How Arnold Palmer transformed golf into a global game

Arnold Palmer last won a major golf tournament 35 years ago. Yet at the age of 70 he still appeared in the top 10 sports earners for 1999.

Palmer's ability and force of personality in the 1950s and 60s transformed golf from a sport once enjoyed by a generally privileged minority in one or two countries to a game played by all classes that straddles the globe.

It is now a multi-billion dollar industry and as a result Palmer enjoys an annual income of $18 million generated mainly through sponsorship, endorsements and course design.

While graphite shafts and titanium "woods" now make the ball fly further the essential nature of the game and many of its great courses are little changed. Consequently, player comparisons across the decades can, with certain provisos, be made with performances in the majors providing the yardstick of greatness.

Harry Vardon, J.H. Taylor and James Braid, who won 16 British Opens between them between 1894 and 1914, were the outstanding players in the early part of the century.

Vardon, with six Opens and also a U.S. PGA to his credit, is widely credited as the father of the modern game, taking the grip and swing on a stage from the 19th century pioneers and creating a template that has barely changed to this day.

American Walter Hagen copied that swing and with it won 11 majors, a total surpassed only by Jack Nicklaus.

Hagen won the U.S. Open at 21 and won five PGAs when it was a matchplay event. But perhaps his greatest legacy was taking on the game's establishment and opening the way for professional golfers to eventually become some of the highest earners in sport.

SARAZEN BECOMES FIRST PLAYER TO WIN GRAND SLAM

The establishment of the Masters in 1934 enabled Gene Sarazan to become the first man to win all four majors in its second year. Ben Hogan, Nicklaus, and Gary Player are the only others to manage it although in 1930 Bobby Jones completed the unprecedented quadruple of British and U.S. Opens and British and U.S. Amateur championships.

Jones played his entire career as an amateur although he won seven professional majors between 1923 and 1930 before retiring from golf at the age of 28.

Early retirement was never on the cards for Sam Snead, who won his first of a record 81 U.S. Tour victories in 1936 and his last 30 years later at the age of 52. Seven majors came in between.

Byron Nelson won five majors but has a place in the record books that will never be matched. In 1945 he won 11 consecutive tournaments and another seven during the season for an incredible 18 in all.

For a man who probably competes with Jones and Nicklaus for the title of the greatest golfer of all time, Ben Hogan had an inauspicious early career.

After playing his first tournament in 1931 it was not until 1946 that he won his first major, the U.S. PGA. He won two more majors before suffering horrific leg injuries in a 1949 car crash.

Incredibly he fought back to win the U.S. Open three times in the next four years, culminating in a wondrous 1953 when he also took the Masters and the British Open on the only occasion he played it for a total of nine majors and a well-deserved ticker tape parade.

Hogan's last victorious U.S. Open coincided with the debut of a 24-year-old amateur who scored 84 and 78 to miss the cut. Arnold Palmer had begun his career.

Palmer's total of seven majors is a poor reflection of the man's ability or influence on the game.

His high-risk attacking style quickly established him as a darling of the fans and his popularity was further enhanced by widespread television coverage which played a vital part in the game's expansion.

Palmer's roller-coaster relationship with the majors ensured he was the man everyone wanted to see. He won the 1960 U.S. Open after starting the final round seven shots off the lead but the following year, needing a par-four at the last to win the Masters he carded a six. In 1966 he led the U.S. Open by seven shots with nine holes to play but blew it and lost on a play-off to Nicklaus.

PALMER-NICKLAUS RIVALRY DOMINATES GAME

Nicklaus had won his first major the same way, beating Palmer in a playoff for the U.S. Open in 1962 at the age of 22.

It was the start of one of the great rivalries of any sport and although "Arnie's Army" did not like their hero's status being threatened by the brash young upstart, they were eventually won over by the Golden Bear as he went on to dominate the sport for two decades.

As well as winning 18 majors, seven more than any other player, Nicklaus also had a further 28 top three finishes. His last major came in 1986 when in a day of high emotion he won the Masters with a trademark final round 65.

Although Nicklaus reigned supreme, he was always fighting off the challenge of a series of great players.

Gary Player, the South African "Man in Black" won nine majors between 1959 and 1978 and also contributed one of the century's best sporting quotes when after being called lucky he replied: "The more I practise the luckier I get."

Tom Watson became Nicklaus's great rival in the 1970s and chalked up eight majors before a new wave of Europeans wrested the initiative back across the Atlantic.

Spain's charismatic Severiano Ballesteros captivated a new generation of fans with an all-or-nothing brand of creative golf. In 1980 he became the first European to win the Masters, one of his five Majors.

Nick Faldo, the antithesis of Ballesteros with his measured approach, was the cream of the British crop, winning the Masters and theOpen three times each.

The shift in the balance in power also transformed the Ryder Cup from a virtual historical footnote into one of the great events of world sport.

The current game has its own champion in the shape of Tiger Woods who at 21 became the youngest winner of the Masters when he blew away the course and all opposition in 1997.

Woods, with Afro-American and Thai parents, has taken golf to new audiences, and the game seems certain to grow in popularity in the new millennium.