Golf Legend, Arnold Palmer, Dies

Arnold Palmer at the Glen Campbell Los Angeles Open 1976. Photograph: JLR/AP

*One of the greatest players in the history of golf who won 73 tournaments

Arnold Palmer, one of the most charismatic golfers ever to play the game, has died aged 87, a source close to the family confirmed to magazine Golfweek.

The Guardian UK report continues:

It was reported he died on Sunday in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Palmer’s health has been in decline for some time.

Palmer was a man’s man who was adored by women and a player for whom no play was ever impossible. In any list of reasons for the present popularity and high financial standing of golf, the name, and the game, of Arnold Palmer are irresistibly linked.

He got into, and out of, more trouble on the course than any of his championship winning peers, and so outrageous were some of his recovery shots that he quickly attracted a huge following.

The fans, the foot soldiers, who followed him through good or ill became known as Arnie’s Army – and they never deserted him. Even though his golf inevitably declined with age, their fervour for him was undimmed, and even on the US Seniors tour he invariably departed the first tee with a bigger gallery than anyone else. Nor was his appeal confined to occasional fans. Jack Statter, golf correspondent for The Sun newspaper, was once watching his beloved Arnie when he noticed that the great man’s caddie had failed to replace a huge divot. He nipped in quickly, trousered it, took it home and eventually grew a complete front lawn from that one small piece of turf. He called it, proudly, Palmer’s Piece.