Arnold Palmer Dies at 87

Arnold Palmer Dies at 87

Golf legend Arnold Palmer was a blue-collar kid from Latrobe, Pennsylvania, the son of a greens keeper, Deacon Palmer, who taught him to follow a simple axiom.

“Hit it hard, boy,” Deacon instructed. “Go find it and hit it hard again.”

After attending Wake Forest, Palmer served in the Coast Guard and then did a stint as a paint salesman before making it in golf. He never forgot the basics.

“Wherever I was,” Palmer said, “I tried to practice the things I learned from my father in Latrobe.”

He was approachable and likeable from the height of his competitive best to his final days. As recently as 2015 he played in the Masters Par 3 contest and would hit the ceremonial first tee shot on the morning of the main event.

What was his pre-swing thought process? “Don’t fan it,” Palmer said with a laugh.

“Arnold Palmer was the everyday man’s hero,” Jack Nicklaus said in a statement Sunday. “From his modest upbringing, Arnold embodied the hard-working strength of America.”

Though he changed the way the golf world operated, and though he was the pitchman for large corporations, at this juncture in his life, he

was everyone’s lovable grandfather.

Palmer said of golfers, “They are closer to the people that admire them and want to talk to them. It isn't the same as other sports where the contact is very little.

“In golf, an autograph is more personal I think. It’s something that actually happens and like I’m looking at you and talking and you’re asking for an autograph, that’s the way it’s done, and that makes the relationship closer.”

Arnold Palmer was a regular man in a sport that forever deals with elitist barriers. He was a game changer in every way.

His was a life fully lived and his legend will long remain.