Biography
While other players of his era dabbled in golf course design, Arnold Palmer jumped into the business with the same gusto that he swung a golf club. In 1971, when he was still winning on the PGA Tour and a threat in majors, he created the Arnold Palmer Design Company. More than four decades later, Palmer's name is on more than 300 courses in 37 states, 25 countries and five continents.While longtime partner Ed Seay did much of the design work until his death in 2007, Palmer provided the broad brushstrokes, creating courses that "are not characteristic in any way," he said. "They are individually designed."Palmer courses do not figure prominently on the top 100 lists of Golf Digest or Golf Magazine. But his resume is full of acclaimed gems that golf fans recognize.Turtle Bay on the North Shore of Oahu has hosted Champions and LPGA Tour events. The K Club in Ireland was the venue for the 2006 Ryder Cup. Three Palmer courses -- the Classic Club, SilverRock Resort, and the Arnold Palmer Private Course at PGA West -- took turns hosting the Bob Hope Classic. Sawgrass Country Club was the site of the Players Championship from 1977-81. Hiddenbrooke in Northern California hosted the LPGA World Championship invitational from 2000-2002. And Morgan Pressel's first LPGA win came at Palmer's Bay Course at Kapalua, a player-friendly complement to Kapalua's rugged Plantation Course, which hosts the PGA's Tournament of Champions.Some consider Palmer's greatest course to be Tralee Golf Club in Ireland, his first design in Europe, in a spectacular seaside setting. Typically, Palmer deflected the credit. "I may have designed the first nine, but surely God designed the second nine," he said.Some of Palmer's other standouts include the Stonewall Resort in West Virginia; Bay Creek on the Eastern Shore of Virginia; The Bog in Wisconsin; Oasis Golf Club in Mesquite, Nev.; Teton Pines in Wyoming; Running Y Ranch in Oregon; California beauties Half Moon Bay and Aviara; and a course named for his golf-pro father, Deacon's Lodge in Brainerd, Minn.