Arnold Palmer

After turning pro in November of 1954 and signing a contract with Wilson Sporting Goods, Palmer married his Winnie Walzer, with whom he would have two daughters. Palmer and Winnie were a great team, and they stayed together until she passed away from cancer in 1997.

In 1955 he won his first big tournament, the Canadian Open, earning $2,400 as the top prize. He continued to add victories over the next few years, winning three in 1956 and then adding four more victories in 1957. But he would have to wait for the major he wanted until the 1958 Masters Tournament in Augusta, Georgia. A victory in this tournament secures your name in golf's book of legends, but Palmer was just getting started.

1960 would be a banner year for Palmer, a season in which "Arnie's Army" materialized and his fan base became legion. At the beginning of the season, in the first major, Palmer took a stunning victory away from Ken Venturi in the Masters after birdieing the final two holes. People all over the country tuned in, and thousands more were on the course to watch the spectacle. During the late fifties, golf coverage on television became more and more commonplace, and most weekends Americans found this tall, average-looking guy named Arnold Palmer on their screen. He was, as Sports Illustrated put it, "earthy and sexy and tan" all at once. The average American found in Palmer a player whose "emotion leaked out of him from every pore." They identified with him. Golf has always carried the stigma for being "a rich man's game," but when working-class people saw Palmer out on the course, a cigarette in his mouth, an awkward (and far from textbook) swing, and his shots ending up in the rough more often than not, they figured that if he could do it, so could they.

Fans began calling themselves "Arnie's Army," a nickname that came about when Palmer played in a tournament near Fort Gordon. According to the News-Press of Fort Myers, soldiers from the base who were working the scoreboards held up signs declaring their allegiance to Arnie. His "soldiers were so devoted," the article said, "that it was not unusual for one to let himself be hit by a Palmer missile to keep it from bounding over the green and into trouble." The signs fans held up would later be banned, but the idea of a following that considered itself an army never died. In fact, it only grew, and soon the "Army" began to irritate Palmer's competitors.

Palmer won the 1960 U.S. Open with a final round of 65—another come-from-behind victory—and people began to believe that there was no deficit from which Arnie couldn't return. His power to capture the hearts of Americans over seemed unstoppable. As did his golf game. He won the British Open in 1961 and 1962, and repeated at The Masters again in 1962. Palmer continued to win some of the regular tournaments on tour, but in 1964 he claimed his last major victory with a win in The Masters.