Arnold Palmer, the man who made golf popular that led to large purses has died at age 87.  Palmer was born in Latrobe , Pennsylvania and attended Wake Forest on a golf scholarship.  After graduation, he spent three years in the Coast Guard then found himself a job selling paint.  He decided to enter an amateur contest in Detroit, which he won.  He then entered a golf tournament the next week in Pennsylvania, where he met Winifred Walzer, who spent the next 45 years as Mrs Arnold Palmer until her death in 1999.

Both fans and other golfers marveled at Palmer’s skill on the golf course:

Lee Trevino:

“I used to hear cheers go up from the crowd around Palmer.  And I never knew whether he’d made a birdie or just hitched up his pants.”

Golfweek subscriber Bob Conn:

“If Arnold Palmer sent me a personal letter asking me to join the cleanup crew at Bay Hill, I would buy a green jumpsuit, stick a nail in a broom handle, grab some Hefty garbage bags and shake his hand when I arrived.”

Gene Littler, pro golfer:

“That’s Arnold Palmer. He’s going to be a great player some day. When he hits the ball, the earth shakes.”

From Golfweek:

In his heyday, Palmer famously swung like he was coming out of his shoes.

“What other people find in poetry, I find in the flight of a good drive,” Palmer said.

He unleashed his corkscrew swing motion, which produced a piercing draw, with the ferocity of a summer squall. In his inimitable swashbuckling style, Palmer succeeded with both power and putter. In a career that spanned more than six decades, he won 62 PGA Tour titles between 1955 and 1973, placing him fifth on the Tour’s all-time victory list, and collected seven majors in a seven-year explosion between the 1958 and 1964 Masters.

Palmer didn’t lay up or leave putts short. His go-for-broke style meant he played out of the woods and ditches with equal abandon, and resulted in a string of memorable charges. At the 1960 U.S. Open at Cherry Hills near Denver, Palmer drove the first green and with his trademark knock-kneed, pigeon-toed putting stance went out and birdied six of the first seven holes en route to shooting 65 and winning the title in a furious comeback.

“Palmer on a golf course was Jack Dempsey with his man on the ropes, Henry Aaron with a three-and-two fastball, Rod Laver at set point, Joe Montana with a minute to play, A.J. Foyt with a lap to go and a car to catch,” wrote Los Angeles Times columnist Jim Murray.

Even Palmer’s setbacks were epic. He double-bogeyed the 18^th hole at Augusta in the 1961 Masters after accepting congratulations from a spectator he knew in the gallery. Palmer lost playoffs in three U.S. Opens, the first to Jack Nicklaus in 1962; the second to Julius Boros in 1963; and the third to Billy Casper in 1966 in heart-breaking fashion. Palmer blew a seven-stroke lead with nine holes to go in regulation at the Olympic Club and lost to Casper in an 18-hole playoff the next day.

Arnold Daniel Palmer, born Sept. 10, 1929, grew up in the working-class mill town of Latrobe, in a two-story frame house off the sixth tee of Latrobe Country Club, where his father, Milfred “Deacon” Palmer, was the greenskeeper and professional.

Though for decades Palmer has made his winter home in Orlando, Fla., he never lost touch with his western Pennsylvania roots in the foothills of the Allegheny Mountains.

Arnold Palmer, a legend, dead at 87.