A

Arnold Palmer

1929-

American golfer

Arnold Palmer wrote in his 1997 autobiography, A Golfer's Life, that his father gave him a big piece of advice that served him well through the years. He said, "Get the right grip. Hit the ball hard. Go find the ball, boy, and hit it hard again."

Palmer found the right grip, hit the ball hard, and—more often than not—often found the ball in the bottom of the cup. The little boy that "Deacon" Palmer gave the advice to went on to become one of the greatest golfers of the twentieth century. But not only was Palmer a great golfer, he was and is the game's great ambassador. Many believe that Arnold Palmer single-handedly helped resurrect the game from the stodgy upper classes, making it a spectator sport for the common man, and making it a game that all sorts and kinds could play and enjoy.

Growing Up

Arnold Palmer was born in Youngstown, Pennsylvania on September 10, 1929, to Milfred "Deacon" Palmer and Dorris Palmer. Soon after he was born, the family moved to Latrobe, Pennsylvania (where Palmer still has a home and chooses to reside most of the year). He was born into a golfing household, with his father as the greens keeper and teaching professional at the Latrobe Country Club. Palmer learned much of what he knows about the game from his father, who made a set of clubs for Arnold when the boy was three years old.

With immense natural talent and his father's tutelage, Palmer soon developed his own distinctive game, creating a style that would last him a lifetime. Though it wasn't pretty, the trademark Palmer swing and quick method of play later became part of the appeal that brought him millions of fans. His swing, an awkward and fundamentally flawed hack at the ball, forced Palmer as a boy to swing so hard he "often toppled over."

Comes of Age on the Links

As a kid he was only allowed on the Latrobe course (which he later ended up purchasing) before the members arrived in the morning or after they'd gone home in the evenings. On the links, he started playing the older boys, and when he was eight he consistently defeated the 12 year olds; soon he played regularly with the older boys—the caddies on the golf course—and waited until the day he would be allowed to caddie himself.

While he was in high school Palmer began winning tournaments with ease. In four years on the Latrobe High School golf team, he lost only once. He also added to his list of accomplishments three Western Pennsylvania Amateur titles. A friend of Palmer's, Bud Worsham (whose brother Lew was a professional golfer) convinced Arnold to accept a golf scholarship to Wake Forest College in North Carolina, where he went in 1947. Palmer was soon dominating college tournaments just as he had dominated tournaments in high school.

To Paint or Play

Palmer ended up leaving Wake Forest a year early to join the Coast Guard. He fully intended to return to school to earn his degree. He did return to Wake Forest, but he never completed the degree. (Wake Forest would later award him an honorary doctorate in the humanities.)

He was unsure of what to do, and when Palmer left school, he was tempted to turn pro right away. But that was not an easy decision to make. Though being a professional golfer enticed the young Palmer, professional golf promised no financial stability in the 1950s. In fact, Palmer's popularity after his entrance into the world of professional golf, in 1954, brought about the higher winnings and larger purses players are familiar with today. Many professionals still call Palmer "The King" because they realize that were it not for Palmer's decision to turn pro the game would never have taken off.

To Play

After turning pro in November of 1954 and signing a contract with Wilson Sporting Goods, Palmer married his Winnie Walzer, with whom he would have two daughters. Palmer and Winnie were a great team, and they stayed together until she passed away from cancer in 1997.

In 1955 he won his first big tournament, the Canadian Open, earning $2,400 as the top prize. He continued to add victories over the next few years, winning three in 1956 and then adding four more victories in 1957. But he would have to wait for the major he wanted until the 1958 Masters Tournament in Augusta, Georgia. A victory in this tournament secures your name in golf's book of legends, but Palmer was just getting started.

1960 would be a banner year for Palmer, a season in which "Arnie's Army" materialized and his fan base became legion. At the beginning of the season, in the first major, Palmer took a stunning victory away from Ken Venturi in the Masters after birdieing the final two holes. People all over the country tuned in, and thousands more were on the course to watch the spectacle. During the late fifties, golf coverage on television became more and more commonplace, and most weekends Americans found this tall, average-looking guy named Arnold Palmer on their screen. He was, as Sports Illustrated put it, "earthy and sexy and tan" all at once. The average American found in Palmer a player whose "emotion leaked out of him from every pore." They identified with him. Golf has always carried the stigma for being "a rich man's game," but when working-class people saw Palmer out on the course, a cigarette in his mouth, an awkward (and far from textbook) swing, and his shots ending up in the rough more often than not, they figured that if he could do it, so could they.

Fans began calling themselves "Arnie's Army," a nickname that came about when Palmer played in a tournament near Fort Gordon. According to the News-Press of Fort Myers, soldiers from the base who were working the scoreboards held up signs declaring their allegiance to Arnie. His "soldiers were so devoted," the article said, "that it was not unusual for one to let himself be hit by a Palmer missile to keep it from bounding over the green and into trouble." The signs fans held up would later be banned, but the idea of a following that considered itself an army never died. In fact, it only grew, and soon the "Army" began to irritate Palmer's competitors.

Palmer won the 1960 U.S. Open with a final round of 65—another come-from-behind victory—and people began to believe that there was no deficit from which Arnie couldn't return. His power to capture the hearts of Americans over seemed unstoppable. As did his golf game. He won the British Open in 1961 and 1962, and repeated at The Masters again in 1962. Palmer continued to win some of the regular tournaments on tour, but in 1964 he claimed his last major victory with a win in The Masters.

What Defines Great?

Many say that Palmer was more of a celebrity than he was a great golfer. While indeed he had fantastic performances on the course and won many majors, as well as taking home PGA Player of the Year awards, he won all his honors in less than seven seasons (from 1957 to 1964). Did his competitive drive fizzle, or was he bored and wanting to become more involved with his businesses? He had founded Arnold Palmer Enterprises in 1960 and had started opening golf courses around the country. In addition to that, he also opened up a car dealership and was fascinated by flying and spent much time in the air.

Many also wonder if he was unable to compete with a new superstar by the name of Jack Nicklaus. Palmer's critics often cite the span of Nicklaus's career when discussing the two. Yet in spite of the criticism, over the years people devotedly followed the swift Palmer as he, in turn, followed his ball onto the green. Like a well-tuned military machine, Arnie's Army continues to pull in recruits, and he often draws large crowds at the Seniors Tour events. Some even speculate that he has as many fans today, in his seventh decade, as he did when he was thirty. "I'd just like to think that the people got to know me," he told the Ft. Myers News-Press.

A Hero's Last Masters

This contemporary following, almost twenty-five years after he left the PGA tour, could be seen at the 2002 Masters tournament, which Palmer had declared to be his last a few weeks before playing in the tournament. He made the cut, thanks in large part to a heavy rain that day, that kept him in the tournament for the weekend, and by that Sunday afternoon, people were lined up twenty deep in some places to get a view of The King as he made his final walk up the 18th fairway at Augusta in tournament play.

According to Sports Illustrated, Palmer brought golf "to the truck drivers and the mailmen and the women trying to make three no-trump in their neighborhood bridge groups." What Palmer's presence on the golf course, and in the millions of living rooms each weekend, did was to make golf a little less "prissy" and took some of the high society country club attitude out of the game.

Great players have always been a part of the game, from Bobby Jones to Walter Hagen and from Sam Snead to Ben Hogan, but according to Sports Illustrated, players such as Hogan, true standouts in the game, were "about as lovable as a border guard, an automaton who walked down the middle of the fairway without looking left or right." Palmer engaged the audience. Audiences felt they knew him, that they, in fact, might be Palmer if only circumstances had been a little different. When he was on the course, Palmer didn't make it feel like a rich man's game. Instead, he "walked fast, let his hair get mussed and bummed cigarettes from the gallery."

CONTACT INFORMATION

Address: Home and office—Box 52, Youngstown, PA 15696. Agent—International Literary Management, Inc., 767 Fifth Ave., New York, NY 10022.

SELECTED WRITINGS BY PALMER:

Arnold Palmer's Golf Book: Hit it Hard. Ronald Press, 1961.

Portrait of a Professional Golfer. Golf Digest, 1964.

My Game and Yours. Simon and Schuster, 1965.

Situation Golf. McCall Publshing Co., 1970.

(With William Barry Furlong) Go For Broke. Simon and Schuster, 1973.

(With Bob Drum) Arnold Palmer's Best 54 Golf Holes. Doubleday, 1977.

Arnold Palmer's Complete Book of Putting. Atheneum, 1986.

Play Great Golf: Mastering the Fundamentals of Your Game. Doubleday, 1987.

Arnold Palmer: A Golfer's Life. Random House, 1999.

Playing by the Rules: All the Rules of the Game, Complete with Memorable Rulings from Golf's Rich History. Pocket Books, 2002.

FURTHER INFORMATION

Books

McCormack, M.H. Arnie. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1967.

Palmer, Arnold. Arnold Palmer's Golf Book: Hit it Hard. Ronald Press, 1961.

Palmer, Arnold. Portrait of a Professional Golfer. Golf Digest, 1964.

Palmer, Arnold. My Game and Yours. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1965.

Palmer, Arnold. Situation Golf. McCall Publshing Co., 1970.

Palmer, Arnold and William Barry Furlong. Go For Broke. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1973.

Palmer, Arnold and Bob Drum. Arnold Palmer's Best 54 Golf Holes. Doubleday, 1977.

Palmer, Arnold. Arnold Palmer's Complete Book of Putting. New York: Atheneum, 1986.

Palmer, Arnold. Play Great Golf: Mastering the Fundamentals of Your Game. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1987.

Palmer, Arnold. Arnold Palmer: A Golfer's Life. New York: Random House, 1999.

Palmer, Arnold. Playing by the Rules: All the Rules of the Game, Complete with Memorable Rulings from Golf's Rich History. New York: Pocket Books, 2002.

Periodicals

"Arnold Palmer." (personal profiles). Sports Illustrated (September 19, 1994): 60.

Deacon, J. "Return of the King: Arnold Palmer May Be Golf Royalty, But He is also a Man of the People." Maclean's (May 6, 1996).

Dienhart, T. "Palmer Won't Coast Into Retirement." Sporting News (June 3, 2002): 60.

"The End of an Era." Golf World (April 19, 2002).

New York Times Book Review (April 11, 1965; May 1, 1977).

Reilly, Rick. "Seven ahead, nine to go, and then…" Sports Illustrated (June 15, 1987).

Soffian, Seth. "A Master's Farewell." News-Press (Fort Myers, FL) (April 14, 2002): 1.

Sports Illustrated (June 27, 1966; April 4, 1966; December 19, 1966; March 6, 1967; October 30, 1967; October 14, 1968; August 3, 1970; June 11, 1973; February 18, 1974; June 20, 1977; June 19, 1978).

Other

"Arnold Palmer" biography. http://www.sandhillsonline.com/plantation/palmer.htm. (January 21, 2003)

"Arnold Palmer." Player biography. http://www.golfweb.com/players/00/19/10/bio.html. (January 21, 2003)

Sketch by Eric Lagergren