Golf Widow

What Does Arnold Palmer Mean to the Sports Widow?

April 26, 2007 10:17 AM | 0 Comments

I have since learned from a quick check on www.pga.com that by the end of 1993, Arnold Palmer amassed 92 championships in professional competitions of national or international stature. He won seven majors between 1958 and 1964, including one U.S. Open, four Masters and two British Opens. His back-to-back triumphs in the 1961 and ’62 British Opens, brought this competition back into vogue for Americans. The only victory that eluded Palmer was the PGA Championship. In 1980, nearly two decades after his last major victory, he won the PGA Senior Championship, the first Senior Tour event he ever entered.

Palmer is also credited for a string of firsts, becoming golf’s first career millionaire, first big-time businessman, first pre-eminent pitchman with endorsements at the close of the ‘90s approaching $15 million, and first former U.S. Open champion to win a U.S. Senior Open in 1981.

To the Sports Widow, Arnold Palmer’s legacy is about the profound emotional connection he created. It’s about how he single-handedly transformed attitudes toward golf and made it more accessible. He was a scrappy, charismatic, big-hitting everyman who democratized what was once an elite, rich man’s sport. Broadcaster Vin Scully (I'm not sure who he is, but he probably has a great broadcast voice) said, “In a sport that was high society, he made it ‘High Noon.’” Palmer was voted the 29th best athlete of the century by ESPN’s SportsCentury and “inspired an army of followers,” affectionately referred to as “Arnie’s Army.” In 1997, this loyal army mobilized for its commander-in-chief by sending Palmer a flood of encouraging letters when he underwent surgery for prostate cancer. Two months later, the unflagging Palmer was playing competitive golf again.