Arnold Palmer is many things to many people - world famous golf immortal and sportsman, highly-successful business executive, prominent advertising spokesman, skilled aviator, talented golf course designer and consultant, devoted family patriarch and a man with a down-to-earth common touch that has made him one of the most popular and accessible public figures in history.
His popularity and success grew with the tremendous golf boom in the latter half of the 20th Century to heights few ever anticipated and they have been recognized in countless ways over the years. Certainly each contributed to the other, a fact given recognition when he was named "Athlete of the Decade" for the 1960's in a national Associated Press poll. Before, during and after that great decade, the famous golfer amassed 92 championships in professional competition of national or international stature. Sixty-two of the victories came on the U.S. PGA Tour, starting with the 1955 Canadian Open. Seven of his victories came in what the golfing world considers the four major professional championships. He won the Masters Tournament four times, in 1958, 1960, 1962 and 1964; the U.S. Open in spectacular fashion in 1960 at Cherry Hills Country Club in Denver and the British Open in 1961 and 1962. He came from seven strokes off the pace in the final round in that U.S. Open win and finished second in four other Opens after that. Among the majors, only the PGA Championship eluded him.
Arnie's springboard to professional fame and fortune was his victory in the U.S. Amateur Championship in 1954. He turned professional a few months later. His hottest period was a four-year stretch from 1960 to 1963 when he landed 29 of his titles and collected almost $400,000 at a time when the purses were minute by today's standards. He was the leading money-winner in three of those years and twice represented the U.S. in the prestigious Ryder Cup Match during that time, serving in 1963 as the victorious captain.
It was also during this period that his rapidly-growing business interests got their start, through the impetus of Palmer himself and with the guidance and efforts of his business manager, the late Mark McCormack, and his wide-ranging organization. Arnold is president of Arnold Palmer Enterprises, a multi-division structure encompassing much of his global commercial activity that is centered in Cleveland. He has been involved in automobile and aviation service firms over the years and still is the principal owner of a car dealership in his Latrobe (PA) hometown.
Arnold is president and sole owner (since 1971) of Latrobe Country Club and president and principal owner of the Bay Hill Club and Lodge, Orlando, FL, which he and a group of associates acquired in 1970. Bay Hill hosts the annual Arnold Palmer Invitational, presented by MasterCard, on the PGA Tour. In 1999 Arnold and a group of investors purchased the famed Pebble Beach golf complex on the California coast. He also is tournament professional and member of the board of directors of Laurel Valley Golf Club, Ligonier, PA, with which he has been affiliated since its founding in the late 1950s.
Palmer is consultant to The Golf Channel, based in Orlando, which went on the air on cable networks in January, 1995. Another important facet of his activities involves the Arnold Palmer Design Company, which is based at the Bay Hill Club. Since the mid-1960s, Palmer has put his stamp on more than 200 new courses throughout the nation and world. His modest business empire and golfing activities keep Palmer on the move much of the year, most of the travel in his Cessna Citation X jet aircraft with Arnold at the controls when aboard. He was recognized in 1999 for his contributions to aviation and his Western Pennsylvania community when the Westmoreland County Airport at Latrobe was renamed the Arnold Palmer Regional Airport. He is a member of the Westmoreland County Airport Authority.
Palmer was born on September 10, 1929, in Latrobe, a small industrial town in Western Pennsylvania at the foothills of the Allegheny Mountains some 50 miles east of Pittsburgh. He still lives there during the warm months of the year, but spends the fall and winter months at his homes at Bay Hill and at the Tradition Golf Club in La Quinta, California. He has numerous active and honorary memberships in clubs throughout the world, including famed Augusta National in Georgia, St. Andrews in Scotland, Pine Valley in New Jersey, Winged Foot in New York and Oakmont in Pittsburgh.
The golfing great has been the recipient of countless honors, the symbolic plaques, trophies and citations scattered throughout his personal, club and business worlds, the epitome coming in 2004 when he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President George W. Bush at a White House ceremony. He has received virtually every national award in golf and after his great 1960 season both the Hickok Professional Athlete of the Year and Sports Illustrated's Sportsman of the Year trophies. He is a charter member of the World Golf Hall of Fame and a member of the American Golf Hall of Fame at Foxburg, PA, and the PGA Hall of Fame in Florida. In 2009 Palmer received the Congressional Gold Medal from President Barack Obama, an honor that has been around since the American Revolution and recognizes distinguished achievements and contributions.
He is chairman of the USGA Members Program and served as honorary national chairman of the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation for 20 years. He played a major role in the fund-raising drive that led to the creation of the Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children and Women in Orlando in the 1980's.
Arnold Palmer, golf legend, is available exclusively through IMG Speakers bureau for speaking engagements. Arnold Palmer is also available for corporate hospitality events, meet and greets, golf outings, and much more. Please contact IMG Speakers at
212-774-6735 or speakers@imgworld.com for more information on booking Arnold Palmer.
