“The King” Arnold Palmer is highly regarded as one of the best players in golf history. He is an American-born player who turned pro in 1954 after attending Wake Forest University.

Arnold Palmer started in 142 major championships. Of those 142 starts, he had seven wins, 10-second place finishes and 19-third place finishes. Arnold Palmer also has the longest streak of top-10 finishes in major championship history with six.

Arnold Palmer’s first major championship was at The Masters in 1958 when he beat fellow American golfers Doug Ford and Fred Hawkins by one stroke. He also won the 1960 Masters by one stroke, tipping Ken Venturi with a winning score of 282. Arnold Palmer defeated Kel Nagle by six strokes in the 1962 Open Championship, as well as Dave Marr and Jack Nicklaus by six strokes in the 1964 Masters.

Of his seven major champion wins, Arnold Palmer won four Masters (1958, 1960, 1962, 1964), two British Opens (1961, 1962) and one U.S. Open championships (1960). Arnold Palmer also won three PGA Championships (1964, 1968, 1970).

Arnold Palmer racked up 29 PGA Tour events in four seasons from 1960 to 1963. In 1960, Arnold Palmer won the Hickok Belt as the top professional athlete of the year and Sports Illustrated’s “Sportsman of the Year” award. He also earned the Vardon Trophy – given to the golfer with the lowest scoring average – four times in years 1961, 1962, 1964 and 1967.

Arnold Palmer is often ranked behind Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, Ben Hogan, Bobby Jones, Sam Snead and even Byron Nelson on the all-time greatest golfers list. But what’s most significant about Arnold Palmer’s legacy is how he became one of the first stars of the sport’s television age, which began in the 1950s.

For his legacy, Arnold Palmer won the PGA Tour Lifetime Achievement Award in 1998 and was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1974.