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   Arnold Palmer, 'The King' of golf, dies at 87   
      
   Before accepting the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2004, Arnold Palmer   
   shared a few laughs with President George W. Bush and gave the commander in   
   chief a few golf tips in the East Room of the White House.   
   Five years later, when honored with the Congressional Gold Medal, Palmer, who   
   again offered golf tips to some of the most important politicians in the   
   country, jokingly thanked the House and the Senate for being able to agree on   
   something.   
   After receiving the highest civilian awards given in the United States, Palmer   
   went outside each day, at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and the U.S. Capitol, and   
   signed autographs for hundreds of people.   
   That was Palmer, a man who connected with the masses, who related to kids, the   
   hourly wage employee, the CEO - and Presidents.   
   Palmer, who died Sunday in Pittsburgh at age 87, was the accessible common man   
   who would become the King and lead his own army. Along the way he became one   
   of the sport's best players and a successful businessman, philanthropist,   
   trailblazing advertising spokesman, talented golf course designer and   
   experienced aviator.   
   Alastair Johnson, CEO of Arnold Palmer Enterprises, confirmed that Palmer died   
   Sunday afternoon of complications from heart problems. Johnson said Palmer was   
   admitted to the hospital Thursday for some cardiovascular work and weakened   
   over the last few days.   
   "We are deeply saddened by the death of Arnold Palmer, golf's greatest   
   ambassador, at age 87," the U.S. Golf Association said in a statement.   
   ÿ"Arnold Palmer will always be a champion, in every sense of the word.ÿHe   
   inspired generations to love golf by sharing his competitive spirit,   
   displaying sportsmanship, caring for golfers and golf fans, and serving as a   
   lifelong ambassador for the sport.ÿ Our stories of him not only fill the pages   
   of golf's history books and the walls of the museum, but also our own personal   
   golf memories.ÿ The game is indeed better because of him, and in so many ways,   
   will never be the same."   
   While his approach on the course was not a model of aesthetics - the   
   whirlybird followthrough, the pigeon-toed putting stance - it worked for him.   
   With thick forearms and a thin waist, Palmer had an aggressive risk-reward   
   approach to golf that made for compelling theater. He hit the ball with   
   authority and for distance and ushered in an aggressive, hitch-u   
   -your-trousers, go-for-broke, in-your-face power game rarely seen in the often   
   stoic and staid sport.   
   Palmer, part of the alluring "Big Three," with Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player,   
   won 62 titles on the PGA Tour, his last coming in the 1973 Bob Hope Desert   
   Classic. Among those victories were four at the Masters, two at the British   
   Open and one at the U.S. Open. He finished second in the U.S. Open four times,   
   was runner-up three times in the PGA Championship, the only major that eluded   
   him, and was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1974.   
   Palmer became one of the best known sports figures and, at 5-10, 175, a   
   telegenic golfer who burst out of black-and-white television sets across the   
   country in the late 1950s and into the 1960s and took the game to the masses.   
   "Arnold meant everything to golf. Are you kidding me?" Tiger Woods said . "I   
   mean, without his charisma, without his personality in conjunction with TV -   
   it was just the perfect symbiotic growth. You finally had someone who had this   
   charisma, and they're capturing it on TV for the very first time.   
   "Everyone got hooked to the game of golf via TV because of Arnold."   
   Friend to Presidents   
   Palmer won the Vardon Trophy for lowest scoring average on the PGA Tour four   
   times, played on six Ryder Cup teams and was captain twice.   
   He received virtually every national award in golf and was the "Athlete of the   
   Decade" for the 1960s in a national Associated Press poll. Palmer, who helped   
   found the Golf Channel decades later, also helped usher in the Champions Tour,   
   where he won 10 times, including five majors.   
   He was a magnetic star who attracted legions of fans who had never played golf   
   as the television boon exploded across the land.   
   Those fans included U.S. presidents.   
   Dwight Eisenhower, who loved golf, was one of Palmer's best friends. Richard   
   Nixon asked Palmer about the Vietnam War. Palmer played golf with both   
   Presidents Bush.   
   Eisenhower painted Palmer's picture - as did Norman Rockwell. There is a drink   
   named in Palmer's honor, as well as an airport, a golf tournament, hospitals,   
   streets, charity initiatives and 19th-hole grill rooms.   
   And from start to finish, Palmer signed as many autographs, posed for as many   
   pictures, chatted with as many fans in the galleries as any golfer who hit a   
   golf ball.   
   "There are two things that made golf appealing to the average man - Arnold   
   Palmer and the invention of the mulligan," actor/comedian and good friend Bob   
   Hope once said.   
   Palmer was a folk hero with a driver in his hand and a handshake after the   
   round. From 2007 through 2015, heÿserved as the honorary starter for the   
   Masters, creating one of the best moments of the tournament every year on   
   Thursday morning.   
   "Arnold Palmer was the everyday man's hero," Nicklaus said. "From the modest   
   upbringing, Arnold embodied the hard-working strength of America."   
   Origins of 'Arnie's Army'   
   Palmer was the oldest of four children born to Deacon and Doris Palmer. He   
   received his first set of golf clubs from his father, who worked at Latrobe   
   Country Club from 1921 until his death in 1976. Growing up near the sixth tee   
   of the club, Palmer learned the grip and the swing from his father, as well as   
   manners, empathy, integrity and respect.   
   Palmer worked nearly every job at the club before heading to Wake Forest   
   University, where he became one of the top collegiate players. But when his   
   close friend, Bud Worsham, was killed in a car accident, Palmer quit school   
   and enlisted for a three-year hitch in the U.S. Coast Guard.   
   While stationed in Cleveland, his passion for golf was rekindled. Then, while   
   working as a paint salesman, Palmer quickly got his game back in order and won   
   the 1954 U.S. Amateur Championship. On Nov. 18, 1954, at 25, he turned pro and   
   signed a contract with Wilson Sporting Goods.   
   His greatest stretch of golf began in 1960 and lasted four years, with Palmer   
   winning six major championships and 29 titles on the PGA Tour. It was in 1960,   
   at the Masters in Augusta, Ga., that a local newspaper coined the phrase   
   "Arnie's Army," when soldiers from nearby Camp Gordon followed Palmer. Soon,   
   non-uniformed fans across the land enlisted.   
   Palmer's defining moment, one that embedded the word "charge" into the minds   
   of his adoring fans, came in the 1960 U.S. Open at Cherry Hills. Palmer had   
   won the Masters two months earlier, with birdies on the final two holes to   
   edge Ken Venturi by one shot. But Palmer began the final round of the Open   
   seven strokes and 14 players behind and was told by Bob Drum of The Pittsburgh   
   Press that he was too far behind to win.   
   Angered by the remark, Palmer drove the first green 346 yards away and made   
   the first of four consecutive birdies. He added birdies on the sixth and   
   seventh and shot a final-round 65 to complete the comeback victory.   
   A month later, Palmer made a pilgrimage to St. Andrews for the British Open,   
   and his presence helped salvage the game's oldest championship and elevated it   
   back among the game's best tournaments.   
   In all, Palmer won eight times in 1960, the year he signed with pioneering   
   sports agent Mark McCormack and quickly became a marketing giant for products   
   ranging from golf equipment to jackets and slacks to automobile oil and rental   
   cars. Palmer became the first professional golfer to earn $1 million for his   
   career. Even into his 80s he was pulling in an estimated $20 million per year.   
   "Arnold was the epitome of a superstar," fellow Hall of Famer Raymond Floyd   
   said. "He set the standard for how superstars in every sport ought to be, in   
   the way he has always signed autographs, in the way he has always made time   
   for everyone. On the golf course, all I ever saw was a mass of people. He was   
   able to focus in on everyone in the gallery individually. It wasn't fake.   
   "And man, could he play the game."   
   Giving back through charities   
   But as dramatic as his victories were, so, too, were Palmer's losses in majors.   
   In 1961 he lost the Masters by one stroke when he made double-bogey on the   
   72nd hole after accepting premature congratulations from a friend to the right   
   side of the 18th fairway.   
   Palmer lost three playoffs in the U.S. Open, to Nicklaus in 1962, Julius Boros   
   in 1963 and Billy Casper in 1966, when Palmer blew a seven-shot lead with nine   
   holes to play in regulation.   
   But the masses never deserted him. Palmer's appeal was so large, so wide that   
   he even gave origin to a beverage that soon became a hit across the land. One   
   of his favorite drinks was a mixture of iced tea and lemonade.   
   It is now available in grocery stores and is simply called the Arnold Palmer.   
   "A guy came up to the bar, and he ordered an Arnold Palmer, and the barman   
   knew what that drink was," three-time major champion Padraig Harrington   
   recalled about a visit to an Indian restaurant in Orlando in 2009. "Now that's   
   getting to another level. Think about it, you don't go up there and order a   
   Tiger Woods at the bar.   
   "When the guy ordered it, I thought, maybe you could do it in a golf club, but   
   he's ordered it in a random bar. And the guy, who probably wouldn't know one   
   end of a club from the other, knew what it was."   
   Palmer's accomplishments were wide spread, his influence wide ranging. He   
   helped raised hundreds of millions more for charities.   
   In 1989, after Palmer played a major role in a fund-raising drive, the Arnold   
   Palmer Hospital for Children & Women in Orlando opened. The first baby was   
   born within hours after the ribbon cutting. Since, nearly 200,000 children   
   have been born there.   
   In 2002, Arnie's Army Battles Prostate Cancer was launched and more than 2,500   
   tournaments across the country sponsored by the organization have raised more   
   than $3 million for prostate cancer research.   
   Palmer also left his stamp on developing some 225 courses throughout the world.   
   "The game has given so much to Arnold Palmer," Nicklaus said, "but he has   
   given back so much more."   
   This was evident when Palmer received the Congressional Gold Medal.   
   "Arnold Palmer democratized golf, made us think that we, too, could go out and   
   play," said House Speaker John Boehner, an avid golfer. "He made us think that   
   we could really do anything, really. All we had to do was to go out and try.   
   ...   
   "Arnold, you've struck our hearts and our minds, and today your government,   
   your fellow citizens are going to strike a gold medal for you."   
   Added Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid: "Golf made you famous, but your   
   tireless efforts to save lives, not your short game, will make you immortal."   
   Contributing: The Associated Press   
   ARNOLD DANIEL "ARNIE" PALMER   
   Born: Sept. 10, 1929, in the small industrial town of Latrobe in Western   
   Pennsylvania, at the foothills of the Allegheny Mountains   
   Nickname: The King   
   Education: Wake Forest, on a golf scholarship, where he was the school's first   
   individual NCAA champion, in 1949, then the NCAA individual medalist again in   
   1950; first ACC champion in 1953   
   Military service: U.S. Coast Guard   
   Hall of Fame: Inducted in 1974 into the World Golf Hall of Fame, among many   
   halls of fame to honor him   
   Estimated net worth: $675 million   
   Playing career: 62 titles on the PGA Tour, including Masters titles in 1958,   
   1960, 1962, 1964; U.S. Open title in 1960; British Open titles in 1961 and   
   1962. Vardon Trophy for lowest scoring average on the PGA Tour in 1961, 1962,   
   1964, 1967. Ryder Cup player in 1961, 1963, 1965, 1967, 1971 and 1973. Last   
   playing captain, in 1963, and captain again in 1975. 10 titles on the   
   Champions Tour, including Senior U.S. Open title in 1981; Senior PGA   
   Championship titles in 1980, 1984; Senior Tournament Players Championship   
   titles in 1984, 1985   
   Author:ÿA Life Well Played: My Stories,ÿ2106;ÿArnold Palmer: Memories,   
   Stories, and Memorabilia from a Life on and Off the Course, 2004; Playing by   
   the Rules: All the Rules of the Game, Complete with Memorable Rulings From   
   Golf's Rich History, 2002; A Golfer's Life (with James Dodson), 1999; 495 Golf   
   Lessons, 1973; Play Great Golf, 1987; Arnold Palmer's Complete Book Of Putting   
   (with Peter Dobereiner), 1986; Arnold Palmer's Best 54 Golf Holes (with Bob   
   Drum), 1977; Go For Broke: My Philosophy of Winning Golf (with William Barry   
   Furlong), 1973; Situation Golf (with Jesus Gutierrez), 1970; My Game and   
   Yours, 1963   
   Filmography:Return to Campus (1975)   
   Trivia: In 1971, at 41, Palmer earned the biggest paycheck of his career --   
   $50,000 for winning the Westchester Classic   
   Quote: "I have a tip that will take five strokes off anyone's golf game. It's   
   called an eraser." -- Palmer   
      
   By Rachel Shuster   
      
   Regards,   
      
   Roger    
   --- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+ W10 (1607)   
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