founding both the Arnold Palmer Pavilion at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and the Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children in Orlando, Florida. The Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children is a world-class medical facility, which was originally known as the "Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children and Women." In 2006 a new campus was built adjacent to the original building, the Winnie Palmer Hospital for Women and Babies, named after his wife Winnie, creating separate pediatric and obstetrics hospitals.
- Palmer is a 33° freemason.
- Palmer is an aircraft pilot and bought the first Cessna Citation X. He set a speed record with that aircraft on a 5000km closed course.
- Palmer was the first man in golf to win $1 million in career earnings.(see 1963 in the Timeline of Golf History 1945 - 1999)
- The 1960 Masters Tournament, originally broadcast in black and white and recorded on kinescope was re-broadcast on CBS, Sunday, April 8, 2007, one hour before the final round of the 2007 Masters Tournament. The documentary, Jim Nantz Remembers marked the first time a major sports event had been re-broadcast using colorization. It included additional commentary by Arnold Palmer. The broadcast was shown to Arnold Palmer at the Bel-Air Golf Club in February, 2007. It was the first time Arnold had ever seen the broadcast and with the latest and most sophisticated colorization technology of Legend Films, the colorization matched perfectly the color reference material for the entire round. and
- Palmer's birthday was used in Season 3 of MacGyver (Episode: Lost Love II). Peter Thornton liked golf and had set the passcode to the Mink Dragon exhibit to be Arnold Palmer's birthday, 9-10-29 (using the U.S. date format of month first).
- Currently, Arnold Palmer is a member at Oakland Hills Country Club, the host of the 2008 PGA Championship.
- In the spring of 2008 Arnie & Jack was released. The book chronicles the careers and rivalry of Arnold Palmer and longtime friend Jack Nicklaus.
- Alledgedly, one of Palmer's favorite drinks is a combination of half iced tea and half lemonade, a drink which is often referred to as an "Arnold Palmer" in his honor. It is now available under the name "The Original Arnold Palmer Tee" (sic)
- In the NBC sitcom Scrubs, J.D. says, not knowing about sports, "Has anyone ever done less to become famous? I mean yay for me, I mixed two drinks together?"
- A street in the Brier Creek Country Club located in Raleigh/Morrisville, North Carolina, is named after him. The street boasts upscale homes, with some with tax values over 1 million dollars.
Amateur wins (2)
- 1953 Evergreen Pitch and Putt Invitational
- 1954 U.S. Amateur
Professional wins (94)
PGA Tour wins (62)
- 1955 (1) Canadian Open
- 1956 (2) Insurance City Open, Eastern Open
- 1957 (4) Houston Open, Azalea Open Invitational, Rubber City Open Invitational, San Diego Open Invitational
- 1958 (3) St. Petersburg Open Invitational, The Masters, Pepsi Championship
- 1959 (3) Thunderbird Invitational, Oklahoma City Open Invitational, West Palm Beach Open Invitational
- 1960 (8) Palm Springs Desert Golf Classic, Texas Open Invitational, Baton Rouge Open Invitational, Pensacola Open Invitational, The Masters, U.S. Open, Insurance City Open Invitational, Mobile Sertoma Open Invitational
- 1961 (6) San Diego Open Invitational, Phoenix Open Invitational, Baton Rouge Open Invitational, Texas Open Invitational, Western Open, The Open Championship
- 1962 (8) Palm Springs Golf Classic, Phoenix Open Invitational, The Masters, Texas Open Invitational, Tournament of Champions, Colonial National Invitation, The Open Championship, American Golf Classic
- 1963 (7) Los Angeles Open, Phoenix Open Invitational, Pensacola Open Invitational, Thunderbird Classic Invitational, Cleveland Open Invitational, Western Open, Whitemarsh Open Invitational
- 1964 (2) The Masters, Oklahoma City Open Invitational
- 1965 (1) Tournament of Champions
- 1966 (3) Los Angeles Open, Tournament of Champions, Houston Champions International
- 1967 (4) Los Angeles Open, Tucson Open Invitational, American Golf Classic, Thunderbird Classic
- 1968 (2) Bob Hope Desert Classic, Kemper Open
- 1969 (2) Heritage Golf Classic, Danny Thomas-Diplomat Classic
- 1970 (1) National Four-Ball Championship PGA Players (with Jack Nicklaus)
- 1971 (4) Bob Hope Desert Classic, Florida Citrus Invitational, Westchester Classic, National Team Championship (with Jack Nicklaus)
- 1973 (1) Bob Hope Desert Classic
Major championships are shown in bold.
Source:
Other wins (17)
Senior PGA Tour wins (10)
Senior majors are shown in bold.
Other senior wins (5)
- 1984 Doug Sanders Celebrity Pro-Am
- 1986 Union Mutual Classic
- 1990 Senior Skins Game
- 1992 Senior Skins Game
- 1993 Senior Skins Game
Major Championships
Wins (7)
| Year | Championship | 54 Holes | Winning Score | Margin | Runner(s)-up |
|---|
1958 | The Masters | Tied for lead | 1 stroke | Doug Ford, Fred Hawkins | 1960 | The Masters (2) | 1 shot lead | 1 stroke | Ken Venturi | 1960 | U.S. Open | 7 shot deficit | 2 strokes | Jack Nicklaus | 1961 | The Open Championship | 1 shot lead | 1 stroke | Dai Rees | 1962 | The Masters (3) | 2 shot lead | Playoff 1 | Gary Player, Dow Finsterwald | 1962 | The Open Championship (2) | 5 shot lead | 6 strokes | Kel Nagle | 1964 | The Masters (4) | 5 shot lead | 6 strokes | Dave Marr, Jack Nicklaus |
1 Defeated Gary Player & Dow Finsterwald in 18-hole playoff - Palmer (68), Player (71), Finsterwald (77)
Results timeline
DNP = Did not play
WD = Withdrew
CUT = missed the half-way cut
"T" indicates a tie for a place
Green background for wins. Yellow background for top-10.
Summary of major championship performances
- Starts - 142
- Wins - 7
- 2nd place finishes - 10
- Top 3 finishes - 19
- Top 5 finishes - 26
- Top 10 finishes - 38
- Longest streak of top-10s in majors - 6
See also
External links
- - Official website of Arnold Palmer
- - Palmer's golf course design company
- - Palmer's home course
- - Palmer's namesake half iced tea and half lemonade drink
- Profile at Golflegends
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