The Full Biography
Arnold Palmer. Golfer. The Latrobe kid who took a country-club game to television and never played it like a country club.
This is his story.
The image most people still carry is a hitch in the follow-through, a cigarette, and a gallery in cardigans running after him as if a golf shot were a fire. They called the gallery Arnie’s Army. The year might be 1960 at Cherry Hills, or any April at Augusta. What the still cannot show is a greenskeeper’s son in western Pennsylvania, a missing PGA Championship that he never pretended not to mind, and a long civic life spent building a hospital, a tournament, and a drink that outlived the swing.
He was born Arnold Daniel Palmer on September 10, 1929, in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. His father, Milfred “Deacon” Palmer, was the club professional and greenskeeper at Latrobe Country Club. The boy learned the game from the man who mowed it. He was not invited into the grill room as an equal. He learned to play as if the invitation would never come and would not be required. Wake Forest, then the Coast Guard, then the 1954 U.S. Amateur. He turned professional that year. He married Winifred “Winnie” Walzer the same season. The marriage lasted until her death in 1999.
The first major was the 1958 Masters. The year that made him a national fact was 1960: Masters again, then the U.S. Open at Cherry Hills, where he drove the first green in the final round and came from seven shots back. Television had been looking for a golfer who moved like a man in a hurry. It found him. Mark McCormack signed him and built, around that hitch and that smile, the modern athlete corporation. IMG starts here. So does the idea that a golfer could be a brand without becoming a statue.
He won the Open Championship at Royal Birkdale in 1961 and at Troon in 1962, and American players started crossing the Atlantic again because he had made the trip look like a duty and a pleasure. Four Masters in all: 1958, 1960, 1962, 1964. Seven majors. Sixty-two PGA Tour victories. He never won the PGA Championship. The file stays open on that sentence. He did not ask anyone to close it for him.
What other people may find in poetry or art museums, I find in the flight of a good drive.Arnold Palmer
The turn is not the first green at Cherry Hills. The turn is the decision, after the trophies, to treat the famous name as a town rather than a farewell tour. He bought into Bay Hill, outside Orlando, and made a club that still carries his tournament. He helped start the Golf Channel. He put his name on a hospital for children in Orlando. He ordered iced tea mixed with lemonade so often that waitresses and then the country called the glass an Arnold Palmer. He thought that was funny. He also thought it was accurate.
The Tour ledger is thicker than the seven majors. First win: the 1955 Canadian Open. Then the 1958 Masters at Augusta, a 284, and the gallery that would be called Arnie’s Army began to run. 1960 was the year television found him: Masters again, then the U.S. Open at Cherry Hills, Denver, a final-round 65, the drive onto the first green, seven shots erased. He was Sports Illustrated’s Sportsman of the Year. Mark McCormack signed him and built IMG around that hitch and that smile. In 1961 he won the Open Championship at Royal Birkdale. In 1962 he won it again at Troon, and the Masters a third time. American players started crossing the Atlantic because he had made the trip look like a duty and a pleasure. The fourth Masters arrived in 1964. He never won the PGA Championship. The file stays open on that sentence.
There were Sundays that did not break his way, and he did not sand them. At Oakmont in 1962 Jack Nicklaus beat him in an 18-hole U.S. Open playoff; the Ohioan was twenty-two. At the Olympic Club in 1966 Palmer took a seven-shot lead to the back nine on Sunday and lost the U.S. Open to Billy Casper in another playoff. Those two afternoons sit beside Cherry Hills in any honest account. Sixty-two PGA Tour victories. Seven majors. A Champions Tour career after the regular Tour had taken what it needed. He bought Bay Hill, outside Orlando, in the 1970s and made a club that still carries his tournament every March. He helped launch the Golf Channel in 1995. He put his name on Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children in Orlando, which opened in 1989. Latrobe remained home. The airport there took his name while he could still land on it.
The 1960s after Cherry Hills were a corporation and a gallery. He won the 1960 Insurance City Open, the 1960 Texas Open, the 1961 British Masters on the other side of the water, the 1962 Colonial, the 1963 Los Angeles Open, the 1963 Phoenix Open. The list is a working golfer’s, not a museum’s. He designed courses. He flew himself from date to date in a plane that became part of the myth and part of the job. He endorsed a club, a shirt, an umbrella, an oil company, and then a drink he had not asked anyone to name. Winnie kept the house and the children while the Army ran after him on Sundays. Peggy and Amy learned what a famous father costs and what he can build. He played the Ryder Cup as a player and then as a captain. He treated the Great Britain and Ireland side, and then Europe, as a duty the way he had treated Troon.
The Champions Tour, when it arrived, gave him a place to keep competing after the regular Tour had taken what it needed. He did not pretend those rounds were 1960. He showed up anyway. Bay Hill’s March date became the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard, a tournament with his umbrella on the flags and his hospital in the same city. He walked the range. He sat on the veranda. He hit the ceremonial first-tee shots at Augusta into his eighties, the hitch intact, the ball shorter, the gallery still running. The Golf Channel, which he helped start with Joe Gibbs and others in 1995, put the game on television twenty-four hours a day — a logical end to the afternoon in 1960 when television had found him. Latrobe Country Club, where Deacon had mowed, remained the first course. He never stopped being the greenskeeper’s son who had not been invited into the grill room as an equal.
The 1975 British PGA, the 1980 Canadian PGA, senior majors and near-misses — the second competitive life is real even if the public only wanted the hitch from 1960. He shot his age and then could not. He still signed every flag. He still wrote the notes. The commercial name and the civic name were the same on purpose: hospital, airport, tournament, drink. He thought the drink was funny. He also thought it was accurate. A man who asked for tea and lemonade and let the country name the glass is a man who understood what the famous name was for.
Deacon Palmer taught him on the course he maintained at Latrobe Country Club. The boy was not invited into the grill room as an equal. He learned to play as if the invitation would never come and would not be required. Wake Forest, then the Coast Guard, then the 1954 U.S. Amateur at the Country Club of Detroit. He turned professional that year and married Winnie Walzer the same season. The first Tour win was the 1955 Canadian Open. The first major was the 1958 Masters. Cherry Hills in 1960 made him a national fact. Birkdale and Troon made the Open Championship an American habit again. Four Masters. A U.S. Open. Two Opens. No PGA Championship. Sixty-two PGA Tour victories. Last regular Tour win: the 1973 Bob Hope Desert Classic. Then the senior ledger: 1980 PGA Seniors’ Championship, 1981 U.S. Senior Open, more Champions Tour dates that helped that circuit exist. He flew himself. He built a hospital. He let a waitress name a glass. Latrobe buried him as a neighbor. That is the arc.
Arnie’s Army was the gallery, not a marketing department. They ran because he looked as if he might make a mess of a hole and then refuse to. McCormack and IMG started here. So did the idea that a golfer could be a brand without becoming a statue. He bought Bay Hill. He helped start the Golf Channel. He put his name on a children’s hospital in Orlando that opened in 1989. Presidential Medal of Freedom, 2004. Congressional Gold Medal, presented 2012. World Golf Hall of Fame, first class, 1974. Kit Gawthrop in 2005, after Winnie. Heart trouble in Pittsburgh, September 2016. He was eighty-seven. The hitch will last. The greenskeeper’s son who built a hospital out of a follow-through is the part the still cannot show.
Six things most people never knew
- The swing was a greenskeeper’s education. Deacon Palmer taught him on the course he maintained. The Army was the gallery. The grill room came after the work.
- He never won the PGA Championship. Four Masters, a U.S. Open, two Opens. The fourth major stayed out of the case.
- Cherry Hills, 1960, was a seven-shot hunt. He drove the first green. Television found its golfer that afternoon.
- He made the British Open an American habit again. Birkdale and Troon were not vacations. They were a dare to the rest of the Tour.
- The drink is not a branding meeting. He asked for tea and lemonade. The country named it. He let them.
- Winnie died in 1999. He married Kathleen Gawthrop in 2005. The second house was not empty, and it was not the same.
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The later years
Those years were Latrobe and Bay Hill, a plane, and a yellow umbrella on umbrellas, towels, and the kind of merchandise a man allows when he has decided the name can do civic work. Daughters Peggy and Amy grew up inside that name. Grandson Sam Saunders played the Tour and heard the hitch in other people’s throats. The Arnold Palmer Invitational became a March appointment at Bay Hill. He was no longer the man who had to go for broke on Sunday. He was the man the Sunday still belonged to. He kept the course the way Deacon had kept Latrobe: as work. He still hit shots for cameras, slower, the hitch intact. He still signed the flags. He did not pretend the old-age swing was the 1960 swing. He did not have to.
Honors arrived as if the government had remembered a debt. The World Golf Hall of Fame took him in the first class, 1974. Presidential Medal of Freedom, June 2004, from President George W. Bush in the East Room. Congressional Gold Medal, awarded in 2009 and presented in 2012. Latrobe’s airport already carried his name. Winnie’s death in 1999 took the person who had been there since the Amateur. He married Kathleen “Kit” Gawthrop in 2005. The second house was not empty, and it was not the same. In September 2016 he went into the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center for heart trouble. He died there on September 25, waiting for further surgery. He was eighty-seven. The funeral in Latrobe was a town event. Augusta and Bay Hill lowered more than a flag.
The official United States Golf Association film on his legacy is the allowed clip: not a network highlight package of a major, a civic reel. He had already, years before the Pittsburgh hospital, treated the famous name as a town rather than a farewell tour. Latrobe buried him as a neighbor. Bay Hill kept the March date. The drink stayed on diner menus without a lawyer in every booth. Daughters Peggy and Amy, and the Arnold Palmer Group, kept the commercial side. The hospital in Orlando kept the civic side. Sam Saunders kept playing. Bay Hill still tees it up in March as if the veranda were occupied. Augusta still points at the ceremonial tee. He had already, in the last decade, treated the hitch as a greeting rather than a living. The last address was Pittsburgh, waiting for surgery. The first address was Latrobe. Both are the life.
After he was gone
The tournament kept his name. The hospital kept his name. The drink kept his name without needing a lawyer in every diner. The family and the Arnold Palmer Group still run the commercial side; the civic side is the children’s hospital and the club that still feels like a person rather than a logo. Golfers still play Cherry Hills and point at the first fairway as if the drive were still in the air.
He did not invent television golf. He gave it a human being who looked as if he might make a mess of a hole and then refuse to. That is the arc. That is the story. The hitch will last. The greenskeeper’s son who built a hospital out of a follow-through is the part the still cannot show.
Portrait: Dan Perry from Atlanta, USA · CC BY 2.0 · via Wikimedia Commons