Arnold Palmer: A Biographical Look


November 17, 2005

Arnold Palmer is many things to many people -- world famous golf immortal and sportsman, highly-successful business executive, prominent advertising spokesman, skilled aviator, talented golf course designer and consultant, devoted family patriarch and a man with a down-to-earth common touch that has made him one of the most popular and accessible public figures in history. 

His popularity and success grew with the tremendous golf boom in the latter half of the 20 ^th Century to heights few ever anticipated and they have been recognized in countless ways over the years.  Certainly each contributed to the other, a fact given recognition when he was named "Athlete of the Decade" for the 1960s in a national Associated Press poll.  Before, during and after that great decade, the famous golfer amassed 92 championships in professional competition of national or international stature.  Sixty-two of the victories came on the U.S. Tour, starting with the 1955 Canadian Open.

Arnold Palmer acknowledges the gallery during this year's Senior Open, which he said would be his last. (John Mummert/USGA)

Besides the magnificent performance record, his magnetic personality and unfailing sense of kindness and thoughtfulness to everybody with whom he comes in contact have endeared him to millions throughout the world and led to the informal formation of the largest non-uniformed "military" organization in existence - Arnie's Army.  Seven of his victories came in what the golfing world considers the four major professional championships.  He won the Masters Tournament four times, in 1958, 1960, 1962 and 1964; the U.S. Open in spectacular fashion in 1960 at Cherry Hills Country Club in Denver and the British Open in 1961 and 1962.  He came from seven strokes off the pace in the final round in that U.S. Open win and finished second in four other opens after that.  Among the majors, only the Championship eluded him.  He finished second in the three times. 

Arnie's springboard to professional fame and fortune was his victory in the U.S. Amateur Championship in 1954.  He turned professional a few months later.  His hottest period was a four-year stretch from 1960 to 1963 when he landed 29 of his titles and collected almost $400,000 at a time when the purses were minute by today's standards.  He was the leading money-winner in three of those years and twice represented the in the prestigious Ryder Cup Match during that time, serving in 1963 as the victorious captain.

It was also during this period that his rapidly-growing business interests got their start, through the impetus of Palmer himself and with the guidance and efforts of his business manager, the late , and his wide-ranging organization.  is president of Arnold Palmer Enterprises, a multi-division structure encompassing much of his global commercial activity that is centered in .  He has been involved in automobile and aviation service firms over the years and still is the principal owner of a car dealership in his Latrobe (PA) hometown.

is president and sole owner (since 1971) of Latrobe Country Club and president and principal owner of the Bay Hill Club and Lodge, , which he and a group of associates acquired in 1970.  Bay Hill hosts the annual Bay Hill Invitational, presented by MasterCard, on the Tour.  In 1999, Arnold and a group of investors purchased the famed golf complex on the coast.  He also is a tournament professional and member of the board of directors of Laurel Valley Golf Club, , with which he has been affiliated since its founding on the late 1950s.

Palmer is consultant to The Golf Channel, based in , which went on the air on cable networks in January 1995.  Another important facet of his activities involves the Palmer Course Design Company, in which he is associated with , past president of the American Society of Golf Course Architects.  Since the mid-1960s, Palmer has put his stamp on more than 200 new courses throughout the nation and world.  His modest business empire and golfing activities keep

Palmer on the move much of the year, most of the travel in his Cessna Citation X jet aircraft with at the controls when aboard.  He was recognized in 1999 for his contributions to aviation and his community when the at Latrobe was renamed the .  He is a member of the Westmoreland County Airport Authority.

Palmer was born on , in Latrobe, a small industrial town in at the foothills of the some 50 miles east of .  He still lives out there during the warm months of the year, but spends the fall and winter months at his homes at Bay Hill and at the Tradition Golf Club in   He has numerous active and honorary memberships in clubs throughout the world, including famed August National in , in , in , Winged Foot in and Oakmont in .

The golf great has been the recipient of countless honors, the symbolic plaques, trophies and citations scattered throughout his personal, club and business worlds, the epitomy coming in 2004 when he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from at a White House ceremony.  He has received virtually every national award in golf and after his great 1960 season both the Hickok Professional Athlete of the Year and Sports Illustrated's Sportsman of the Year trophies.  He is a charter member of the World Golf Hall of Fame and a member of the American Golf Hall of Fame at , and the Hall of Fame in .  He is chairman of the USGA Members Program and served as honorary chairman of the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation for 20 years.  He played a major role in the fundraising drive that led to the creation of the for Children and Women in in the 1980s.  A long-time member of the board of directors of , he staged a major annual fund-raising golf event for that institution for six years that led to the formation of the Latrobe Area Hospital Charitable Foundation.

The saga of Arnold Palmer began when he was four years old, swinging his first set of golf clubs, cut down by his father, (Deacon) Palmer, who worked at Latrobe Country Club from 1921 until his death in 1976, much of that time as both golf professional and course superintendent.  Before long, Arnie was playing well enough to beat the older caddies at the club.  He began caddying himself when he was 11 and worked at almost every job at the club in later years.

The strongly-built young man concentrated on golf in high school, soon was dominating the game in and twice won the high school championship.  He won his first of five West Penn Amateur Championships when he was 17, competed successfully in national junior events and went to Wake Forest University (then College), where he became No. 1 man on the golf team and one of the leading collegiate players of that time.  Deeply affected by the death in an auto accident of his close friend and classmate, , younger brother of 1947 U.S. Open Champion Lee Worsham, withdrew from college during his senior year and began a three-year hitch in the Coast Guard.  His interest in golf rekindled while he was stationed in .  He was working there as a salesman and playing amateur golf after his discharge from the service and brief return to when he won the U.S. Amateur in 1954 following his second straight victory in the Ohio Amateur earlier that summer.

It was during that period that he met at a tournament in .  They were married shortly after he turned professional in the fall of 1954 and Winnie traveled with him when he joined the pro tour in early 1955.  died of cancer on .  underwent successful prostate cancer surgery in 1997 and has become a strong advocate of programs supporting cancer research and early detection.  The Palmer family consists of two daughters - Peggy Palmer Wears, of Durham, N.C., and Amy Palmer Saunders, of Windermere, Fla.; five grandchildren, Emily (1/27/81), Katherine Anne (9/2/82), Anne Palmer ( ) Saunders, Anna Flexer Wears ( ) and Peggy's stepdaughter, Nicola Wears ( ); and two grandsons, ( ) and William Gray Wears ( ).  's brother, Jerry, who succeeded their father as course superintendent at Latrobe CC, and his sisters, and , live in their home area in .  Jerry is now general manager of Latrobe CC and all Palmer properties there.  Their mother, Doris, passed away in 1979 after a long, brave battle against crippling arthritis.

Palmer's Professional Career

Individual Records

Special Golf Achievements

of Year - 1960 and 1962

Tour Leading Money-Winner - 1958, 1960, 1962, 1963

Vardon Trophy - 1961, 1962, 1964, 1967

Ryder Cup Team - 1961, 1963, 1965, 1967, 1971, 1973; Capt. - 1963, 1975

Chrysler Cup Team and Captain (Senior Golf) - 1986-90

Presidents Cup Captain - 1996

Cup Team and Captain - 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004

Charter member, World Golf Hall of Fame, ., 1974

American Golf Hall of Fame,

Hall of Fame, , 1980

All-American Collegiate Golf Hall of Fame, Man of Year, 1984

Ohio Golf Hall of Fame, 1992

Phoenix Open Hall of Fame

Golf Association, 1971

Walter Hagen Award, International panel of selectors

Award, Golf Writers Association of , 1969

Award, Golf Writers Association of , 1976

Herb Graffis Award, National Golf Foundation, 1978

Gold Tee Award, Metropolitan (NY) Golf Writers Association, 1965

Golf Digest "Man of Silver Era", 1975

Old , Golf Course Superintendents Association of , 1983

Golfer of Century, Athletic Club, 1985

Commemorative Honoree, 1987 Golf Digest Commemorative Seniors Tournament

Golfer of Decade (1958-67), Centennial of Golf, Golf Magazine , 1989

American Senior Golf Association National Award, 1989

Chicago District Golf Association Award, 1989

Ambassador of Golf Award, World Series of Golf, 1991

Award, Metropolitan (N.Y.) Golf Writers Association, 1992

Memorial Honoree, Memorial Tournament, 1993

of Distinguished Service Award, 1994

Distinguished Service Award, Tri-State Section, of , 1996

Centennial Award, Golf Associations of , 1996

, Scholarship Fund, , 1997

Lifetime Achievement Award, Tour, 1998

Golfer of Century, Golf Association, 1998

, American Society of Golf Course Architects, 1999

Golf Newsmaker of Century, Golf World , 1999

, USGA, 2000

Golf Family of Year, National Golf Foundation, 2000

Award, Tour, 2000

, Novell Showdown, 2000

National Golf Course Owners Association Award of Merit, 2001

Award, Metropolitan (NY) Golf Writers Association, 2001

Tri-State Hall of Fame, 2002

50 ^th Anniversary ACC golf team, 2003

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