Page 157 - Cousins - Celebrities, Saints & Sinners
P. 157
Arnold Palmer
12th Cousin,
2 times removed
Common Ancestor
Father: James Bradshaw
Aspull, Lancashire, England
1519 - deceased Born: Died:
10 September 1929 25 September 2016
Mother: Elizabeth Hassocke Latrobe, Pennsylvania Latrobe, Pennsylvania
England Arnold Daniel Palmer was an American professional
1519 - deceased golfer who is generally regarded as one of the greatest and
most charismatic players in the sport's history. Dating back
to 1955, he won numerous events on both the PGA
Tour and the circuit now known as PGA Tour Champions.
Nicknamed The King, he was one of golf's most popular
stars and seen as a trailblazer, the first superstar of the
sport's television age, which began in the 1950s.
Palmer's social impact on behalf of golf was perhaps
unrivaled among fellow professionals; his humble
background and plain-spoken popularity helped change the
perception of golf from an elite, upper-class pastime
(private clubs) to a more populist sport accessible to middle
and working classes (public courses). Palmer, Jack Nicklaus,
and Gary Player were "The Big Three" in golf during the
1960s; they are widely credited with popularizing and
commercializing the sport around the world.
In a career spanning more than six decades, he won 62 PGA Tour titles from 1955 to 1973. He is fifth on
the Tour's all-time victory list, trailing only Tiger Woods, Sam Snead, Jack Nicklaus, and Ben Hogan. He
won seven major titles in a six-plus-year domination from the 1958 Masters to the 1964 Masters. He
also won the PGA Tour Lifetime Achievement Award in 1998, and in 1974 was one of the 13 original
inductees into the World Golf Hall of Fame.
Palmer was born to Doris (Morrison) and Milfred Jerome "Deacon" Palmer in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, a
working-class steel mill town. He learned golf from his father, who had suffered from polio at a young
age and was head professional and greenskeeper at Latrobe Country Club, which allowed young Palmer
to accompany his father as he maintained the course.
Palmer attended Wake Forest College on a golf scholarship. He left upon the death of close friend Bud
Worsham (1929–1950) and enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard, where he served for three years, 1951–
1954. At the Coast Guard Training Center in Cape May, New Jersey, he built a nine-hole course and had
some time to continue to hone his golf skills. After his enlistment term ended, Palmer returned to
college and competitive golf.
Palmer won the 1954 U.S. Amateur in Detroit and made the decision to turn pro in November of that
year. "That victory was the turning point in my life," he said. "It gave me confidence I could compete at
the highest level of the game." When reporters there asked Gene Littler who the young golfer was that
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