The year 2016 is lining up as brutal year for notables.  The latest casualty is Arnold Palmer, “the man who saved golf.”

Born in 1929, Palmer literally grew up on a golf course: the Latrobe Country Club.  His father, Millard “Deacon” Palmer, was the club professional.  Arnold worked as a groundskeeper from an early age.  Once he got onto the course, Arnie incorporated his father’s lessons.  He may have lacked the gracefulness of predecessors like Ben Hogan and Sam Snead, but he compensated with physical strength and hard work, practicing endlessly and under all conditions until he felt confident that he had it right.

After attending Wake Forest University and serving in the Coast Guard, Palmer turned professional in 1955 and promptly won that year’s Canadian Open.  His debut coincided with television bringing the game into Americans’ living rooms, and TV producers quickly realized they had the star they needed.  Not only was Palmer good, but he was young, handsome, and charismatic.  He was also demonstrative – painfully grimacing at putts that did not go in and joyfully celebrating great shots.  He happily acknowledged the cheers and encouragement from the galleries and truly appreciated it.  He developed a huge and loyal following of fans known as “Arnie’s Army.” 

In sports, an attractive persona is good only if coupled with winning.  And win Palmer did.  Perhaps his most dramatic victory was the 1960 U.S. Open at Cherry Hills in Denver.  Several shots back going into the last round, Palmer predicted to a skeptical sportswriter that he was going to shoot a 65 and win the tournament.  He went out and did exactly that.  Although he never completed the Grand Slam (the PGA Championship always eluded him), he won enough tournaments to solidify his reputation as one of the greats.

Palmer remained true to himself and his roots, which was a large part of his appeal.  Even though he was the most famous golfer on Earth, he and his family (his wife Winnie and their two daughters) continued to live in Latrobe.  He stayed close to the friends he had known since childhood.  He retained his hands-on approach to life, earning his pilot’s license in 1956 so that he could fly himself to tournaments.  When he bought a private jet (the first pro athlete to do so), he also flew that himself.  He eventually bought the Latrobe Country Club and was active in managing it. 

Palmer was warm and approachable, but he had his limits.  In his book The Bogey Man, author George Plimpton recounted a story about Palmer being pestered at a dinner by a scratch amateur who kept challenging him to a game of Nassau (in which golfers wager their own money on their scores for the front nine, the back nine, and the overall round) at the nearby Winged Foot Country Club.  Finally, Palmer had had enough – he counter-challenged the man by raising the stakes tenfold.  The pretender immediately backed down and left him alone.

By 1970, Palmer’s age had caught up with him; he was no longer one of the best players on the PGA tour.  Yet he remained the fans’ favorite, the one whom they followed and cheered even when he did not play well.  The advent of the Senior Tour in the 1980s gave him an opportunity for a final hurrah, but he understood that the days of greatness were behind him.  Despite this, he continued to make considerable money from his endorsements and other business ventures long after he retired from competition.

Even though he was the most public of figures, Palmer kept a tight lid on his private life.  He and Winnie were married for forty-five years.  They gave their daughters as normal a childhood as possible.  When Winnie died of cancer in 1999, Arnie was so bereaved that close friends like Jack Nicklaus feared for his well-being.  He remarried in 2005 and regained some of his ebullience, which greatly relieved his friends.

Palmer was physically unable to play golf in his last days, although the love from family, friends, and the golf world helped soften that blow.  He will go down in history as one of the most revered athletes of all time – a distinction he richly deserves. 

Arnold Palmer died Sunday at the age of 87.

D. Boone Grove is a businessman, educator, and writer living in the Midwest.