ome worked with their hands, others with their minds. Some played the game, others designed it. Some brought golf to the world, others brought the world to golf. Whoever they were, whenever they lived, the men and women on the following pages built the game, oftentimes from the ground up in their respective areas.
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In Kingdom’s first official survey of golf’s origins, we reached out to today’s builders—a wide cross-section of pros, executives, intellectuals, historians, architects and journalists from all over the world—and asked who they believed was most crucial to making golf the game it is today. Some of the answers were obvious, others surprising. Here, sifted and compiled from a book’s worth of responses, are the people most credited by our survey group with creating the game you know and love.
Here are the builders of golf. (Please note that a fair number of our respondents desired to remain anonymous.)
OK, we know that putting Arnold Palmer first in a survey appearing in the magazine he co-founded is a bit obvious. But honestly, Palmer was the one figure most mentioned by our survey group, with 12% voting him as one of the top five most critical in building the game.
“He was the archetype for the global face of the game on television as the modern professional golfer, an example of the athlete as businessman, a PGA TOUR leader, plus he reconnected American golfers to the origins of the game at a crucial moment,” summarized David Normoyle, golf historian who (full disclosure) currently is working to help tell Palmer’s story at Bay Hill Club & Lodge.
But Normoyle hardly was alone: “While Jack Nicklaus was arguably the best golfer of all time and of their generation, it was Arnold Palmer who captured the imagination and the offered Simon Cooper.
He was the archetype for the global face of the game on television as the modern professional golfer, an example of the athlete as businessman
Many referenced Palmer’s making golf a mainstream sport—and mainstream entertainment, timed as he was with the rise of the TV era. Others pointed to Palmer’s character, “how he personifies the values of our beloved game,” and said his popularity helped to bind these values to golf in the public’s mind.
Celebrating Bobby Jones’ achievements New York City-style, with a ticker tape parade
Still others lauded Palmer’s comprehensive presence across golf’s spectrum, from a boy who worked on a golf course; to an amateur champ; to a champion pro; to a leader and celebrity who drove purses and popularity skyward; who became a businessman and a golf course designer; and finally an elder statesman whose influence continues to be felt. As one respondent added after putting Palmer atop his list: “Too bad it’s an obvious connection with AP in Kingdom, but facts are facts!”
Still others lauded Palmer’s comprehensive presence across golf’s spectrum, from a boy who worked on a golf course; to an amateur champ; to a champion pro; to a leader and celebrity who drove purses and popularity skyward; who became a businessman and a golf course designer; and finally an elder statesman whose influence continues to be felt. As one respondent added after putting Palmer atop his list: “Too bad it’s an obvious connection with AP in Kingdom, but facts are facts!”
Many referenced Palmer’s making golf a mainstream sport—and mainstream entertainment, timed as he was with the rise of the TV era. Others pointed to Palmer’s character, “how he personifies the values of our beloved game,” and said his popularity helped to bind these values to golf in the public’s mind.
Still others lauded Palmer’s comprehensive presence across golf’s spectrum, from a boy who worked on a golf course; to an amateur champ; to a champion pro; to a leader and celebrity who drove purses and popularity skyward; who became a businessman and a golf course designer; and finally an elder statesman whose influence continues to be felt. As one respondent added after putting Palmer atop his list: “Too bad it’s an obvious connection with AP in Kingdom, but facts are facts!”
Many referenced Palmer’s making golf a mainstream sport—and mainstream entertainment, timed as he was with the rise of the TV era. Others pointed to Palmer’s character, “how he personifies the values of our beloved game,” and said his popularity helped to bind these values to golf in the public’s mind.
Still others lauded Palmer’s comprehensive presence across golf’s spectrum, from a boy who worked on a golf course; to an amateur champ; to a champion pro; to a leader and celebrity who drove purses and popularity skyward; who became a businessman and a golf course designer; and finally an elder statesman whose influence continues to be felt. As one respondent added after putting Palmer atop his list: “Too bad it’s an obvious connection with AP in Kingdom, but facts are facts!”
Celebrating Bobby Jones’ achievements New York City-style, with a ticker tape parade
Our survey fractured rather quickly after Palmer, Woods, Jones and the Toms Morris, but from all of the various pros who were mentioned, Severiano Ballesteros did manage to get more collective love than anyone else. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the European Tour’s Pelly rated him, describing Seve as “Quite simply, the man who drove the cause of European golf forward both in terms of the growth and popularity of the European Tour, and in the U.S., too.
He also, of course, revolutionized the Ryder Cup post-1979.” Unquestionably Seve revitalized the event—via a European loss, no less, in 1983. In the locker room following the close defeat at the hands of the Nicklaus-led U.S. team 14 ½ to 13 ½, with the European team feeling deflated, Europe’s Paul Way told media of Seve’s reaction: “Seve was an inspiration, telling us: ‘This is not a defeat—this is a win.’ Two years later there were 40,000 there on the day at the Belfry to see us lift the Cup. It had all started two years before.” Seve’s story of humble origins was compelling and his passion was infectious; he was the whole package, some of our respondents wrote, with most lauding his spirit above all else. Seve said, “Wake up Europe. Yes you can!” offered Switzerland’s Philippe Hermann, of Green Grass Productions. And Europe did. Fittingly, Samuel Ryder also made it, with the PGA’s Maxfield offering, “Can you even imagine a world without the Ryder Cup?”
Mary Queen of Scots made a few lists—though she was a footnote for one respondent, who thought she was overestimated: “The reference to Mary Queen of Scots is skewed and leaning on legend,” he wrote. “She was depressed and went to play golf after her husband was murdered; that caused the ruckus. She was not a history-maker for golf. She was a royal who played the game. Many more were playing before she lost her head.” “Not a history maker,” and yet here we are, 434 years after her death still talking about her.
A [female] golf writer and survey respondent took a different view: “Mary gives us a point in history at which we can say, ‘There, right there, see? Women were playing golf in its earliest days.’ That touchstone is of vital importance for women.
To have a future in something it helps to have a past in it. Maybe women were playing golf before Mary, but who were they? Historians might know, but for the rest of us, Mary gives us a foothold in the game. Critically important.” As Black Girls Golf Founder Tiffany Fitzgerald once told Kingdom, “To be it, you’ve gotta see it,” and so for African American golfers a foothold is important as well, something acknowledged by many respondents.
Without him and his vision there is no way golf would have the same levels of global reach, sponsorship, coverage and interest, and we would be in a far poorer position
As Black Girls Golf Founder Tiffany Fitzgerald once told Kingdom, “To be it, you’ve gotta see it,” and so for African American golfers a foothold is important as well, something acknowledged by many respondents. Charlie Sifford, the first African American to play on the PGA TOUR, was mentioned quite a few times, along with Lee Elder (who became the first African American to play in the Masters, in 1975).
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