The swing: fearless. The face: a camera’s dream. Arnold Palmer, who died on Sunday at 87, won his first Masters in 1958, during America’s great postwar expansion. This ascendant era spawned the leisure class, which took to golf, Eisenhower’s favorite game, and to the couch, to watch new TV sets in their living rooms. Into this fold stepped Palmer, a champ so strapping that he didn’t just sell golf to the masses watching the final round on Sundays. He sold clothes, rental cars, the cigarettes he smoked on the tee. Jack Nicklaus may have won more major championships than Palmer: 18 to Arnie’s 7. Michael Jordan may have moved more product. But the growth of golf, the growth of all sports as a marketing force boosting the bottom line of multibillion-dollar corporations, owes a debt to “the King.”
Between 1960 and 1963, Palmer won 29 tour events: the Associated Press later named him “athlete of the decade.” Near the start of that dominant stretch, Palmer signed on with agent Mark McCormack, the godfather of modern-day sports marketing, who founded sports-entertainment conglomerate IMG in 1960. By 1967, Palmer became the first golfer to earn $1 million in tour prize money; during his first two years with McCormack, Palmer’s endorsement earnings spiked from $6,000 to $500,000. He signed on as pitchman for sunglasses brand Ray-Ban, Pennzoil motor oil, Hertz, Rolex, United Airlines and many other companies. Later in his life, he even lent his name to his own namesake drink, sold by the Arizona Beverage Company: half iced-tea, half lemonade. When a writer from the Newark Star-Ledger asked an Augusta National Golf Club waitress how Palmer ordered his own drink, she responded, “He leaned over and said, ‘I’ll have a Mr. Palmer.’ And then he winked.”
Arnold Palmer’s Life in Pictures
A portrait of American golfer Arnold Palmer pulling a driving iron from a golf bag on a golf course circa 1953. Palmer died Sunday in Pittsburgh. He was 87.Hulton Archive/Getty ImagesArnold Palmer points to his name on the press tent scoreboard during the National Open golf tournament at the Cherry Hills Country Club in Denver June 19, 1960.APArnold Palmer is surrounded by applauding citizens of Latrobe, Pa., April 16, 1960 following a "Welcome Home" parade in his honor. Palmer had won the Masters Golf Tournament.APArnold Palmer stands on a sheet of glass and prepares to demonstrate his swing in Miami, in December 1960.Lynn Pelham—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesArnold Palmer hugs his wife, Winnie, after winning the Masters Golf Tournament on April 10, 1960 in Augusta, Ga.Horace Cort—APA portrait of Arnold Palmer with wife Winnie and daughters at home in
Latrobe, Pa. on Nov. 9, 1960. Robert Huntzinger—Sports IllustratedArnold Palmer tees off as President Dwight D. Eisenhower watches.Augusta National/Getty ImagesArnold Palmer lays his head on his golf bag while taking a break between shots during a golf tournament in 1961.Getty ImagesArnold Palmer holds up his hand to quiet the crowd during the Masters Golf Tournament in Augusta, Ga. April 7, 1963. APArnold Palmer signs autographs in Oakmont, Pa. in 1962. Robert Huntzinger—Sports IllustratedArnold Palmer in a 1964 portrait.Dozier Mobley—APArnold Palmer, right, slips into his green jacket with help from Jack Nicklaus after winning the Masters golf championship, in Augusta, Ga. on April 12, 1964.APArnold Palmer shows young Jane Coop how to putt at Royal Birkdale, Southport, where he was practicing for his Ryder Cup match on October 7, 1965.Ted West—Central Press/Getty ImagesArnold Palmer in action in 1966 at Lake Course of The Olympic Club in
San Francisco.Neil Leifer—Sports IllustratedArnold Palmer stands next to a bi-plane. Brian Morgan—Getty ImagesArnold Palmer in Las Vegas in 1966.Harold Filan—APArnold Palmer does a little balancing act with his putter as he urges a ball that failed to drop in the hole on the 6th green in first round of the Philadelphia Golf Classic on Sept. 15, 1967 at Whitemarsh Valley Country Club in Laurel Valley, Pa.Bill Ingraham—APThunderbird Golf Classic winner Arnold Palmer, right, and runner-up Jack Nicklaus stop for a backward look at photographers before meeting the rest of the press after the tournament in Clifton, N.J., on Sept. 25, 1967. APArnold Palmer, right, follows the ball after he cleared a trap on the 8th hole in the second round of the Thunderbird Golf Classic, Aug. 31, 1968, Clifton, N.J. APPresident Richard Nixon poses in the White House with three stars of the sports world, Feb. 13, 1969 in Washington. His guests from left, were: Quarterback Bart Starr of the Green Bay Packers, Golfer Arnold Palmer and Al Kaline of the Detroit Tigers. The three were in Washington to attend a special sports program at the National Press Club. APArnold Palmer paid a visit to Mrs. Mamie Eisenhower just before practice at the Augusta National Golf Club on April 4, 1972 in Augusta. Mrs. Eisenhower told Palmer to do his best and wished him luck. Bob Daugherty—APPro golfer Arnold Palmer in 1974. APArnold Palmer in action in Westchester Classic at Harrison, N.Y., Aug. 1978. APArnold Palmer announced his retirement from playing the Open Golf Championship on the penultimate day of the championship at Muirfield, Scotland, July 19, 1980. Peter Kemp—APArnold Palmer, at podium, speaks before a Joint Meeting of Congress marking the centennial of former President Dwight D. Eisenhower, on March 27, 1990, in Washington, D.C. House Speaker Tom Foley sits behind Palmer. Ron Edmonds—APPresident George H.W. Bush and golf legend Arnold Palmer watch the tee shot of a playing partner on the 8th hole of the Cape Arundel Golf Course on August 23, 1991 in Kennebunkport, Me. Doug Mills—AP1996 President Bill Clinton and golfing legend Arnold Palmer check out the action during the opening round of the Presidents Cup in Manassas, Sept. 13, 1996. ReutersPalmer looks at a statue of himself commemorating the 50th anniversary of his first PGA tour win in 1955 in Toronto. Reuters Golfing legend Arnold Palmer arrives on the field before a baseball game between the Pittsburgh Pirates and Chicago Cubs in Pittsburgh, on Sept. 8, 2009.Gene J. Puskar—APGary Player of South Africa, Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer at The Big Three fund-raiser for the Mountain Mission Kids at the Olde Farm Golf Club on June 8, 2010 in Bristol, Va.Chris Condon—PGA TOURSpeaker of the House John Boehner presents golfing legend Arnold Palmer with the Congressional Gold Medal at a special ceremony in the Rotunda of the Capitol Building on Sept.12, 2012 in Washington.Chris Condon—PGA TOURJack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer walk to the third green during the Greats of Golf exhibition at the Insperity Championship at the Woodlands Country Club on May 4, 2013 in Woodlands, Texas. Scott Halleran—Getty ImagesTiger Woods and Arnold Palmer laughing during the Arnold Palmer Invitational
at Bay Hill Club and Lodge in Orlando, Fla on March 25, 2013.
Fred Vuich for Sports IllustratedSteve Sands chats with Masters champions Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player of South Africa on the Golf Channel set prior to the start of the 2015 Masters Tournament at Augusta National Golf Club on April 8, 2015 in Augusta, Ga.David Cannon—Getty ImagesArnold Palmer waves to the crowd at the 2002 Masters.Doug Mills—AP
Arnold Palmer was born in 1929 in Youngstown, Pa., to Deacon and Doris Palmer. His family moved into a small frame house adjacent to the sixth hole at the Latrobe (Pa.) Country Club, where his father was both the head pro and greenskeeper. Palmer learned the game from his dad: by age 5, young Arnie would station himself by the sixth tee and offer to drive shots over a drainage ditch that lay 120 yards down the fairway, for a nickel.
Even as a kid, Palmer put the work in. “He’d be yelling, ‘Watch me! Watch me! Watch me, Pap!'” Deacon Palmer told TIME in 1960. “You’d get so sick of him you’d feel like hitting him a lick.” The practice paid off; Palmer earned a golf scholarship to Wake Forest University, where just for laughs he’d sometimes shoot par while standing on one foot. During his senior year, however, Palmer’s best friend was killed in a car accident. Shaken, he quit school and spent three years in the Coast Guard. After being discharged in 1954, Palmer won the U.S. Amateur championship.
From here, Palmer’s celebrity took off. “He is a splendidly built athlete (5 ft. 11 in., 177 Ibs.),” TIME wrote in a 1960 cover story on Palmer, “with strength in all the right places: massive shoulders and arms, a waist hardly big enough to hold his trousers up, thick wrists, and leather-hard, outsized hands that can crumple a beer can as though it were tissue paper.” A CBS producer once remarked that as soon as he saw Palmer on camera, he knew golf could score on TV. On the course his stampede of fans, dubbed Arnie’s Army, rallied around their working-class hero, who hailed from a small steel town near Pittsburgh. While Nicklaus, his great rival, was a shotmaking machine, Palmer was the impish daredevil, charming fans with unpredictable swings. Palmer took seven major titles between 1958 and 1964.
Even though Nicklaus surpassed him as the game’s best player, and Palmer had last won a major more than a half-century ago, his popularity never waned. Palmer went on to build a sprawling business empire: at one time his name was attached to a golf-course design outfit, auto dealerships, a golf-equipment company, two golf clubs, an aviation company and a clothing contract with Sears. Palmer was a living, breathing fount of good feeling. No one played the role of Arnold Palmer better than Arnold Palmer. No one loved being Arnold Palmer more than Arnold Palmer. RIP, Arnie. The army salutes you.
