UNITED STATES, 25 Sept 2016 (European Tour) - Palmer, who was made an Honorary Life Member of The European Tour in 1995 in recognition of his global impact on the game, was golf’s first superstar in the television age with his legions of fans known simply as “Arnie’s Army”.
Nicknamed “The King”, Palmer won 92 professional titles and was equally successful off the golf course as a businessman, golf course designer and pilot, and no-one did more to popularise the sport. He was a man of the people.
His springboard success was his victory in the US Amateur Championship in 1954. He turned professional a few months later.
In a four-year stretch from 1960 to 1963 he won 29 of his titles and collected almost $400,000 at a time when the purses were minute by today's standards. He was named "Athlete of the Decade" for the 1960s in a national Associated Press poll.
He won the Masters Tournament four times, in 1958, 1960, 1962 and 1964; the US Open in spectacular fashion in 1960 at Cherry Hills Country Club in Denver and The Open in 1961 and 1962. He came from seven strokes off the pace in the final round in that US Open win and finished second in four other Opens after that. Among the Majors, only the PGA Championship eluded him. He played on six Ryder Cup teams, and was the winning captain twice.
Arnold Daniel Palmer, born September 10, 1929, grew up in the working-class mill town of Latrobe, in a two-story frame house off the sixth tee of Latrobe Country Club, where his father, Milfred “Deacon” Palmer, was the greenskeeper and professional.
In 1974, Palmer was one of the original inductees into the World Golf Hall of Fame. On September 12, 2012, Palmer was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. He became just the sixth athlete to receive the honour. Coupled with the Presidential Medal of Freedom that he was awarded in 2004, gave him both of the highest honours that the U.S. can give to a civilian.
Palmer is survived by his second wife, Kit, daughters Amy Saunders and Peggy Wears, six grandchildren, including Sam Saunders, who plays on the PGA Tour.