Best to Never Wear It: Arnold Palmer was, simply, ‘The King’

Latrobe has a mayor, and the PGA Tour has a commissioner. With apologies to those individuals, for about a half century, each was presided over by The King.

Arnold Palmer went from a humble Westmoreland County upbringing to being one of the world’s most recognizable athletes. A seven-time major champion and two-time PGA Tour Player of the Year who won 92 tournaments, Palmer was an easy choice as the greatest golfer to come out of Southwestern Pennsylvania and as one of six “Best To Never Wear It” honorees by the staff of the Tribune-Review.

Until Palmer’s death in 2016 at age 87, the devotes of “Arnie’s Army” were smitten with his daring playing style and charismatic presence on and off the course.

“I never like to say any one man is bigger than the sport, but Arnold Palmer is a man for whom our sport owes a great debt,” Hall of Famer Gary Player, one of Palmer’s contemporaries in the sport, once told the Tribune-Review. “He’s been a wonderful ambassador to the game.”

Palmer won The Masters four times. He was the tour’s leading money-winner four time and six times a member of the U.S. Ryder Cup team. A Sports Illustrated Athlete of the Year (1960) and Associated Press Athlete of the Decade for the 60s, Palmer’s resume as a golfer — impressive as it is — tells only a portion of the tale of his life.

Arnold Palmer's was a life filled with triumphs on and off the golf course, writes @RalphPaulk_Trib: https://t.co/gtFqRUwQ5w pic.twitter.com/6blHmhE3hQ

— Tribune-ReviewSports (@TribSports) September 26, 2016

“He was an everyday man. Everyone’s hero,” golf legend Jack Nicklaus said during Palmer’s memorial service. “Arnold managed to removed the ‘i’ from ‘icon’ and let the world share in his greatness.”

As the Tribune-Review’s obituary for Palmer read, Palmer played golf with numerous presidents but will be remembered for bringing golf to the proletariat. Before devoting much of his life to philanthropy, Palmer was credited with popularizing the white-collar sport in the 1950s and ’60s with his blue-collar mentality.

“The puzzling thing for me is, why was he so popular?” then-PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem said during the memorial service in front of about 1,000 inside a packed St. Vincent Basilica in 2016. “Was it because of the way he played the game? Was it the way he created excitement on television? He had this other thing, this incredible ability to make you feel good, not only about him but yourself.”

Vince Gill pays tribute to his hero, Arnold Palmer. pic.twitter.com/JsiJGf60SL

— Kevin Gorman (@KevinGormanPGH) October 4, 2016

Palmer won consecutive WPIAL golf championships before heading to Wake Forest. He won the 1954 U.S. Amateur Open and turned pro the following season, winning the 1955 Canadian Open. His first major win was the 1958 Masters, starting a string of four wins over a span of seven starts there. It also began a stretch of seven wins over a span of 21 major tournaments before his final such triumph at the ’64 Masters.

Palmer also finished second at the PGA Championship three times and at the U.S. Open four times. At the 1962 Open at Oakmont, Palmer’s duel with Nicklaus was legendary — Nicklaus beat the hometown hero in an 18-hole playoff.

His final round at an Open — an otherwise unremarkable 81 that led to a missed cut — produced one of the most memorable moments in the history of golf and Western Pennsylvania sports. Palmer fought back tears as he walked the 18^th fairway, waving to the throngs of fans on both sides who were providing a minutes-long ovation for The King.

Palmer told the Tribune-Review in 2009: “I can spend the rest of my life being thankful that golf has given me the opportunities to make significant contributions throughout the world.”

Check out the entire ’Burgh’s Best to Wear It series here.