{"id":107918,"date":"2016-09-25T20:21:06","date_gmt":"2016-09-26T01:21:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/?p=107918"},"modified":"2016-09-26T14:43:12","modified_gmt":"2016-09-26T19:43:12","slug":"golf-legend-arnold-palmer-passes-87","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/?p=107918","title":{"rendered":"Golf legend Arnold Palmer passes, 87"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"palmerarnold\"<\/a>NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 The family of Arnold Palmer is waiting until after the Ryder Cup this week for a public farewell.<\/p>\n

Alastair Johnston, the chief executive of Arnold Palmer Enterprises, said Monday at a news conference that a public ceremony to commemorate Palmer would be held at 11 a.m. on Oct. 4 at St. Vincent’s College in Latrobe, Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n

Johnston says the last thing Palmer would want is for a golf schedule to be interrupted.<\/p>\n

He says the funeral will be later this week and limited only to family.<\/p>\n

Previously…<\/p>\n

(Golf Week)\u00a0 Arnold Palmer, a seven-time major winner who brought golf to the masses and became the most beloved figure in the game, died Sunday, a source close to the family confirmed to Golfweek<\/em>. He was 87.<\/p>\n

Reaction poured in from \u201cArnie\u2019s Army\u201d of admirers in the world of golf.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe loved him with a mythic American joy,\u201d said Palmer biographer James Dodson. \u201cHe represented everything that is great about golf. The friendship, the fellowship, the laughter, the impossibility of golf, the sudden rapture moment that brings you back, a moment that you never forget, that\u2019s Arnold Palmer in spades. He\u2019s the defining figure in golf.\u201d<\/p>\n

No one did more to popularize the sport than Palmer. His dashing presence singlehandedly took golf out of the country clubs and into the mainstream. Quite simply, he made golf cool.<\/p>\n

\u201cI used to hear cheers go up from the crowd around Palmer,\u201d Lee Trevino said. \u201cAnd I never knew whether he\u2019d made a birdie or just hitched up his pants.\u201d<\/p>\n

Golfweek<\/em>\u00a0subscriber Bob Conn of Guilford, Conn., in a letter to the editor, captured the loyalty and devotion that the public felt for Palmer.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Arnold Palmer sent me a personal letter asking me to join the cleanup crew at Bay Hill, I would buy a green jumpsuit, stick a nail in a broom handle, grab some Hefty garbage bags and shake his hand when I arrived.\u201d<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t just the fans. His fellow competitors revered him, and the next generation and the generation after that worshiped him.\u00a0When reporters at the 1954 U.S. Amateur asked Gene Littler to identify the golfer\u00a0as slender as wire and as strong as cable\u00a0cracking balls on the practice tee, Littler said: \u201cThat\u2019s Arnold Palmer. He\u2019s going to be a great player some day. When he hits the ball, the earth shakes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Palmer, of Latrobe, Pa., attended Wake Forest University on a golf scholarship.\u00a0At age 24, he was selling paint and living in Cleveland, just seven months removed from a three-year stint in the Coast Guard when he entered the national sporting consciousness by winning the 1954 U.S. Amateur at the Country Club of Detroit.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat victory was the turning point in my life,\u201d he said. \u201cIt gave me confidence I could compete at the highest level of the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Palmer\u2019s victory set in motion a chain of events. Instead of returning to selling paint, Palmer played the next week in the Waite Memorial in Shawnee-on-Delaware, Pa., where he met Winifred Walzer, who would become his wife of 45 years until her death in 1999. On Nov. 17, 1954, Palmer announced his intentions to turn pro, and golf would never be the same.<\/p>\n

In his heyday, Palmer famously swung like he was coming out of his shoes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat other people find in poetry, I find in the flight of a good drive,\u201d Palmer said.<\/p>\n

He unleashed his corkscrew swing motion, which produced a piercing draw, with the ferocity of a summer squall.\u00a0In his inimitable swashbuckling style, Palmer succeeded with both power and putter. In a career that spanned more than six decades, he won 62 PGA Tour titles between 1955 and 1973, placing him fifth on the Tour\u2019s all-time victory list,\u00a0and collected seven majors in a seven-year explosion between the 1958 and 1964 Masters.<\/p>\n

Palmer didn\u2019t lay up or leave putts short. His go-for-broke style meant he played out of the woods and ditches with equal abandon, and resulted in a string of memorable charges. At the 1960 U.S. Open at Cherry Hills near Denver, Palmer drove the first green and with his trademark knock-kneed, pigeon-toed putting stance went out and birdied six of the first seven holes en route to shooting 65 and winning the title in a furious comeback.<\/p>\n

\u201cPalmer on a golf course was Jack Dempsey with his man on the ropes, Henry Aaron with a three-and-two fastball, Rod Laver at set point, Joe Montana with a minute to play, A.J. Foyt with a lap to go and a car to catch,\u201d wrote\u00a0Los Angeles Times<\/em>\u00a0columnist Jim Murray.<\/p>\n

Even Palmer\u2019s setbacks were epic. He double-bogeyed the 18th<\/span><\/sup>\u00a0hole at Augusta in the 1961 Masters after accepting congratulations from a spectator he knew in the gallery. Palmer lost playoffs in three U.S. Opens, the first to Jack Nicklaus in 1962; the second to Julius Boros in 1963; and the third to Billy Casper in 1966 in heart-breaking fashion. Palmer blew a seven-stroke lead with nine holes to go in regulation at the Olympic Club and lost to Casper in an 18-hole playoff the next day.<\/p>\n

Arnold Daniel Palmer, born Sept. 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 \u201cDeacon\u201d Palmer, was the greenskeeper and professional.<\/p>\n

Though for decades Palmer has made his winter home in Orlando, Fla., he never lost touch with his western Pennsylvania roots in the foothills of the Allegheny Mountains.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf all the places I\u2019ve been, there isn\u2019t any place that I\u2019m more comfortable than I am right here,\u201d he told Golfweek in 2009 in Latrobe ahead of his 80th birthday.<\/p>\n

Palmer was 3 years old when his father wrapped his hands around a cut-down women\u2019s golf club in the classic overlapping Vardon grip, and instructed him to, \u201cHit it hard, boy. Go find it and hit it hard again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Palmer\u2019s combination of matinee-idol looks, charisma and blue-collar background made him a superstar just as golf ushered in the television era. He became Madison Avenue\u2019s favorite pitchman, accepting an array of endorsement deals that generated millions of dollars in income on everything from licensed sportswear to tractors to motor oil and even Japanese tearooms. Credit goes to agent Mark McCormack, who sold the Palmer personality and the values he represented rather than his status as a tournament winner. Palmer\u2019s business empire grew to include a course-design company, a chain of dry cleaners, car dealerships, as well as ownership of Bay Hill Resort & Lodge in Orlando. He even bought Latrobe Country Club, which his father helped build with his own hands and where as a youth Palmer was permitted only before the members arrived in the morning or after they had gone home in the evening. Palmer designed more than 300 golf courses in 37 states, 25 countries and five continents (all except Africa and Antarctica), including the first modern course built in China, in 1988.<\/p>\n

Palmer led the PGA Tour money list four times, and was the first player to win more than $100,000 in a season. He played on six Ryder Cup teams, and was the winning captain twice. He is credited with conceiving the modern Grand Slam of the Masters, U.S. Open, British Open and PGA Championship during a conversation with golf writer Bob Drum on a flight to Ireland for the 1960\u00a0Canada Cup. Palmer won the Masters four times, the British Open twice and the U.S. Open once. It was Palmer who convinced his colleagues they could never consider themselves champions unless they had won the Claret Jug.\u00a0Nick Faldo, during Palmer\u2019s farewell at St. Andrews in 1995 may have put it best when he said, \u201cIf Arnold hadn\u2019t come here in 1960, we\u2019d probably all be in a shed on the beach.\u201d Mark O\u2019Meara went a step further. \u201cHe made it possible for all of us to make a living in this game,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In 1974, Palmer was one of the original inductees into the World Golf Hall of Fame.\u00a0As he grew older, a shaky putter let Palmer down, but his popularity never waned. The nascent Senior PGA Tour hitched its star to golf\u2019s first telegenic personality when Palmer turned 50. He relished winning again and became a regular on the senior circuit, remaining active until 2006.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 The family of Arnold Palmer is waiting until after the Ryder Cup this week for a public farewell. Alastair Johnston, the chief executive of Arnold Palmer Enterprises, said Monday at a news conference that a public ceremony to commemorate Palmer would be held at 11 a.m. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":107940,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-107918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","category-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=107918"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107918\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":107981,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107918\/revisions\/107981"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/107940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=107918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=107918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=107918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}